“So…when does the roller coaster of emotions end?”
I received this text recently from a friend who is just shy of 6 months alcohol-free. I wanted so badly to hop on a plane just to hug her.
In that moment, my mind flashed back to my own beginning. I wanted to crawl through my phone and wrap her in my arms. I wanted to cry with her, her tears likely streaming with so much fear and uncertainty and mine falling beside hers in empathy.
I told her that even though the anguish is inevitable, she will end up the strongest and happiest version of herself she’s ever known.
But in that moment, I also told her to just let the tears come.
Whether it’s mourning the romanticism of no longer sharing a bottle of wine with your lover, realizing you had a slew of “fair-weathered drinking buddies” who no longer include sober you or coming to grips with actually having to feel all of your emotions, the only way to get through it is to go through it.
So cry, my friend, cry.
I’m a little over two years ahead of her in this boozeless lifestyle and feeling fabulous. But the false happiness I found in drinking was quite a bitch of a cycle to break. Alcohol increases dopamine production, which makes you feel good, and in turn prompts your brain to want to continue drinking. But once it wears off it can leave you in a state of “hangxiety,” causing some (like myself) to enter a slippery slope of relying on drinking more regularly to curb the dreaded heavy head and mounting anxiousness. It becomes like spinning on a hamster wheel — the anxiety we feel is a paradoxical symptom caused by alcohol, which is sort of like treating a wound by opening it back up each time we apply a temporary remedy. Alcohol is really good at tricking your brain.
While the text from my friend rips at my heart, there are silver linings in embracing one another’s pain. It’s important to me that I’m reminded how hard my own journey was and how difficult the road to fulfillment can be. Because I never want to stop sharing how all the bumps and bruises along the way made me appreciate where I am today so much more.
Most of all, I don’t want to provide a false narrative for anyone who might think my life now was an overnight experience. My current state of happiness and gratitude is a direct result of continuous personal introspection — mentally and physically pushing myself in ways I never had before. And above all, finally putting myself first.
In the conversation with my friend, I also told her she’s going to get to a place — with a lot of grace and so much strength — where she gets to love herself. I mean really love herself.
She’s approaching 6 months of an alcohol-free life. And while it’s important to understand that everyone’s experience is unique, the half-year benchmark when quitting booze is quite a fragile time. There are major highs and extreme lows. We sometimes get lost in the deep discomfort and questioning of it all.
I’m not privy to all of her messy details and she doesn’t know mine. And truly, only we know the profound and winding crevices that lie in our own struggles. But I recognize this is her genesis. And the beginning of a beautiful transformation can often start out ugly and chaotic.
But day by day, the positive effects of a life without alcohol become impossible to ignore. And the reasons for putting down the drink will unfold into this spectacular reality where you can shed the layers of your life that no longer serve you.
Today I truly and deeply love myself. In a way I never have before. Giving up alcohol is just the beginning. It’s the first scratch on the surface of discovering the life that’s been buried, blurred and numbed beneath the bottle.
Down the road, my friend will reflect back at her own beginning and cry again. This time with so much love. And I can’t wait for the day I receive that call — and I can share those tears with her as well.
