Day 1 vs. Day 641

What has changed since day 1 of sobriety? Everything. Looking back, every day in the beginning felt like a new battle. I wish I could tell my “day 1 self” that life gets so much better. In today’s episode, we’re comparing day 1 to day 641, hoping to offer encouragement to anyone struggling at the start of their journey.

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Transcript

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Day one of sobriety versus day six hundred forty-one of sobriety, let's talk about it. In the very beginning of my sobriety, I thought about alcohol all the time. I can't even express, unless you've gone through something like this yourself, I couldn't even begin to express it. Alcohol was always on the brain. Because when I was a drinker, alcohol was also always on the brain. But it was a lot of like, where can I find alcohol? When was my last drink? How many drinks did I have yesterday? Do I need to clean up before somebody comes over? How many cans do I have in the trash? It was a constant thought in my mind when I was upholding an alcohol problem. But when I got sober, that didn't really change. It just changed how I thought about alcohol. So things would constantly remind me of alcohol. As I was going through the day, walking by the kitchen, I would think about alcohol. Grabbing anything from the fridge, I would think about alcohol. Taking a shower, I would think about alcohol. Driving in the car, like a road trip, I would think about alcohol. Taking a work meeting, I would think about alcohol, going to the doctor's, getting my nails done, getting dressed in the morning, um, doing literally anything I thought about alcohol, seriously. And it was exhausting. And it's not like I was thinking, should I drink in the beginning of my sobriety? I was thinking just I would have drank in those situations. And there were so many situations throughout the day. And in the beginning, you do have to tell yourself no a lot. I will say, sitting here at day 641, I can say that I don't have to tell myself no because it just always is no. It forever will be no. There is no option. But in the beginning, you do have to do a little bit of like denying yourself. And in the beginning, I felt like I was denying myself all the time. I had to constantly like slap myself on the wrist and just say, no, don't drink, don't think about alcohol, stop thinking about it. And I found it so frustrating and heavy that even though I was doing this good thing for myself, right? Like I was quitting alcohol. This is a good thing. Why do I feel so crappy then? Why do I feel disappointed in myself? Why do I feel so heavy from the exhaustion of thinking about alcohol at all hours? It was really frustrating when you're making good decisions for yourself, but it doesn't feel good in your body. Not to mention, in the beginning, you might be going through some withdrawal symptoms and not just physical withdrawal symptoms like stomach aches, headaches, the shakes. Oh my god. When I first quit drinking, I was shaking a lot. And this is just a quick little PSA that if you decide to quit on your own, like I did, just please always be mindful of your symptoms and don't be afraid to go to a hospital to get help. Because unfortunately, quitting alcohol can be life-threatening. So you just you always want to be in check with yourself and you'd rather be safe than sorry. And I'm currently watching The Pit, which is that like medical show on HBO Max, I think. It's really, really good, very graphic and visual, so PSA warning on that one. So warning there. So just a warning there. But these people come in with alcohol problems, alcohol dependencies, and they're so non-judgmental. Like the hospital workers didn't care at all. All they want is for you to feel good and for you to get better and for you to not be in here again dealing with alcohol issues. But even if you were in there again, they still wouldn't care. They're still there to support you. And I know it's a fictional TV show, but it did make me think like, wow, these people, they're not sitting there thinking, oh my god, this person drinks a lot, like judging. People come into the hospital for all sorts of different things, and they are not judging you. There are so many people who come in for alcohol issues, for drug issues, and they're just happy that you're in there instead of you know having bad things happen if you're out on your own. I I loved watching that show. Maybe I should do a whole episode about it because just seeing them being so understanding and so non-judgmental, it made me think I shouldn't have been so scared to get help when I was first getting sober. Because they don't care. They just want to give you what you need. And it was really cool to see that displayed in the TV show. So, anyways, loop in that background. Be mindful of your physical symptoms, of course, and get help if you need, or get help if you don't need. It's not a bad thing to go into the hospital when you decide to get sober so that they can help you through that, monitor your symptoms and all that good stuff. So, anyway, better safe than sorry on that front. But in addition to physical symptoms that can happen, there are a lot of like mental and emotional symptoms, uh, withdrawal symptoms that can happen when you quit drinking. And I would say those are what I was more so dealing with, and they didn't go away in a week, two weeks, a month. You know, I felt like I was adjusting emotionally for months. I mean, maybe even a year fully, but months after quitting drinking. And I don't say that to intimidate anybody who is just starting on their journey, but I'm saying that it is a journey, in fact, and you are constantly working on it, checking in with yourself, all of that. So when I first quit drinking, I I did not know how to face my feelings and like deal with emotion. I didn't know how to actually be angry, be sad, be nervous, like all of these human emotions that most people experience on a daily, weekly basis, I was learning how to deal with for the first time really in adulthood. Because when I was drinking so heavily, I drank away every feeling that I had. At the slightest ounce of nervousness, I was cracking into a drink. If something sad happened in my life, oh my god, that was all the reason to pick up a drink. If something happy happened, you're celebrating with people, right? If any, I mean, literally any emotion, frustration, if I sat in traffic all the way home, I would have a drink the moment I walked in the door. I mean, just anything that I could experience in life, happy, sad, or anything in between, I was drinking to get through. And I realized that my emotions were just completely numbed. And so when I quit drinking, it was actually quite a stark surprise, a harsh realization that I didn't know how to deal with my emotions. And so I kind of had to go back to being a toddler almost and like learn how to be frustrated and how to feel that emotion. Learn how to feel nervous and not just drink it away. Nerves are an interesting one because nerves aren't always a bad thing. Nerves mean that something is important to you. Nerves mean nerves in your nervous system have the same reaction as excitement. So nerves are not always a bad thing. And so I didn't want to like drink those away. And I'm sober, you know, so I'm not gonna drink those away. I I had to just sit with them and feel them. And then on top of that, I learned breathing techniques and and calming things to do when I was feeling really nervous, which is so much better than just drinking the emotion away. It's good to feel our emotions. When something sad happens in life, if somebody passes away that is important to us, what a disservice it does to their death to just drink away your emotion. I know that's a bit harsh, and and I get that alcohol is a coping mechanism for a lot of people, it was for me too. But it's it does justice, it does honor to their life to feel their impact and feel how it does make you sad. We don't have to run away from our feelings. We can feel sad. It's a human emotion to feel sad and heavy and affected and you know, all the other emotions that might come with this person's passing. So we feel those, and then it's like the healing process does truly begin. Instead of drinking it away, you're kind of eliminating all of that. You never really heal because you're just eliminating the emotion in the first place. There's nothing to heal from. You just keep drinking it away, and you never actually process what's what's happened. You go through this whole growth, and I keep calling it a journey because it really is a process. Um, you go through this growth journey with how to deal with all sorts of different emotions during sobriety, and it's kind of a beautiful thing. It's really, really hard at first, and that's what I'm talking about in this episode when I'm referring back to day one or those early days. It's like it's hard for sure, but it's so worth it in the end to actually have control of your emotions and be able to feel. We deserve to feel these human emotions that happen. It's not normal or human to drink all of our emotions away. We're meant to feel things in life. That's part of the beauty of being human, is we can experience really high highs and low lows and all the different emotions that come with life. And I know that sounds a bit like spiritual, and I mean it is a little bit. We deserve to feel and experience this life. We only get one life, to our knowledge. Um, so we deserve to feel and experience and go through all the different things that humans go through in this life. Drinking everything away just does such a disservice, really. And speaking of emotions, that's not really something that I had to face until later into my sobriety because I experienced the pink cloud, which I talk about all the time, but it was it was crazy. The pink cloud basically is this feeling of ultra-elation, very heightened positive emotions. Like you are almost manic. You are so happy and overjoyed. And I felt that to the extreme. I mean, I was going to bed literally giddy to wake up again in the morning. I was so excited to see the sunshine and make my coffee and go for a walk and just live another day on this world. Like I was just so happy. Every little thing that happened in my life made me just overjoyed. And that sounds like a really good thing. And it was, you know, it taught me to be grateful for the good things in life, which I still carry on day 641. That that gratefulness for life. I still feel that. And I think that the pink cloud taught me to be grateful for the little things, which is really cool. But the I wouldn't describe the Pink Cloud as like necessarily this amazing thing, like this drug you just have to try. Okay, it was actually pretty weird. And I have some bipolar disorder that runs in my family, and I was a little worried like, am I having some sort of manic episode? I I'm not diagnosed with that. Um, but I started thinking, is this um is this mania? Am I experiencing the highs of bipolar disorder or something? And it freaked me out because it was so extreme. It was a really wildly positive, um, like you're high or something. It was bizarre. To the point where I did look it up and I said, experiencing elation, this this manic episode um after quitting drinking, and there is a name for it, and it's called the Pink Cloud. So finding that out was a bit comforting for me because I was like, okay, this is normal, other people experience this, and it will wear off. But yeah, I wouldn't describe the pink cloud as like something amazing. It was pretty weird. It was cool, there were positives of it, of course, but it was very weird, and I was like, what is going on in my body? I felt like who am I? It was odd. Um, but anyway, so yeah, the pink cloud, and then eventually the pink cloud wears off. And that's when reality sets in, and that's when all that work on our emotions kind of begins. That's when frustration actually hits us, sadness hits us, all of these emotions that happen in life actually hit us instead of being like blinded by the pink cloud, and like none of this matters because I'm just so happy and life is good and amazing and beautiful. And by the way, not everyone's gonna experience the pink cloud. And I wouldn't be like disappointed if you don't, and I wouldn't be sitting there on the edge of your seat waiting for the pink cloud to occur. I don't think it's guaranteed for anybody, and I don't think it's necessarily a good thing. If you skip the pink cloud, you are getting to normal life and you are healing faster. It's kind of like when we used to drink away problems, we didn't actually feel and grow and do any deeper work. When you're going through the pink cloud, it's hard to like do any deeper work because you're just blinded by this positivity cloud that's going on. So I wouldn't be sitting there waiting for the pink cloud to occur, but if it does, you know, that's that. And you're a bit delayed in having to deal with your actual emotion. So that's what I was. That's what happened to me. Experience the pink cloud, probably for a month or so. I mean, sobriety was hard for the first few days, and then the pink cloud hit, and maybe it was a week into my sobriety or something, I get hit with the pink cloud, and I'm like so happy and elated and all this stuff. And then, you know, a month, a month and a half into my sobriety, reality hits, and that's why they say that days 30 to 90 are the hardest. Days or months one through three are the hardest. Because we are kind of just hyped on sobriety and we're adjusting to this new life, and there's all these things going on, and we're taking it all in and we're learning and we're growing, and then it starts to feel almost normal. You're like, wait, this is my actual life now, I'm doing this forever. And it's a bit intimidating. And if you want to talk about that phase, I have an episode called days 30 to 90, because they are truly considered the hardest, and they were for me, for sure. I mean, every day was just kind of an identity crisis almost. I was like, I am creating a new life for myself, literally. Who am I? And in days 30 to 90, guess what happened? Oh my god. I broke up with my boyfriend of two years. I moved out of our apartment or condo or whatever together that we had been in for one month that happened around day 60. So the the timeline for you. I got sober. About a month after getting sober, I move in with this boyfriend. And then a month after that, so around day 60, is when all this is happening. We break up, we move out of the apartment that we had lived in for one month together. You don't even want to know how complicated that was with breaking the lease, selling all of our furniture. I literally had an in-home uh garage sale, basically. I would list things on Facebook Marketplace, and I would invite people to come in and just look around and take whatever else they wanted. I put price tags on everything. It was crazy. And the reason I was selling all of our stuff, all of my stuff really, I had most of the furniture and all, um, was because I was gonna be moving. Moving into my own place, no. Moving out of the city, no. Moving out of the state, yes. I broke up with my boyfriend, sold all our belongings, packed up my small Nissan Sentra with everything that I could fit, anything that I wanted to keep, and I drove myself from Los Angeles to Seattle to restart my life, essentially. So that was my days, 30 to 90. Um, and I think it is it was one of the hardest times of my life, but it was the most important and pivotal, and I am so grateful that that happened because where would I be now if I was still stuck in Los Angeles, this city that really does not bring me joy at all. With this guy who was great, he was a really nice guy. I always say that if I ended up with him for the rest of my life, you know, it would be a good life. He's a he's a good guy. But he wasn't everything that I wanted. He wasn't, you know, he was fine. That's how I describe him. He was fine, and I just knew that I deserved more than fine. I felt like I was babying him a little bit, being his mother, you know, there were all sorts of different issues. I felt we had different ambitions in life, different goals in life. We were at different phases of our lives. There were a lot of things that didn't match up, but he was a great guy. And great guys are really easy to stay with forever and ever and ever. I think a lot of people marry their great guy, and then decades down the road realize like, why did I do that? This is not my person, this is not everything I wanted, I deserve more, you know. So I guess during my days 30 to 90 of sobriety, right around day 60, I was like, what am I doing here? This city doesn't make me happy, my job doesn't make me happy, my boyfriend doesn't make me happy. Everything. I was just like, this is not what I'm meant to do in life, and I stopped being complacent. When we are drinking, it's so easy to just keep doing the same things we've always been doing and just drink to get through it. Oh, you're unhappy at work, ah, well, you just drink every day and it becomes more bearable. You're unhappy in your relationship, well, you just drink every day and he becomes a lot more funny. Or, you know, your experiences together become a lot more fun. Um you don't like the city that you live in, well, just drink and things become a lot more interesting. You become just okay with your mundane, boring life because you have alcohol. And when we remove alcohol, it's like we have to actually address what's going on in our lives and pick and choose how we want our actual life to be. We become not okay with just doing the same things over and over again and drinking to get through it. We actually take a deeper look at ourselves and our situation, and that's why I broke up with my boyfriend, I moved out of our apartment, and I moved states and sold all of my belongings. It was such a 180, I mean a complete pivot. I restarted my life in every way. I had been in Los Angeles for like eight years, and that place holds a lot of heaviness and trauma for me, to be honest. Not with that guy, but with previous stuff. And I just, I was like, I gotta get out of here. What am I doing here? And when you get sober, you might have some of those realizations, and I'm not saying you have to pick up your life and change literally everything, but it does make you think about what you really enjoy in life, what means a lot to you, where you want to go, and I think that's really beautiful. Even if you've been at the same job for a really long time and you're like, I deserve a promotion, or I'm gonna apply to other places because this company doesn't see my value, or I need a pay raise, or you know, whatever. I think it just makes us realize what we actually want, what what's actually going on in our lives. Maybe you're in a relationship with somebody for 25 years and you've had all these issues and you just drink to get through all those issues. Maybe when you get sober, you're like, we gotta rediscover this relationship. We gotta start doing the things that we used to do together. We used to love to do together. We gotta start dating each other again and planning dates. We need to get in into some couples therapy to go through these things that I've just been drinking away this whole time. Like, it doesn't mean you have to end everything in your life, but it does really. Show us it sh it gives us a clear path to feeling better and being our becoming our best selves. So I think it's really beautiful, but I'm just warning you that a lot of growth might happen after a month of sobriety when you are in those days 30 to 90. It is wow. So much was going on. I think in my life back then, and it was honestly like chaotic, I guess, is how I would describe it. There were so many changes happening. And every day I just told myself, just get through today. Like people are walking through my house, taking all these things that I've worked so hard to earn. And I I took a step back and I was like, what is actually happening? I'm selling all my belongings. I'm breaking up with this great guy. I'm leaving the city that I've been in for so long. Everything felt weird. And I just I just knew that I had to get through every single day and it would be okay. Like I knew that I was making the right choices deep down. It was just hard in the moment. We have to do hard things in life to create an easy life for ourselves down the road. So that was that was my hard time for me. And I just I just had to get through it. There was just so much going on and so many emotions, and it was just crazy, to be honest. And now at day 641, my life is not chaotic. It is happy. It is peaceful. It's simple to an extent. I still my job is like not simple, and every day looks very different. But it feels light, it feels airy, it feels whatever the opposite of not chaotic is. I guess peaceful. I feel just like all those crazy decisions that I made led me to this place of peace. And with regard to sobriety, I feel very just comfortable in my sobriety. I don't think about drinking. I don't feel I don't think about alcohol in that way anymore. I mean, the only reason I'm still thinking about alcohol is because I record these episodes and I have a social media page where I talk about it because I want to help other people get to the same place, but I don't think about alcohol. I'm not itching to drink ever. It's it's not even a thought that crosses my mind when I'm out and about. I I almost forget that it's an option. Like also a weird kind of random um thing that I've noticed recently is like when I'm out at a bar with people, I won't be able to detect drunkness because I almost forget that people can be drunk. Which is so weird because that used to be me all the time. I was like perpetually tipsy. But because I haven't experienced those feelings in a really long time of being altered, I forget that other people can be altered. And I almost I like interact with people as if they're fully sober. Because to me that is normal. And I forget that people can be in an altered state. It's very weird. I I can't understand why they're being how they're being, or I don't pick up on that. Like if they're being crazy and dancing on the table and whipping their hair around, I'm like, oh my god, they're so fun! Like, that's such a fun person. I don't think to consider that they might be really drunk or something. That doesn't compute in my mind, which is really weird. Um I'm saying that just to to show that I am so far removed from alcohol, I don't even see it in this world. I don't consider it an option for myself, I don't feel pressured in any way. Um I I forget that it's a thing in our society, even, which is just wild. And that is how normal it can become. So when you're in those early stages, everyone always tells you, Oh, it's gonna get so much easier, you're gonna feel so good. And I was like, shut up. Like, I feel horrible right now. Stop telling me that it's gonna get easier. I don't care. It's hard right now. And I I'm telling you, I get that more than anybody else. Like, the beginning is so freaking hard, and I got so sick of people telling me that it's gonna get better. But here I am at 641 days, telling you that it's gonna get better. And it it might take you longer than somebody else, it might take you shorter than somebody else, but you will get to this point if you invest the time. The number 641 is is so crazy and so big because I used to get excited about the hours, like 48 hours sober, 72 hours sober. I was elated when I reached one week or 10 days double digits. I remember I posted about it. I was so excited for double digits. One month, oh my god, I could cry. One month and one day was the longest I had ever been sober because I did do one dry January. But I was so so stoked and so proud of myself for these tiny little wins. And when I would go on TikTok and I would see people putting their day count as like in the thousands or in the hundreds, or they're like, I've been sober for 200 days. I'm like, oh my god, it felt like that day would never come. But kind of back to that chaotic time when I was moving out of my apartment, like you just have to take it day by day. You just get through today, and eventually one day becomes another day, becomes another day, and you get to this place of 600-something days sober, and even a thousand, that number's still big and it's still far away, but I can understand how somebody might get there because they just keep chipping away. It just becomes normal life and you just keep living it. And day after day it starts to add up, and you do get to these big numbers that we all look up to, you know. I it would be crazy to tell myself on day four or five, like you're gonna get to 641 days. I think I would believe it, but it would feel so removed from where I currently was, like a foreign land. That just that number is almost intimidating. And I'm so proud to be sitting here today saying that, saying that I've made it this far. And I can't wait till I get to four digits. A thousand days? Are you kidding me? The sobriety day count just becomes exciting, but it also become it it has become something that I so rarely think about or look at. I look, I look at my day count for these episodes or the videos that I make, but I'm not checking my I Am Sober app all the time, which is the day counter app that I use. It's called I Am Sober. Um but I know in the beginning I was checking that thing all the time to see how many hours, minutes, days I have been sober, to see how much money I saved, because it tracks that as well, to see how um how the community's doing, because there is a community tab on there where you can see other people who are on your same day count, which is really cool. I was on that app constantly, and now I very, very rarely check it. So it again, it just I'm validating the the thought that it becomes something you don't even think about. I don't think about my sobriety all the time, I don't think about alcohol all the time, and if you're early in your sobriety journey, I want that to be something for you to look forward to. I know that it's hard right now in the beginning. It's hard days 30 to 90 are even harder. But you just keep chipping away. That's all we can do. You make it through one day, you make it through another day, you don't even think about tomorrow. You're just getting through this day right now and doing whatever you have to do to stay sober today. Making all the decisions you need to make, moving through life however you need to move, so that you do not drink today, and that's all that matters. And eventually you're gonna be sitting there looking back, saying, Oh my god, I can't believe how in disarray I was in the beginning. What a mess I was in the beginning. It's okay, it's also okay to be a mess. This is a journey, and that is part of it. I don't look back at that time and think, oh my god, I should have been stronger. Like, why was I struggling so much? No, I look at that as like a testament to what I've been able to accomplish. And those beginning stages are when we do so much learning, so much growth, we're proving ourselves to ourselves. We are laying the stones for the rest of our sobriety. That beginning time is so pivotal. I mean, like I said, all the changes, breaking up with my boyfriend, moving out of my apartment, moving to a different state, learning how to deal with my emotions, figuring out my friendships, like working out in the gym, getting my diet right. Like so many things happen in the beginning that laid the stones for the rest of my sobriety journey. If the beginning is hard, if you're putting in the hard work in the beginning, you're doing that to create an easy life down the road. So I'm so grateful for my chaotic, crazy life in the beginning of sobriety. I'm so grateful I went through that for this person that I am now. I did all that work for the current me. And so thank you. I have to say thank you to my early sober self for putting in the hard work because it's so worth it in the end. So there's some differences between day one and day 641. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I will see you for the next one. If you want to join our sobriety support group, the link is in the description, and thank you for listening. Bye.