It used to be that when something good happened, I celebrated with a drink. If something bad happened, I would drink to forget. Something that started out as fun became a habit out of boredom. I ended up with multiple bruises from falling while blacked out, a sprained ankle and a jammed finger just because I wasn’t conscious enough to watch what I was doing.
Drinking Got in the Way of Fulfilling My Obligations
It didn’t help that my friends couldn’t ever think of anything else to do other than meeting up to get drinks. Although there were times when I wound up taking care of others when they’d had too much, there were also many times when I was the one throwing my fist at people who were trying to take care of me. Drinking would result in me being late for work or missing it completely, canceling things that I had already paid for and having some people distance themselves from me because I was too much of a mess. I was drinking when I first met my boyfriend. I woke up in a daze that day. My mother had passed away less than a year before, and the only way that I knew how to deal with grief was by drowning it. A friend of mine, whom I had rarely spoken to, had invited me to a small holiday get-together at her apartment. I worked late the night before, but naturally for me at the time, I continued to drink after work. I had every intention of going to the party, but I slept in. In my dream state, my mother appeared to me, and we talked about how she was deceased. I will never forget what she said.“What do you mean? I’m here with you, and you are here with me.”She had passed away from an illness, but she went into a coma first. It had been almost a year, and she told me she wasn’t dead. I went on to explain to her that she was. Then, she suddenly told me to wake up and go to the party. I stumbled in late with two bottles of Prosecco in hand, and there he was, sitting in the corner alone. Without thinking about whether or not he would think I was batshit, I said to him, “My dead mother came to me in a dream and told me that I had to come here today. So here I am.” He was honest, thoughtful and definitely not scared of me. And he was over 15 years clean. He didn’t seem to care that I was drinking, but it would be a topic that came up more in the future whenever I drank to the point of inebriation.
Being with someone sober has saved my life.
I Realized I Was Using Alcohol to Suppress My Emotions
My friends hate the fact that my boyfriend is sober. Being with him meant that not only would I stop being the fun party girl that my friends loved (or pretended to), but his sobriety also forced them to look in the mirror at their own issues. They were also covering their pain with intoxication. They also drank when they were stressed out. They also didn’t have any other bright ideas about what to do outside of our local dive.The truth is, although I was also apprehensive, being with someone sober has saved my life. I grew up in a family with a lot of substance abuse issues. My mother would take any type of medication she was offered, and my brother died from a mixture of drugs. I never felt that I needed a fix, but I had immersed myself in a city with a culture that felt like you had to have booze to have fun. After meeting my boyfriend, who had been sober in the same city for longer than I had lived there, it became obvious that it wasn’t a requirement but a hobby that was formed from whom I hung around.When I first started seeing him, I listened to the advice that my friends had to give. Some told me that they feared a sober partner would try to control me. “He’s going to constantly be comparing you to himself,” others would say. After much thought, I realized that people were projecting their own trepidation onto my relationship. If I listened to them, I would still be drunk and alone. I would end up losing out on something great just because I took advice from an outsider looking in who had their objections.I’ve had relationships with people that were only founded on drinking, and they didn’t last long. I had friends who would refer to me as a drinking buddy, as if there wasn’t anything else that I could bring to the table. My boyfriend saw me as something more than that. He saw me as someone who was adventurous and passionate and was dying to get out of a dimly lit bar to live my life and do all of the things that drinking with my friends was holding me back from. I’m not sober. I never felt I needed to drink, but I felt like sometimes I couldn’t figure out anything else to do. My boyfriend has never pressured me to become sober like him, but he has encouraged me to look at my actions. It’s hard to follow through with our goals if we’re constantly looking out of one eye while struggling to keep the other one open. I learned that sobriety isn’t just about having a drug addiction but about a state of mind. Many people can stop the drug but still be an incredible pain in the ass with a negative view of life. I didn’t feel like I needed to ever stop drinking completely, but I could see myself quickly turning into a relentless, bitter old soul with no room for improvement. I needed to focus on fixing my mentality and working through the wounds of my past instead of repressing them.
I’m not sober. I never felt I needed to drink, but I felt like sometimes I couldn’t figure out anything else to do.
A Relationship With My Sober Boyfriend Provides Clarity That Drinking Does Not
Being with someone sober has shown me that life is what we make of it. When you don’t have a vice to rely on, you become clearer in your thoughts and patterns. You become more emotionally mature. I could never fully heal from my past before because I wouldn’t allow the pain ever to sink in. I wanted to go and party with my friends and forget about any sort of suffering rather than do healthy things for my mind and spirit. Drinking to black out might have made me forget momentarily what was hurting me deep down, but it didn’t erase it. One night out could turn into many, and its negative effects on my physical and mental state could last a lifetime. Unfortunately, I know many who have gone far too soon because of this behavior.I feel that my relationship is more fulfilling than one that meets in bars and stays there. We take short trips together to plan outdoor activities instead of booze-related events. We have hiked mountains, swam in oceans, camped in some of the most beautiful spaces in the world and learned new hobbies together. I started focusing on myself more, even while I was with him. Many people form codependent bonds, but ours allowed us to focus on ourselves even while we were together. I began doing the work deep down that I had been putting off for too long. I started painting again, which I hadn’t done since high school. I started doing athletic activities and things that were good for my body instead of poisoning it daily. I found more soul-fulfilling things to do with my time, and I was with a partner who encouraged me to be creative rather than be in the center of a superficial scene.I know that when my boyfriend shares thoughts, he means what he says. I know that he is always listening and won’t forget our conversations. And most importantly, he decided to do the work he needed to do on himself, as tedious as it might be. This type of introspection that comes with sobriety is something that most of us retreat from, whether or not we have an addiction problem. It’s the type of work that requires us to look at our flaws and assess our path in life, and it’s the type of work that is impossible to do when we’re impaired. Maybe this is what is so frightening to others?
