But Im Sober ?

If you thinking just being sober is going to make you a better person, think again.

Being a dry drunk is when you're sober but you're still a jerk. You basically the same person just without the alcohol. Still irritable, still aggressive and still having mood swings.

Don't get sober because you think it will make you a better person. Do it because you want to be healthy, because you want a different lifestyle and because you want to work on the cause of what you have been covering and everything you have been missing out on in life while you have been a drunk. I don't want to put anyone off trying sober so I can wholeheartedly say, its a start but there is so much more to it when quitting if it's been an obsessive addiction and such an integral part of your life.

I have not done the 12 step programme but I haven't put it off the table that I will either. I love the principles of AA, I love the slogans, I use them in life daily in all types of situations and I love the 12 steps and I get them and I have mad respect for them. Obviously I dont get them to the degree of the people that have put the amazing work into doing them, but I understand them. I have managed to find outlets for myself that currently work for me, while knowing that those doors are always open for me when I need them. I am grateful. I take everything I learn from my meetings and I use them in my life. I love that my sobriety is built on the principles I have learned through this organisation and that because I was such a broken human when I arrived on their doorstep, I have been open to everything that was put my way. I soaked it all in like a sponge and listened to the messages loud and clear and they have been life changing.

I gave up drinking because I had forgotten who I was and I was in such pain mentally. But sober wasnt enough. I was still angry at something and still had those destructive coping mechanisms without the alcohol. Like where my mind would take me to, popping a pill to take the edge off instead, obsessing over trivial things, always wanting perfection. I was still fighting with myself in my mind, but I was sober - surely this was not what it was meant to be and that's when I heard the phrase, dry drunk. If I was to be a success story I needed to develop healthy habits of coping. I started to put recovery processes into place. Walking, pilates, meetings, counselling. I had to want it and I had to let it in and not fight any of it or think I was above any of it. Humility, I had learned my place in the larger order things. Being broken at rockbottom is a truly desperate, horrible place to be, because you have nowhere to turn and you are open to anything that you think will pick you up. All you want is to be anywhere but there. I had to accept there was a better way than how I was doing things. This was my game changer and I have utilised every single feeling and emotion that I felt, to push myself to today. It's a vivid memory that I sit quietly with at least once a week, that reminder of who I became and where I was and who I don't want to ever be again.

I know I wasn't all bad, on the contrary actually. But alcohol did make me lose myself, my confidence, my voice, my ability to see things as they were. To accept things I never would or should have. Ive found me again, Ive learned what and where that trauma was and Im working on myself daily. Im me without all those bad coping mechanisms I had put in place thinking I was protecting myself . Im me, with all the new good habits I've embraced and learned.

Giving up the alcohol was a start, but it was the easiest part of all this. That's the lie we tell ourselves in active addiction, that we wont be able to cope without it. Its easy to live without the alcohol once you push through in the beginning and that initial craving stops, the question is, can you live with yourself? That's where the work is and when that relapse is looming, its because you don't want to face the demons of your reality. That's the tough stuff and that's where the recovery happens. If you dont fix that hole that caused the addiction, you're the same person just without the alcohol coursing through your veins.

So sober is a start but will it be enough?