So I have 150 days and some change alcohol free, which is honestly a miracle if you saw the mess that was me at the end of last year/beginning of this year.
Doing things sober is really & truly a whole new world. Depression, work, sex — they’re all both simultaneously better yet infinitely more terrifying without alcohol. Better because you can absorb all the multitudes of nuanced micro-emotions, terrifying because you can absorb all the multitudes of nuanced micro-emotions.
Processing all these feelings I pretended didn’t exist for fifteen years is… a lot.
I only realized this after got back from my trip to California almost two weeks ago. I shot live music seven out of the 11 days I was there and delivered all my photos and articles on time (<12 hours turnaround) which I’d never done before in any real capacity before sobriety. Being at a festival alcohol free was an otherworldly experience. Not in a bad way, just in an overwhelming, sensory-overload type of way.
I also saw the guy I've been pining over on-and-off for the last year on the first leg of my trip which didn’t help. In my ultimate delusion, I hoped for an impassioned reunion where he proclaimed his love for me, but instead he asked me out to dinner then blew me off. I was finally able to let him go. I’m not over him, but I’m over it. If I were still drinking I probably would’ve gotten drunk and thrown myself at him and then cried about it. ~growth~
I did end up linking with an old friend for a day. The last time we had sex we were both obliterated. This time around it was a plunge in the cold ocean; new and fresh and full of passion and excitement. Almost like we didn’t spend a year not speaking. Almost like love, but the farthest thing from it.
Now I’m home and dealing with a bout of birth control-induced depression, which is also a weird thing to deal with alcohol-free. I feel like I can actually see through the depression… I can see the very dim light at the end of the tunnel. Before (when I was balls deep in the bottle of Costco vodka) I felt like I wanted to die, like it was the end of the world and humanity’s demise was my own personal doing.
~growth~