Five Things that Helped Me Get Sober Young
By Kate Belton
@k8beee
In September 2017, at the age of 29, I decided to quit drinking, and this time I meant it. A year and a half later, I wrote this personal essay about my journey. Since this piece was published, I have been delighted to have received several messages from people wanting to make the same big change in their own lives but feeling overwhelmed by where to start. I wanted to write a quick list of tips to help anyone who may be in this same boat. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and I was even more compelled to offer support.
This past month has been uncertain and scary and of course there’s no shortage of memes about spending quarantine at home drinking (no judgement if this is how you’re coping, it’s how I would have been a few years ago, too!)
However, if you are at home drinking away your stress about finances, the future, grieving life as we knew it, but each morning you’re also in your hungover head beating yourself up about your drinking, that’s where I’m hoping to offer some help. If you’re relying on alcohol as a familiar means to cope with your anxiety about this scary time, and the booze just isn’t working for you anymore, then maybe this time of great uncertainty can also be a time of great reckoning for you.
This time, if you’re willing, looking inward can be a chance to pause and reflect on your life thus far. Are you currently living in alignment with your highest potential? Are you feeling your discomforts and growing through them, or are you drinking to escape them? If you were faced with your own mortality, would you feel like you did everything in your power to live your best, most authentic life? Or is there something missing? Are you using alcohol as a crutch?
When I decided to quit drinking, I did it because I wanted to give myself the chance to live a life that felt whole, and right for me. I am by no means an expert on sobriety. But I have been alcohol-free for 948 days, 30 of which have been the crazy past month. The pandemic has definitely tested my commitment to sobriety, but ultimately solidified the promise I made to give myself a better life–one rooted in love and self-compassion and that honours the healing journey back to my authentic self.
If you’re ready to quit drinking, here are some things that helped me in the beginning and continue to throughout this winding path:
- Don’t feel obligated to explain your decision to anyone. You do not need to announce your breakup with alcohol if you don’t want to. When you quit drinking, people ask why you’re not drinking. They’ll make a joke and get you a drink anyway or ask if you’re feeling OK. What better way to avoid this in the beginning, than by quitting drinking while we’re all stuck at home?
When bars reopen, and we’re out socializing again, just remember that not everyone deserves to hear your story. “No” is a complete sentence and those who respect you will respect your choices. Those who continue to pry or judge your decision likely have some underlying shame around their own drinking habits. That is their issue, not yours. Just keep doing you.
- Get a counselor, a sponsor or find a sober community who you feel safe opening up to (you’re gonna have to branch out from your drinking buddies or current romantic partner for this one). There are many online communities and counselors who are here for this purpose exactly.
When you quit drinking, feelings will start surfacing that you’ll need help working through. Think of yourself as an ice block that’s just been taken out of the freezer. There are breakups, embarrassment, shame, failures and grief frozen inside you, unhealed. Getting sober means thawing out, and it’s painful. By choosing to no longer numb these feelings, you’re beginning to let them run their natural course. This is going to suck for a bit. And if you’re not equipped with the proper tools, or don’t have anyone to talk to who can offer unbiased guidance and support, you could decide to go back to numbing the pain. This shit is hard work. But these painful, raw feelings are coming up so that they can be healed. Find someone who can guide you through this important process.
Send me a DM, seriously.
- Be KIND to yourself. Healthy relationships are rooted in respect, trust and unconditional love. Unfortunately, many of us seek these qualities in relationships with others but neglect them within ourselves. You can’t berate yourself into wholeness. Give yourself the gift of compassion, kindness and gentle encouragement. You are not your past decisions or actions. You are, at your core, whole, worthy and so beautiful. Realize deeply that you deserve the same love and compassion you so freely give to others. You deserve forgiveness. You deserve patience. You deserve a better life. Self-compassion can feel unnatural; to make it easier for me to be nice to myself, I put a picture of myself from when I was a little girl up on the wall in my bedroom. In the picture, I am so cute and small and innocent. I see this picture every day when I wake up and it serves as a reminder to me that that sweet little girl is still me, I am her, and she deserves nothing but unconditional love.
- Journal. Try to write something every day (it gets easier). Journalling is a great tool to get whatever’s going on in your head out onto paper so you can stop thoughts from looping on repeat. You’ll connect to yourself and find answers inside that you didn’t know you had. If you can’t think of anything to write, make a gratitude list. Expressing gratitude for what you have in your life attracts even more abundance. Having a journal is also an amazing reference to look back on, like a time capsule of your own feelings. You can read back through your journals in time, and actually watch as you heal yourself, which is majorly empowering.
- Accept that you’re going to grow up. I never pictured my adulthood when I was young. No dream wedding, no dream career, or any future goals really–I just couldn’t see myself growing up. This made it a lot easier to live on cruise-control and to just go with the flow. I was 29 when the self-inflicted hangovers, shame, and stress in my life became too much. I was sick of the cycle of partying on the weekends, wasting days hungover, making poor decisions and feeling like my life was spent waiting for the weekend.
Long-term sobriety seemed impossible, but I pictured my life in twenty years if I continued down the path I was on. Then I pictured my life in twenty years if I quit drinking at 29. I was more excited by the potential of what my life could look like if I removed alcohol from the equation. This decision meant finally accepting that I am going to grow up. I won’t be young forever. I had to start living with my future-self in mind. My last drink was more than two-and-a-half years ago, and every single area of my life has improved since this shift in my perspective.
Guess what: Chances are very good that YOU will grow up too. We are going to make it through this pandemic, and on the other side of it, there you’ll be. Are you happy with the path you’ve chosen so far? Do you need to make a change?
Your decisions reflect which doors of opportunity open and which slam shut over the years spent avoiding your truth.
Do you want to come to the realization down the road that many of those doors have closed? When your youth has faded, you’ve made clouded decisions on who to love, where to work, where to live; when years of heavy drinking have caused damage to your physical health?
If this article is resonating with you, chances are you’ve heard some whisperings inside yourself that perhaps you’re trying to ignore. Those are only going to get louder as the years go by. Sobriety is available to us at any age. But MAN does it change the trajectory of your life if you find it young.
You can make the change now. You ARE strong enough today. They say “youth is wasted on the young” but it doesn’t have to be. Youth is wasted on the wasted young. Take back your time, your youth, and start building that beautiful life. Your future self deserves it.
If we’re going to build a new world after all of this, let’s build one that’s full of love, not fear; compassion, not ignorance; and strength, not weakness. All of these qualities start within. Now is our chance to “be the change you wish to see in the world.” You’ve got this. We’ve got this.
