Wellness & Sobriety
How self-respect led to me to a sober life & how sobriety helped nurture that self-respect, self-love, and acceptance.
Whenever I bring up sobriety I get mixed and sometimes quite heightened reactions. I want to begin this by saying that I understand that everyone has their own relationship with alcohol (even if it’s none!). It is a complex topic with many nuances and I want to share my personal experience, some facts, and my authentic truth about getting and staying sober. Sobriety has had an immense impact on improving my health holistically.
It has become the social norm to consume alcohol at almost any event. At least in my social circles, my family background, and much of the world around me - it is not only normal but highly encouraged to engage in drinking culture. It was completely acceptable and at times expected for my friends and I to engage in binge drinking. Consuming 10 drinks in one night was nothing out of the ordinary. I also had little to no education on what alcohol is and how it affects the body, mind, and soul. So I’d like to share a few facts:
Alcohol is a Class 1 carcinogen - in the same category as tobacco and asbestos. Even moderate drinking increases the risk of breast, colon, liver, and other cancers.
According to a study by The Lancet in 2018 - there is no safe level of alcohol consumption.
Alcohol heavily impacts sleep, anxiety, and mood. It can disrupt REM sleep, increase anxiety, and affects dopamine and serotonin balance in the brain.
Those are just a few of the facts that helped me make my decision to live an alcohol-free lifestyle. The last one was the largest for me - the impact it had on my mental, emotional, and spiritual health was the main deciding factor.
You may have heard of “Hangxiety” (which is the increased anxiety and shame you feel the day(s) after drinking) and once I turned 30, it seemed to last for several days for me. Don’t get me wrong, I have always had that guilt/shame/anxiety feeling after drinking but it just got worse as time went on. I also was wearing an Oura ring for about a year and would watch exactly how the alcohol would affect my body. It would show sleep disruption, higher body temperature, and increased heart rate. It was interesting to see the physiological impacts alcohol was having on me immediately after drinking. It made me wonder what the long term damage could be. We all know about the dreaded hangover but alcohol has effects that can last much longer and take a toll on you long after you’ve recovered from that hangover. Iykyk.
There are plenty of stats and facts I could give you about alcohol and you may or may not know them already. I heard many while I was drinking and it didn’t do much to persuade me. What it really took was developing self-love and self-respect for myself. Alcohol was a tool I learned to use from an early age that could help me loosen up in social situations and “be myself” around people I didn’t know very well. It also became a solution to stress, sadness, anxiety, and probably many more emotions. It also was something you used when you wanted to celebrate! At a certain point, alcohol became the go-to for pretty much any emotion. I began to realize that all it was really doing was numbing the emotion I was feeling and then increasing anxiety afterwards for the next 3-5 days. So, if I was drinking to feel anxious - it would relieve the anxiety for a few hours and then increase it tenfold over the course of the week. Doesn’t really make a lot of sense does it? I also began to notice the harm it was doing to not only my body, but my mind and my soul. I just simply didn’t feel good. I would only drink on weekends and only for social events but even that was enough to bring down my energy and Life Force. I was allowing this toxin to invade all aspects of my being, and I was feeling the aftereffects. I was slower, groggier, and sadder.
As I reflected I would think - is this what someone who loves and respects themselves would do to their own body and mind? The answer I could faintly hear inside was - no. Sobriety was a journey of course, as most things are. How many times did I tell myself “I will never drink again”? Hmm, at least a few. I tested out a few dry months here and there. I was also struggling with a medical condition during this time frame. One that no doctor could figure out the reason for it happening. It was “minor” but chronic and I dealt with it on and off for about 2 years. I went to a plethora of doctors and specialists and no one could treat or cure it. I finally ended up going to a naturopath who told me to stop drinking. That was my longest stint before sobriety. It lasted 3 months and it was the best I had ever felt in my adult life. I made the decision to stop drinking on July 8th 2023. It was a process (which I will dive deeper into in future blogs) and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I finally listened to myself and my body and made a decision that I knew would have an immense positive impact on my life as a whole. By the way, the medical condition simply disappeared after removing the alcohol. Just saying!
The commitment to living a life without alcohol was a promise to treat myself that way I deserved to be treated. To fully love and respect myself, I would nourish and cherish myself. As you can imagine, I started to immediately feel better. There is a detoxing process which, for me, lasted about 2-4 weeks. The detox involved some cravings, interesting side effects, and some intense drinking dreams. After that, I only felt better and better. That is not to say that I didn’t have moments of doubt or cravings, it is just that overall I saw my health improve. My body felt better and lighter, my mind was clearer, and my emotions were still there but I was actually feeling them. If anything, the emotions were more intense as I wasn’t using alcohol to numb them. However, I was able to feel them and use other tools to regulate the more difficult ones.
I started walking, a lot! I would walk miles and miles everyday. I was living in NYC at the time and spent so much time exploring Central Park and the West Side Highway. Shakespeare Garden is where it’s at. I also was eating what I wanted! One thing at a time, am I right? I spent time creating - writing, taking pottery lessons, and whatever else I felt like doing with all my time! I started writing a blog, a book, and read more than 100 books that year. I started to come back home to myself.
Shakespeare Garden, Central Park
The thing about living a life without alcohol is that you are 100% fully present in all situations. Like I said earlier, alcohol was a tool to help me loosen up at parties or social gatherings. That was no longer available to me! So, I learned to not only be myself but fully accept myself as I was. I wasn’t pretending to be something else or use something to help me “have fun”. I was just there, being me, and if I was a little quiet - that was ok! This was a huge avenue of growth. There can be so much pressure at times from friends or society to be “on” and charming and all of the things. What if it was ok to just be ourselves? Maybe we can be in a room full of people and be quiet at times and more talkative at other times? This was where I really started to get to know myself. How do I operate around people? How does it feel to be me?
I remember one of the first events I attended was my brother’s birthday in New York and I was so nervous to be sober for it. What would I do? Would I even have fun? Now, what I learned in the beginning was the first 1-2 hours are the worst. But, it’s also when everyone else is nervous too! It’s ok if things are awkward with people you don’t know very well - that is natural. After the first 1-2 hours and everyone else starts drinking, you realize they are loosened up but so are you - just be being there and settling in. For this event, I had a ton of fun and actually ended up being the last one to leave. That is NOT how it usually goes now but being sober doesn’t mean you don’t have fun - you just learn how to have fun being present and yourself. Then, you leave when you’re done. Simple right? It gets simple.
There’s much more to this and I will write more about it. However, I want to say that if you are curious about sobriety - I would highly recommend it. The more days I accumulated the more I knew I could count on myself. The more I knew I respected, loved, and fully accepted myself. After I made this change, so many positive changes followed. I was able to fully connect with my body and learn what it means to nourish it. I was able to set boundaries more easily. I was able to trust myself and make decisions more aligned with who I am. I was able to meet the love of my life. Just to name a few!
If you want to get to know your true authentic self, this is one of the best ways to do that. Take a chance on yourself.
Cozily,
Chelsea ♡
Enjoying a mocktail!