Sitting here now and looking back at all the time I spent intoxicated brings on a sense of sadness. I felt like I was living life to the fullest but really I was only living at 50%, if that. So many holidays, family gatherings, and even just weekends home with my family, are left blurry and shallow because I wasn’t fully present.

By Tanya Tiger

 

They call them growing pains for a reason.

When we are young and growing physically we can feel the pain as our bodies stretch and grow and morph through adolescence and young adulthood. Emotional growing pains are much the same. When we stop running from our feelings, stop numbing them with substances, sex, shopping, working long hours, staying “busy,” etc. we begin to feel the pains of growing out of previous thoughts and beliefs.

I am learning this lesson well right now.

I stopped drinking alcohol on April 17, 2023. I didn’t realize what a strong hold it had on me until I stopped. I didn’t realize how removed I was from my real feelings, thoughts and way of being in the world until I stopped. With the exception of when I was pregnant and breastfeeding my girls, I drank heavily every weekend and some week days for nearly 23 years. I started drinking regularly when I turned 21 and continued into my 40’s. Whiskey was my go-to when I wanted to celebrate or when I was stressed out or when I felt sad and didn’t want to feel anymore.

When I first started drinking I did it for the same reasons many people do, to have fun, feel less awkward when socializing, and because it’s just what everyone my age seemed to be doing.

I grew up around drinking. It was normalized. It was on TV and in the movies, and everywhere I went I heard people talking about needing a drink to take the edge off, or planning happy hour, or going out to party with their friends. Drinking to the point of intoxication seemed to be the norm. I didn’t really know anyone who could go out and have just one drink. I didn’t start off with a plan to get shit-faced but it happened more times than I care to count. What started off as innocent fun, over time, turned into blurred memories, bruises of unknown origins and hangovers that made wish I could just die.

Alcoholism ran thick in my family though no one really ever talked about.

I had family who would be blatantly blasted at family functions and other family who hid their drinking. I grew up thinking, I’m never going to drink or do drugs. Oh how I wish I could go back and hug that little version of me. Over time I forgot how that little girl felt. All I knew was the awkwardness I felt in my own skin and how drinking seemed to give me super confidence.

I could forget the painfully shy girl that I was and dance and sing out on the town with friends. I could dress and act “sexy” even though I barely knew what that meant. On the darker side, I could make an ass out of myself, say horrible things, or do stupid things and then blame it on being drunk… “I didn’t mean what I said I was drunk,” or, “I can’t believe I did that, I was totally gone.”

Alcohol was both my sword and my shield.

It gave me a power I thought I couldn’t possibly wield sober and it also gave me a false sense of protection against the pain and shame I felt.

Sitting here now and looking back at all the time I spent intoxicated brings on a sense of sadness. I felt like I was living life to the fullest but really I was only living at 50%, if that. So many holidays, family gatherings, and even just weekends home with my family are left blurry and shallow because I wasn’t fully present. I thought I was drinking to enhance moments in time but really I was dulling them—like turning the saturation down on a TV. The colors are less vivid. My memories are fuzzy. It breaks my heart to realize how much time I stole from myself and those I love.

There is no going back in time to fix any of it.

I’m learning that part of getting sober and doing the work is facing life on life’s terms with no buffer in between. I’m learning to sit with my feelings and let them flow through me rather than try to run from them or stuff them down. In doing so I am also discovering that everything I was running from and stuffing down never really went away, they were just biding their time, waiting for their turn to be witnessed. So now, when hard feelings come to sit with me I welcome them. It isn’t easy; it’s anything but easy.

Sometimes I want to run. I want to go back to drinking to escape but I choose not to. Instead I show myself grace and sit with each emotion as it arises. I ask it why it has come and what it wants to show me. I may cry my way through it, or scream, but I let it be heard and felt.

This is all part of the growing.

I feel like I stunted myself in my 20’s when I began drinking. I didn’t give myself the chance to face challenging things and overcome them. That’s how we grow. We experience pain and suffering, alongside joy and beauty and we allow it all to come to us and through us. When we escape by whatever method we choose, we deny ourselves room to grow. We cut off ourselves off from life. We live just enough to not be dead but we’re also not really living. Living fully means we feel it all. To be fully alive means we experience the highest of highs as well as the lowest of lows without numbing any of it.

I have experienced trauma that I wouldn’t wish on anyone and rather than working though it I pushed it away.

I regret that now. But regret doesn’t heal anything. Sobriety has gifted me a new opportunity to dive deep into everything I tried to deny. It forces me to look at how the past has shaped my present and also makes me realize that if I don’t address it now it will follow me into the future.

Growing pains are hard but living only half a life is harder. Growing pains mean I am doing it “right.” I am fully present to what was, what is, and what can be. So, while I occasionally miss being able to duck out when the going gets tough I realize that I missed me more. Sobriety has given me back to myself, to my family, and my friends.

Sobriety has shown me that I had all that I ever needed inside me all along. And, sobriety has shown me that I have the strength to lean into my life 100% and feel it all.

 

Photo: Pixabay

 

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