By Shane Willbanks
Sometimes I chuckle at myself, alone at my keyboard, with my seltzer-cut Kombucha on one side and my tortilla pizza flanking the other. I just smile.
With all the things I have battled in my life, I sit here now writing about how I find it strange that I don’t like some of the same things—or people—that I used to like. That’s a far cry from the troubles that overcrowded the already-chaotic landscape of my life only a few years back.
The soft amber light of the antique brass floor lamp to my right is illuminating my Twinkie-colored dog, Robin, who’s lying next to my foot, snoring. Dog snores are soothing. The peace and calm that exist here now, all around me and within me, are welcome replacements for the shame and dread of old.
I should cover the basic info first.
I’m 54, a divorced dad of two (daughter – 17, son – 24), and I’m just over three years sober from alcohol: 37 months and some change, or 1,130 days. If I’m still here on November 7, I will be one year cancer free, as well. I don’t get cravings anymore, but I know the beast still lies beneath.
I’m walking my path alongside dozens, maybe hundreds, of fellow travelers in an online sobriety community, and today I’m sending the angst that resides in my much lighter-as-of-late body down through my fingertips and out into these words. I want to talk about my dilemma. I have learned so much about myself in sobriety, and yet I don’t know who the heck I am sometimes.
Let’s start with sucrose and all its little friends –
Anyone recovering from alcohol knows about the sugar cravings that follow.
“Cravings” doesn’t do it justice, really. For me it has been more like an obsession, and certainly like an addiction. Since I brought it up, let me jump right into the sugar issue. I have heard from many, and include myself among them, who say they never really had much of a sweet tooth before sobriety, or at least not as much of one.
I have a theory on that, although I haven’t done my due diligence and gone to the Google machine to find out if I can claim it. I’ll assume not, because I have also noticed that while I can now feel all of the feelings and am sharper than ever in so many ways, I am just plain ignorant to otherwise seemingly simple notions. For instance, it only dawned on me recently that the reason I haven’t had a sweet tooth since my teenage years is because I was already a professional drinker and DUI recipient by the age of 19. Duh.
From my mid-teens until the age of 51, ethanol was my primary source of dopamine release. Sometimes it was my only source of dopamine release. Sugar is a quick substitute because it activates those same reward centers in the brain, and we get rewarded with dopamine which we associate with pleasure.
Contrary to what many believe, alcohol does not sate your sugar needs.
It is not converted to sugar and used up as such. In fact, it can make sugar cravings worse. Alcohol equals dopamine, and when you remove it from your body, you’ll quickly find that your dopamine receptors have been down-regulated, and that your tolerance for dopamine has increased.
We drinkers know how to handle higher tolerance. Drink more.
However, being newly sober, you are clambering for a dopamine-inducing substitute, and lots of it. As Jerry Seinfeld once said, “It’s a real scene, man.” And it takes some time for the body to undo. I would suggest Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke, M.D., if you haven’t read it already.That book has been a staple of the quit lit collective since the late 60s.
I still struggle with sugar, but the way I defeat it daily is the same way I defeated alcohol. I don’t get in the ring with it anymore. No sugar in the house. No honey, or jelly, or syrup, or juices…you get the picture. I keep Stevia because I gotta have something sweet and it seems to be the least dangerous of the sugar substitutes out there.
The last time I bought honey to use in smoothies for the next few weeks, I wound up squirting it in my mouth like a deranged person.
And instead of throwing it away or dumping it down the sink after the initial wave of “what-did-I-just-do” guilt hit me, I just kept doing it. The shame wasn’t enough to stop me. I felt as low as I ever had and yet the little jerk in my head that used to egg on my drinking was now screaming, “At least you’re not drinking! Woohoo! Get you some!” Then it might whisper, “no really, you deserve this. you beat alcohol. it’s fine.”
Nope. I’m not going to live like that anymore. I’m not spending another second negotiating with the various suggestions I get from within. Now, I don’t get in the ring. Sugar! Be gone from my house. Skittles scream my name as I drive by the local convenience store these days. It used to be booze. Now, it’s candy. Let them all scream, I say. They’ll eventually tire out and turn to something else. I have proof of that.
There are other aspects of me that are no longer the same in sobriety, and are taking some getting used to. For the sake of time, I’ll just list a few: #1 – My standards for a partner have changed.
My future wife just smiled, wherever she is, in all her bohemian beauty and sobriety. Wow. I had to stop and stare past the screen, while I imagined her kind eyes and warm smile. Oh how the symptoms of loneliness can proliferate in a man who sits alone and longs for companionship. Whew. Best not touch that one right now.
Whether I’m still an extrovert or not, my faith and religion, my understanding of what a friend is, and my outlook on life in general are also being tested and reshaped. I see four more essays right there. To be honest, since I came out on the other side of a double-whammy—late stage cancer diagnosis—I look at everything a bit differently.
My recovery/mental health/self-care outlook now is simple: every big thing is made of lots of little things.
I can’t approach my big, new, scary issues like a baleen whale swallowing schools of fish. One fish. One aspect of the larger problem. That is more my speed. I beat alcohol one day at a time, 1,130 times in a row. I beat cancer one lonely, battle-ridden night after another, until it resided in me no more. I forgave my childhood abusers after carrying decades of hatred for them. I did that one prayer at a time, one journal entry at a time, one therapy session, one three-hour phone call with a friend, one fist-shaking scream to the sky at a time, until I laid it all down and let it go.
That’s the work.
And that’s the goal with every new challenge we confront in the work. Face it, one manageable chunk after another, until it is no longer a challenge. No matter what I encounter, if I put my head on my pillow sober and alive, I’ve won the day.
To those who never struggled with alcohol, that may seem like a trivial accomplishment. To someone like me, that is everything. That is what allows me to get up tomorrow and experience whatever may come with qualities I once lacked—poise and confidence.
What do I do with this new me? Face it. Embrace it even.
New body, new clothes, new friends, new priorities, new proclivities…who would have ever thought that getting sober would give us the opportunity to begin anew this far down the road. I know “normies” my age who are stuck in a thirty-year rut and believe that is all their life will ever be. I’ll take the uncertain freshness of this life over the certain ruination my life was before, any day of the week.
One thing is now becoming evident: if I don’t like it, I have the power to do something about it.
Shane is a dad of two, doggo dad of one, recovering numbness addict, and cancer survivor . In his many lives Shane has been an author, a teacher, a researcher, a restaurateur, an entrepreneur, a Taekwondo champion, and a motivational speaker to inmates and parolees across Arkansas. With just over three years of sobriety, Shane is studying to become a substance abuse counselor.
Photo: Pixabay
Editor: Dana Gornall
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Heck yes, brother. What a solid dude and unbelievable transformation! Inspiring stuff. Grateful to be walking this path with you!