A Surprising Lesson Learned in 4 Years of Sobriety

Life reflections on my longest stint without alcohol

Blooming in sobriety — Photo by author

Another year has come and gone. January 7th marked 4 years without substances in my life and each January I reflect on just how much better my life is without alcohol. I believe you are reborn when you cut the addictive substances from your life that ravish your well-being.

It’s also why they celebrate sober birthdays in Alcoholics Anonymous. We are reborn into a new life, one with freedom from addiction. Each year is a testament to how far you have come.

I have never been sober this long since I started drinking at the tender age of 16. It is said, and I believe to be true, that alcohol stunts your growth. If you drank and used drugs consistently for years, you are likely not to grow up emotionally.

I was stuck being that 16-year-old girl for many years. Immaturity and addiction led to a lot of bad decisions and poor choices. I was fairly young and just starting my serious drinking career when I had my two daughters at 26 and 28. I was not in the right frame of mind to have children but for some reason, I felt my clock ticking, like my meter was running out.

While of course, now I wouldn’t change a thing because I wouldn’t have my amazing husband and two incredible adult daughters, but they did have to go through a lot of heartache with me as their wife and mom. They are thankful I am done drinking and I am, too.

I am not here to rehash the drunken stories

Each year I write about my progress in sobriety. My stories always include things that I have done in the past to show just how bad it was. Two decades of on-and-off heavy drinking and drug use make for way too many stories.

Let me tell you that it was bad many times during my life. Very bad. I’ve blacked out, too many times to count, and it’s scary to lose memories of entire evenings. I’ve driven drunk, had a DUI, and completed all of the grueling steps to get my license back just to do it again.

I’ve been irrational, getting in fights and saying things that I didn’t mean. I’ve fallen and bruised myself all over without knowing how the next morning. I’ve had self-inflicted black eyes. I’ve taken off to hotel rooms for days, leaving my family at home to fend for themselves while I drank in isolation.

I have been to the ER, detox and rehab. I thought I was having a heart attack once but it was just alcohol withdrawal. I’ve felt immense shame like no other but I kept going back to alcohol thinking that it would somehow erase the shame, only to make it worse.

I’ve done a lot of regrettable things that I keep private because they are just too embarrassing and I have had my full dose of shame in my life. There is no longer a need to go there.

Being someone who never wanted to quit because I loved drinking and using drugs even surprises me now. I was always upset that I couldn’t drink. Now, I feel so lucky that I don’t want to drink. When I see alcohol, I feel sick. I have an extreme internal reaction of disgust, and I am thankful that I feel that way. Finally.

The crippling social anxiety has dissipated. I no longer have insomnia.

There are all the little things — I feel better, my skin and hair have life, I remember what I said and what I have to do, well most of the time.

But, what is the most important thing that I learned this past year? I have learned that it is okay to be me. I don’t have to force anything or do things to make people like me. In return, I see others for who they are, not who I want them to be.

The most surprising and unsurprising lesson

At the beginning of the year, I was going through some turbulence in a relationship that I had with a friend. In the past, I have been quick to see what is wrong with someone else, without taking a deep look at myself.

Sobriety has taught me to look at what my part is in a relationship, especially when there is a disagreement. A friendship is between two people, it only makes sense that both would have a part in the relationship and any conflict that arises. I was always quick to point out the fault in someone else but unwilling to look at what my part was, when I felt hurt.

For example, when I was fresh and new in sobriety, I withdrew from friendships. I felt like a newborn without her binkie flailing around in the crib searching for something to pacify, and it was hard for me to attend events sober. My friend, an extrovert, was not about to stop her social life because of me so she kept on with her life, leaving me space but also doing things with other friends.

It began to gut me, but I took it personally instead of seeing things from her perspective. We got into an argument about it and I finally sat back to see how I acted and reacted regarding the situation.

I began to take accountability, while very hard for me, and that taught me a very important lesson. Life is not all about me and my thoughts about things aren’t the only way. While I was upset about social media posts and the lack of care that I thought she was giving me, I was unable to see how she felt about the relationship. I just thought she was being selfish, while I was over here being selfish myself.

People aren’t going to know how you feel if you don’t tell them. I was expecting people to read my mind.

When you take a step back, look at a situation for what it is, see both sides and parts of the relationship, everything begins to become clear. Sobriety has brought me a clear mind and the ability to distinguish my part in a relationship.

Because of that, the connection with my friend has become stronger. We both see and hear each other, and even after a nasty argument, we reconciled while seeing the situation for what it was. We hashed it all out, saw both sides, and were able to move forward with clarity.

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Little by little, I have let go of my controlling ways to be able to see the bigger picture. It’s a great lesson in life to learn and sobriety has opened my eyes, creating more meaningful relationships along the way.

Happiness in life is all about connection. When you are stuck in addiction, you have no real connection with others. For me, it was not true, real, and honest but more like a facade of friendship. Now that my friends know the true, real me, our relationships have flourished.

It’s something I never allowed myself before. I’ve been sober a few stints, one for a year, but I have learned that a year is truly not enough time to get to know yourself without alcohol. The deep growth started after I had two years of sobriety. All of the fog from the decades of drinking blew away and I discovered my raw state of being.

Since then, I have grown and developed into a new person, one that I am proud to be. I always hated being sober in previous stints because I wasn’t ready to give myself the time I needed. I thought sobriety should be a quick, instant fix and when it wasn’t, I sighed and exclaimed that I was done with it.

While there are so many benefits to sobriety, it doesn’t mean they are all easy. When you quit and get better sleep, feel motivated and healthy, and happier, those are sometimes immediate and you get into what we sober folk call the pink cloud.

Once that pink cloud dissipates, you are left to do the real work. Taking a deeper look at yourself and the behaviors adopted over the years of drinking is not an easy feat. I think that is why a lot of people go back to drinking. It’s easier to hide than to crawl out of the shell.

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I was surprised with what I have found in sobriety: a greater sense of self and well-being. That comes from being accountable, knowing when you are wrong and what your part is in a relationship, and also understanding when apologies are necessary.

I always thought I had good relationships with the people I love in my life but have been pleasantly surprised that they have all changed for the better. My sobriety has also rubbed off on other people that I know, even if they aren’t problem drinkers. I never thought that would happen but sobriety keeps me on my toes now, always surprising me with new beautiful nuances.

I am far from done working on myself. It took decades of drinking and drug use to get to my rock bottom, so surely healing everything didn’t happen overnight, or even fully in 4 years, and I know that the best is still yet to come, just as long as sobriety stays at the forefront of my life.

I started among all of the Dry January people in 2021 who felt awful after the holidays. Some stayed sober and some went right back to drinking but I am here to tell you longer-term sobriety is possible. Life is grand, it is big, it is overwhelming and it is beautiful. When you are sober, you get to feel it all.

Try it. You might surprise yourself, like I did, but trust me, give it enough time and be kind to yourself along the way. Dry January is great and all but 30 days is not enough time to get to the nitty-gritty of who you are as a sober person.

“Sobriety isn’t about giving something up. It’s about taking everything back.” — Attributed to Alcoholics Anonymous