Drunk Me.

The first thing I noticed as the sober one in the room is that there is a progressive change in noise and personality in those that drink. An entire vibrational switch. I had always been part of that escalation of alcohol fun, leading the way. 

It is almost like everyone lifts off the ground a few feet and you are still on the ground, watching.

The other thing I've noticed is that as the one who has chosen to stop drinking as a choice, not as a claiming of having a 'problem' or needing a meeting or rehab, I feel a little lost.

While I would argue that alcohol is a problem for all of us, because something with the ability to alter us to the point of not being able to drive or make good choices or cause us to black out and lose time or puke is always potentially problematic, I know that this is not a popular thought.

When someone has an acknowledged problem with alcohol everyone around them is aware and careful and tending to their possible temptations.

Nothing around me has changed. And I feel everything is different.

I woke up on Friday and all I thought about was how much I wanted to have a drink. It stayed with me the entire day. I drank iced coffee filled with agave, and made cup after cup of tea.

No cup of tea will ever be wine. And it felt incredibly lonely. To have a made a choice that feels isolating. That is sometimes the hardest choice I make all day.

And I could have a glass of wine or some bubbly or a gluten-free beer. This was never a quest for sobriety.  But every single time I've asked myself first if that beer or wine would be the kindest choice, every time my Spirit says no.

No, not today.

The honest truth, I sometimes wish it would feel kind, for just one glass, one beer, for one moment. 

I am not marking time that I'm not drinking. I'm marking time in what it is for me to thrive in my best self, and questioning my desires.

The desire to drink every single time, for me, has been centered only around escaping anxiety and fear. A coping. I don't know if it was always that way. And yet, here is the truth of now. I have to be in that now, for now. 

I am so aware now of everyone who says, "I deserve this, I  need this, I've earned this." It breaks my heart to believe that we have earned the right to numb the fuck out. That we deserve to disengage with our feelings because shit gets hard.

The desire to be inside of kindness now has me playing the sober one in the room, watching as those around me become lifted off the ground, voices changing, vibrations feeling chaotic.

I am still mostly unsure as to how to play this role. What keeps me curious is how calm and peaceful I feel most days. How rested I can now be. 

I've had a couple of drinks in the last 7 months. Every time I've felt a little let down by myself, but mostly by the alcohol. It wasn't like I remembered. It doesn't feel fun anymore. I am so aware of my desire to escape as motivation. To numb. To find a place for my Spirit to hide so I don't have to trust myself.

I have not chosen to not drink. I can drink whenever the hell I want. I have chosen kindness and for me, this seems to have become non-negotiable in that pursuit in this moment in time.

.......

Last year I laid in bed woken up by a rapid heart-beat. This was happening multiple times a day and now was waking me at night.

My solution was vodka. Enough vodka and I could slow the feeling that I was going to have a heart attack.

It worked. And then I needed more and more to keep my heart beating normally, which really was becoming rare.

.......

I woke up on Friday and all I could think about was how much I wanted a drink. Anything. Beer, wine, cider, or my favorite personal wrecking ball, tequila.

It stayed with me all day. It hurt. The decision to not drink hurt. I can't explain it any other way. By the evening I felt like I was a puddle. I went to bed early. I wish I had been able to talk about with my partner. But I am tip-toeing around people when they are drinking and don't really yet know how to be fully myself in that vibration.

My inner world is tightly secretive, until it isn't, and I had no idea what to do with that feeling. Where to go with it. This is the loneliness, certainly at this point a chosen loneliness. 

The previous weekend friend's of Dave's had come to visit. They brought beer and wine. I drank kombucha even though I thought about the wine. I made dinner while the rest sipped outside in the sun, distraction helps. I made tea. Lots of tea.

My anxiety told me that maybe now was a good time to have just one drink. And then my spirit and I chit-chatted and we decided that anxiety was a real asshole and I shouldn't listen. Instantly I felt calm. In the past I would have been two drinks deep before anyone walked in the door as that was how I could become the fun Hannah who didn't show a sign of social anxiety.

.......

There were mornings I was making breakfast for the kids before school hungover from the too much wine because I need it to cope with life night before.

I would work with a hangover. I would have a drink at night to feel better. Repeat. Sprinkle in vodka to calm my heart down.

It didn't take much for a hangover. Two glasses of wine could take me there, head throbbing and heart racing. As a highly-sensitive person alcohol is incredibly effective in transformation.

.......

I would save my calories for my wine at night, no dessert thank you, wine is my treat.

I would feel my skin bloat and my body feel heavy and sick from that treat.

I would see memes telling me that wine was my reward, that of course we drank because we are parents, and reinforcing what I already knew, I was so much more fun as tequila Hannah.

.......

I thought my heart was dying. And I was certain alcohol was killing my relationship. After one particular fight, I decided to release alcohol to see if we would function differently as a couple. 

I wasn't chasing sobriety I was chasing Kindness. I was obsessed with it. I would master that thing. I would choose a hard thing so that we could become better.

There was a clear clear message from my intuition and it was that I couldn't mix kindness into my glass of wine, no matter how desperately I wanted to. My face started to break out into a hot rash with just one sip of wine.

My body was revolting. 

.......

The first thing that happened is my heart is no longer racing and oddly, I have less anxiety, or maybe, I have a greater ability to resource my creative options for anxiety.

The whites of my eyes are whiter.

I have control over the words that leave my mouth. I used to love that feeling of my erratic emotional out pourings. Now I can't imagine.

In a shit ton of ways not reaching for a drink is easy once I broke the pattern.

In other ways it hurts. Just does.

I am still figuring out who the hell I am without that shot of tequila.

There is a struggle to not replace it with over-sugaring or over-spending or over-hermiting although it then lets me ask of each of those desires, is this kindness?

.......

I liked so much about choosing to pour a glass of wine at 5:00, sipping while chopping vegetables for dinner. I liked the feeling of that moment when the wine hits and everything seems better, lighter. I loved sitting at a bar in another place in the world and meeting people over a drink.

I loved how I felt like a different version of me, more confident, more fun.

I loved having sex while I felt out of body, less inhibitions.

.......

Here is what I'm learning. 

A cup of tea while chopping vegetables is pretty amazing. And I find that I am really there, not wandering away somewhere, I have a deeper connection.

I am having this moment of time where no other decision has been quite so impactful to my becoming other than that to have babies. Becomings are not passive, they are kick your ass look at your shit own your choices rituals of time.

I'm not as fun. I'm also not an emotional wreck(ish). My memory is improved. My bladder is grateful. My body feels my devotion.

And sex? Sober sex is beautiful. It is pure vulnerability and trust. 

I have orgasms without trouble. They have become wildly different than ever before. When we are both connected without alcohol it is intimate and raw and sweet and I can feel him in my heart. 

My heart.

The one that no longer feels like it is going to have a heart attack. 

My heart.

I'm not looking for sobriety, I'm looking to understand true kindness and trust myself. It has spilled over into my money habits and my practice of feeding myself.

.......

Dave loves country music and as we were driving together the other day a song came on called Drunk Me. Now here is the thing with country music, 90% (I obviously made that number up) has references to alcohol. Mostly beer.

This song is about not drinking.

So I am sitting there listening, in total awe of this person who has broken out of the norm and is brave enough to sing about releasing alcohol.

So I look it up and there is an interview with Mitchell Tenpenny about the song. In it he talks about how he wanted to share a song about how someone doesn't have to have a problem with alcohol to know that it isn't serving them.

And then.

And then he goes on to say that he has no problem with alcohol and he drinks with his buddies and they show a clip of him standing in a circle with his guy friends, cups of beer in hand, drinking and having fun.

Because Goddess forbid we say anything against alcohol in that sponsored by beer country music world. We can't offend anyone who wants to drink by suggesting that we can actually stop drinking before we have a "problem."

.......

Drunk Me.

I haven't wanted to post this because I don't want to upset or offend. 

What the hell is that? 

Let me protect others who might be offended which most usually means they see something of themselves in it.

Is that what I believe my job is here? To be a shield for behaviors that take people further away from their amazingness?

I want to shout out how proud of myself I am. I want to be inside of the hardness of this decision that I make every single day and celebrate myself for choosing this day to feel better. To be more. To truly see who I am.

I am not judging anyone. My decision to not drink today has everything to do with me and wanting to be inside of my best life. The one that I left a marriage to discover. The one that I prayed for. The one that I am blessed and giddy to wake up to each morning.

So I guess this is me getting over myself. I will not stand in a circle with friends holding a cup of alcohol just to make sure everyone likes me.

Drunk me isn't part of my identity today.

Not today.

Nothing around me has changed. And I feel everything is different.