1 encouraging first sign alcohol is releasing its grip on your brain
It was probably five or six days after I quit drinking alcohol.
I was just going about my normal, post-booze day when something funny happened.
I don’t remember what prompted it, but it stood out enough for me to note that it had happened.
After years of getting at least a little drunk almost every single night, I thought I’d lost the ability to do it so quickly and easily.
I’d been fooled by alcohol into believing that the baseline fatigue and sadness I felt every single day were normal.
That it was just my personality now.
But then, I noticed a shift.
It was one of the first signs that alcohol was releasing its hold on my brain.
And I was overjoyed.
I saw the sign
And you know what that simple but powerful sign was?
I laughed.
Out loud.
In an instant.
I honestly didn’t remember what it was like to be quick to laugh.
I don’t remember exactly what it was that prompted it the first time — I think it was something my son or wife said, or maybe it was something funny on the radio.
Regardless, before I quit alcohol the summer before last, I thought I was a person who simply didn’t laugh that much.
I think I was under the impression that maybe it took something especially wry or smart to get me to laugh out loud, like maybe I was a comedy connoisseur or something.
The hard truth
It was the alcohol, though.
I’d forgotten who I actually was beneath it all.
I’d become a person who could no longer experience spontaneous outbursts of happiness when I was sober, who’d all but lost the ability to feel true joy when it wasn’t soaked in booze.
Someone who’d lost any semblance of optimism.
That’s because alcohol saps all the color out of normal life.
It makes everything appear grey, and the only way to bring those bright shades back is to drink.
You become indifferent to things you used to find interesting. You become bored easily with life’s simple pleasures.
It really does drain the life out of you, literally and figuratively.
Laughing out loud seems like such a small, simple thing, but it reminded me that I was a happy person at one point in my life.
When you get sucked into the alcohol cycle and drained of feeling, you forget the person you used to be exists.
But that person does exist.
Earlier this week, I wrote about how surprisingly quickly your brain bounces back from alcohol abuse.
I started noticing these little things 5–10 days after quitting.
I bet you will too.
Freedom
Without alcohol, my brain has a new baseline for joy.
Now, I laugh easily at things that would have elicited no more than a grunt when I was drinking every day.
And to be honest: I like this version of me a lot better.
Friends, thank you for taking the time to read! Please let me know in the comments what were the first “little things” you noticed after quitting alcohol!
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