How to Stop Using Alcohol to Hide From The World

I thought I drank because nothing mattered, but it turned out that nothing mattered because I drank.

Alcohol is a painkiller. It makes us feel funny and pretty and cheerful. And it helps us to close our eyes to the immense suffering of the world.

It’s been a tough week in a tough month in a tough year. If I was still drinking I would have been reaching for the wine (or Denial Juice as I like to call it.)

But how do you stop allowing this habit to incapacitate you? How do you learn to live in this confusing, scary, beautiful world without your delicious painkilling, fun-making drink?

Admit you have a problem

Back when I was weighing up sobriety, I saw it as a personal development project. I wanted to do yoga and get sexy and be more productive. To become closer to the aspirational white woman I had in my head (bendy, widely-published, perfect).

But I could never get near to her because I kept drinking. The weeks rolled by the way weeks do, and I got no closer to my aims. There were too many arguments and hangovers, I just couldn’t make progress.

Eventually, I got so fed up of this, that I asked for help. I went to an AA meeting, and I started to take advice from other sober people, rather than my heavy drinking friends. A remarkable thing happened.

For the first time in my life, I was able to stop drinking and stay stopped.

On the advice of my new sober friends, I took it a day at a time.

It isn’t possible to fix a problem you don’t have. So please, bite the bullet, and admit to another human being that you have a problem. Preferably one that can help you (i.e. not a drinking pal.)

Find your power

It was a difficult transition from drinking to abstinence. And it wasn’t only the fact that everyone I knew loved drinking. Alcohol facilitates denial and there were lots of things I didn’t want to face up to. The first thing I had to tackle was my relationship.

I talked and talked to my sponsor, knowing deep down that I needed to end things, and also that I would never have the courage to do so. She told me to take the problem to my higher power, and although I didn’t actually have one, I pretended that I did.

I got on my knees and prayed to the universe and my inner self and any imaginary or non-imaginary gods that were listening. I prayed to the life force that I felt inside me, pushing me to do the right thing, to find a better way to live. I begged all of these ideas to give me the right words to say to my boyfriend, and the courage to say them.

And then one day, magically, I found myself feeling centred and empowered. I said the words I needed to say. As calmly and kindly and strongly as I could, I said what I wanted and needed. I discovered a strength that I didn’t know I had to speak the inconvenient truth.

It was the beginning of a reliance on a higher power that I still don’t understand. It was the start of becoming somebody different.

Put down the denial juice

There is nothing like booze to help you close your eyes, put your fingers in your ears and shout LALALALALA! I CAN’T HEAR YOU! Well, maybe heroin. And crack. And sex/love/chocolate/shopping.

But you see what I mean.

But don’t you want to know what it is that you are closing your eyes to?

You might be surprised to discover why you drink

If you had asked me why I drank when I was drinking, I would have said I drank because I loved it. Perhaps because I was easily led. Maybe because I had social anxiety.

But the truth, it turns out, is that I drank because I was scared.

Alcohol took away my fear. It allowed me to show up in the world as a version of myself I was more comfortable with. A less timid and self-conscious person. A less sensitive and angry person. Somebody who was always up for a laugh (until I got offended or enraged or started crying, anyway).

And it’s a shame and a waste because my sensitivity is a gift and my anger is warranted. They are authentic parts of me, and if I hadn’t numbed them so fiercely, I would have been pushed much sooner into taking action. I would have had more time to use my talents to try and and implement positive change in this world that continues to be agonizingly unjust.

Do you ever find yourself drinking in response to the news? Do you reassure yourself that: Of course, I drink! It’s the only sane response to a world as messed up as ours?

Because if you do, you’re right. 100%

But drinking Sauvignon Blanc does nothing to change anything except your mood, temporarily. You lose money, damage your health, and you remove yourself from joining a fight that badly needs you. The dark side wins. Again.

Own your power

I wasted years numbing myself when I could have been educating myself. Years laughing at nothing much in beer gardens when I could have been contributing to a movement.

How badly I ached to be part of something. To care enough about something to take action. To be a part of something bigger than me.

I never realized how the drinking habit that soothed these uncomfortable feelings, also kept me stuck in them. I thought I drank because nothing mattered enough to me, but it turned out that nothing mattered enough to me because I drank.

Learning to live in the world sober has been full of reversals like this.

I don’t write this to invite you to heap shame on yourself, but as a way to illustrate the truth of what a drinking problem does. It removes you from, and limits your ability to act on, the world.

Discover how best you can help others

Over-dependence on alcohol turns you into a horse wearing ever more restrictive blinders. You have an increasingly narrow perspective.

All you can think about is how you feel and what you want and what you need and how to get it. You obsess over what others think of you and what others can do for you and how to get approval from everyone else.

Getting sober turns this around. It is about focusing on how others feel and what others need and how you can help them. It is about letting go of what others think of you and admitting that you need others’ help and learning to become the sort of person who can approve of themselves.

By thinking of others and doing the next right thing, no matter what the cost, your self-esteem begins to grow. Your self-obsession dissipates. Before you know it (sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly) you are in the middle of a fulfilling and useful sober life.

Four years on, the reasons I want to stay sober have changed a lot because I have learned so much since I quit drinking. I have gained personal insight, come to understand my fears, and become much more community-minded. And I better understand the reasons why I drank.

My priorities have shifted since those first confusing months of not drinking, and I have a much better idea about who I am and who I want to be.

Finally, I can be active in the causes that I care about. I can confront the painful realities of the world with the question: what can I do to help? My contribution is small, but it’s not meaningless.

Your contribution is valuable. It is needed. You might like to tell yourself that you can’t make a difference, but you’re lying to yourself.

The truth is that the world needs you. It’s already waited long enough.

If you’re struggling with drinking, know that you aren’t alone.

If you relate to this, and you’re ready for something different, try the alcohol experiment. Do whatever it takes to stay sober for 30 days: go to your doctor, try Smart or AA or Hip Sobriety or Soberistas. Listen to Recovery Elevator and SHAIR podcasts. Read This Naked Mind. Try Moderation Management.

Quitting drinking alone is boring, difficult and for many of us, impossible. There is a whole community of people just waiting to help you. Reach out. Something better is waiting for you.

Keep in touch at beautifulhangover <3

Chelsey Flood is the author of Infinite Sky and Nightwanderers, a lecturer in creative writing and a dedicated truth-seeker. She writes about freedom, addiction, nature and love.