The Cost of Living Has Inflated My Sobriety

I’m living the dream — but it wasn’t always that way

I’ve landed a low-paying job, and I bloody love it!

I work with kids in a safe and supportive environment, my colleagues are fantastic humans (i.e. not overly intrusive and trusting of my ability to self-manage) and I get a criminal amount of holidays.

I’m currently writing this from my treetop Bure in Fiji, which may seem incongruent with a low salary. However, I have learned a valuable lesson from my years spent in Australia; ‘do thy tax return early and your reward shall be great.’ As it turns out, island holiday and deposit for a new apartment rental great.

I was not a shoe-in for sobriety. I knew my life was chaotic, but thought I was drinking a 6-pack and a few wines a night because I needed to learn to control my stress. In fact, the list went something like this:

• Get a less stressful job.
• Learn to manage your drinking on week-nights.
• Stop taking things so personally- life is a shit show!
• Be better with money.
• Start your own business so you don’t need to be told what to do.

Note that even though I’d started to hit a bottom of sorts, there was no mention of stopping drinking, or modifying my behaviour…except perhaps to shift my heavily loaded drinking evenings to the weekends for a more acceptable binge. The early bottoms were more of a sludgy mangrove forest kind (occasionally I’d grasp a root and haul my ass out) than a dig through concrete grind.

By the time my drinking was out of control and I’d been kicked out of 2 Community Alcohol and Drug courses for relapsing, I was attending AA meetings with a horrible attitude. I went because it was mandatory for the courses and stayed because I’d found my crew, like it or not.

I have never been financially savvy. I grew up being given the occasional bailout, but also worked my ass off in part-time jobs from 16 years old, right through my university years. I’ve always been a hard worker, sometimes up to 7 days a week…but I’ve never learned how to ‘make my money work for me’ as the rich getting richer (or if I’m honest, probably the comfortable) espouse. How does this relate to my sobriety? I’d say finances have always been a MASSIVE stressor for me and back in the day, a surefire trigger for me to throw my hands up and drink. I’d definitely live to work, burnout, drink, quit, drink, get my shit together and re-start the cycle.

I’ll admit to being able to breathe a sigh of relief while living in China for 2.5 years. Yeah, ok, they were blighted by the pandemic which was another whole thing, but I was sober and doing what I loved (teaching English) and financially I wasn’t struggling. Secure would be too strong a word as I was furiously sending money home to pay off debt, but for the first time in my life I wasn’t stressed and worried about money and it felt great. Rent was paid 3 months in advance meals were $5 delivered to my door. (We won’t mention the Starbucks and KFC). I could focus on work and not check my bank account for 3 weeks at a time. Unheard of!

I began to see that all the years I’d invested in my sobriety (10 years without a drink at that stage) had led me to that point. A lot of it was grace, some of it was hard work and the rest was faith- in a 12-step programme that had accepted me where I was at, in my ability to hand things over to the universe when things were too hard (or too good), and in myself.

“I had a 10 minute period yesterday, while floating above a coral reef watching abundant sea-life flit…”

Living in the moment, or even the day is often an elusive commodity to me. However I had a 10 minute period yesterday, while floating above a coral reef watching abundant sea-life flit about their business completely unbothered by my hulking presence, where I felt a depth of gratitude and peace that hit me in my soul. I felt so calm and extremely free from the burdens I tend to create and drag around with me. It felt like I’d won front-row seats to the best show on earth, until a wave swamped my snorkel. I’ll treasure that feeling of…joy?

It’s never been more expensive to buy a freakin’ pot of yogurt. Cheese is almost a house deposit (coming from a dairy nation, this hits hard) and fancy bread is beyond my reach some weeks. But my sobriety has never been a more prized commodity to me. In my early days of relapse and struggle street some people said to me that maybe I should just go back out, enjoy that alcohol as I obviously didn’t want to get sober. I didn’t want to stop drinking, but they were wrong- I wanted to WANT to get sober. Besides, any enjoyment I’d gotten from drinking had left me years prior.

I felt crazy. I’d crashed cars, lost cars, been inches from death. I’d washed down handfuls of pills a night with a bottle of wine for what felt like an eternity and I worked with chronic, vomiting hangovers. I knew my body needed sobriety, even if my fucked-over brain didn’t want it. I tried to get into expensive rehabs because I thought if I threw (my family’s) money at the problem it HAD to get fixed. Ironically, none of those places would take my kind of crazy…I finally got sober in a 12 step programme and a rehab run by the Sallies. A counsellor there saw me, had walked my path and helped me build myself back up to wellness. Or, wellerness, let’s not be hysterical.

I feel very privileged to be sitting in a Bure in Fiji, however I know the work it took to get here. I have not considered taking a drink for many years now, but that release came with a load of time, and the letting go of my old bondages. Although I can’t say I’m financially free, today I am able to appreciate what I have and live a great life mostly within my means. Progress, not perfection, right? I stumbled upon pet-sitting for free holidays in Melbourne and jump on a tram to little cafes and book stores to browse and be amongst people at every opportunity. I’ve learned that experiences have value even if you don’t pay for them. What a revelation!

I found a great little sober community in China that I could chat to during the pandemic to keep myself in check; back in my early 20s, being away from home was a free-for-all to drink and be chaotic. During recent times in China, that same free pass would have been a death warrant for me, and I say that unequivocally. How miraculous, that I could enjoy living in an apartment overlooking a park that I walked through almost daily. I’d drink tea and watch locals doing tai-chi and think now about how the old me would have wanted an apartment near a busy bar so I could crawl home in the wee hours. The park pagoda became my new symbol of freedom.

I got sober in a wonderful NZ community and these days I live a peaceful life in Melbourne, Australia. I’ve just adopted a beautiful little cat who has anxiety, and will pick her up when I return from Fiji. She was paired with me as I offered a ‘safe and secure, peaceful and loving home.’ Quite the endorsement! She will be my world for however long I have her, and she only ‘cost’ me a few bottles of crappy wine.

So yeah, living these days can be really tight financially and mentally challenging with the pressures of the modern world. All the more reason to experience life in the way YOU need to. I choose to have room in my mind for creativity, and love in my heart for the beings in my sphere. Including, (on those better days) for myself.