The Joy of Sobriety

There’s so much upside to recovery from alcohol and other drugs

Being an impatient person, I wanted to reap the rewards of quitting alcohol as soon as I made the decision to stop. A friend suggested I had a problem and to try stopping for 90 days, so I rose to the challenge and gave it a go. I wrote about this in an earlier story for Medium.

I actually got quite sick in the first year — read: root-canal surgery on a painful tooth, the flu, headaches to beat the band, anxiety and low mood — and oh! the fear.

I didn’t realize how much alcohol had worked as an anesthetic and as a fear-reduction substance. (Of course it also had the paradoxical effect of causing fear and some of my the hangovers were gruesome and scary.)

I was fearless!

In my job as a reporter, I felt the fear and did it anyway: jumped out of a helicopter onto a yacht so I could interview the sailor, dared to ask politicians the hard questions, read the news live on radio and TV, made deadlines against the odds.

And in the process got drunk with said politicians, and fellow journos who all drank copious quantities, so much so that I didn’t realize I had a problem.

The first year was hard and I had a few meltdowns — buckets of tears and loads of fear. But I kept going to the meetings and in time got a sponsor and started working the 12 Steps. The wisdom of the steps seeped into my defiant psyche and gradually I let down my guard enough to accept that perhaps my way hadn’t been so great. Life without alcohol actually had some benefit rather than downside, much to my surprise.

I realized I was a good woman with a bad disease — genetically predisposed, for sure. Earlier on, when I was a kid, my mother had said, ‘You have alcoholics on both sides of your family, so watch it!’ At the time I was 11 and she had just given me and a couple of friends a tiny glass of sherry and I’d knocked it back, thinking ‘Whoa! This is fantastic,’ loving the warm glow deep in my tummy and I felt good.

I did try to control my drinking over the years, but not always successfully.

On my second sober birthday I was accepted into the Hazelden Graduate School of Addiction Studies in Minnesota and went off for a tumultuous year of hard work and sober fun. Many of my colleagues were in recovery too and I started learning how to get some joy in my life again.

MN has a long tradition of recovery and the community that welcomed me was a saving grace in that 12 months of being away from my friends and family. I’ve travelled a lot, but there’s a difference when you actually live in a place that doesn’t have much in common with ‘back home’. The meetings saved my arse.

Today I have a clean brain that can wrap itself around new concepts easily. I love learning. I’m a polymath and I know for sure that this would not be possible if I were still drinking.

I used to be known for my very loud, raucous laugh. It often erupted out of me when I’d been drinking and/or drugging. Now, when I laugh (and it’s still a little loud) it comes from a place of authenticity. Being my true, authentic self is a gift; I don’t pretend to be happy any more. I don’t mask my emotions to such an extent and I let my loved ones know when I’m feeling sad and lonely. It feels good to be authentic.

I love being mindful and appreciating beauty. Seeing the bright kiwi sunlight streaming through green leaves on the trees; revelling in the gob-smacking glory of a West Coast sunset; enjoying the wide-open spaces and eye-stretching views over the South Pacific Ocean off the east coast of New Zealand; the joy of being an adoring mother to two adorable kittens; aching with unconditional love for my daughter; my gratitude, pure and simple, for my good life.

Joy is fleeting and may be overwhelming if it were a constant. I’d be rich if I collected a dollar for every time I heard a person in early recovery say ‘I just want to be happy!’ They say it as if they’re entitled in some way to just be happy.

There’s nothing like having a clean brain to increase my chances of experiencing pure unadulterated joy. I can see the difference now between serotonin that my clean brain produces all on its own when I feel joy, compared with the delirious pleasure I got, full of alcohol and other drugs and dancing to 130 beats per minute on a dance floor with 20,000 others.

There’s no hangover, for starters

I can get a sense of joy by simply feeling sun on my skin. Or flinging myself into the surf on a hot summer day. Or hugging someone I love — especially my daughter and grand daughter.

The sense of peace and serenity after a full-body massage is something I’m eternally grateful for. My gentle masseuse is a lovely woman and we often have great talks during that oily hour. Same with my hairdresser who does a mean head massage when she applies conditioner.

I love it when I see one of my stories on Medium get a few likes and reads and a feeling of gratitude washes over me and spurs me on to keep writing.

Music also lifts me up and adds to my sense of joy. A life without music would be unbearable and I’m constantly grateful that musicians have their special gift. Some days I can get ‘high’ on a particularly beautiful piece of music — whether it’s ‘Creep’ by Radiohead and the way the guitar crashes in on the word creep; or the wonderful melancholy of ‘Spiegel Im Spiegel’ by Satie; or the serenity of Sibelius’ ‘Swan of Tuonela’; or the wit of ‘God Save the Queen’ by the Sex Pistols.

I find joy in being totally engrossed in a good bit of film-making such as a sweet Kiwi movie called Cousins that I streamed the other day. Good film and TV is my drug of choice these days and I thank god for the script writers and directors and actors who entertain us.

I bought two pieces of clothing yesterday and felt joy as I walked down the street, with something to look forward to when I go to work next week wearing a beautiful new dress. It’s been a while since I’ve been shopping for clothes and the novelty of that process was very cool.

I feel as if I’m just getting started, writing about the joy of recovery, so maybe I’ll give this another whirl some time.

Thanks for reading.

Find me at www.solutionsauckland.com