Day 3, Part 2 — My Face Is a Mural of Bad Choices

Mostly, the choice of numbing my life with alcohol

Photo by Aimee Vogelsang on Unsplash

Sober Journey Day 3 - Part 2

My face is a mural of bad choices

I’m writing at a desk in a hotel this morning. There’s a huge mirror in front of me. I’m avoiding making eye contact.

I don’t want to look up and see what I’ve done to myself. The bags under my eyes are epic. Pouches I could carry kittens in. I can see the effects of my liquid diet plain in the tiredness of my skin, the bagginess of my jowls. No, I’m not a spring chicken, but this is more than just age.

This is a mural of bad choices.

I haven’t been drinking as much this time as I have in the past, but there have been some really bad seasons. Not bad seasons of life necessarily, but bad seasons of me deciding that drinking was better than living my life.

Better than being present and aware.

Alcohol Is a Sticky, Goopy Bandaid

Sometimes being aware is painful and overwhelming.

Alcohol is just a bandaid though. It’s one of those really sticky, cheap bandaids that takes willpower to rip off and leaves that dark, ugly, goopy residue behind. The ones that take days of scrubbing to get the grime off, and the wound is just the same as when you tried to cover it up. The wound needs light, air, truth to heal…not a heavy coverup.

This is one of the primary reasons we drink. Isn’t it? Life seems too real, too hard, too present, sometimes even too bright, and we just want to get away from it. Just for a minute. And that minute can be great, but when light seeps back in and you haven’t actually dealt with anything, the reality can seem even worse.

So what’s the answer?

Well, it depends on what you’re running from

For me it’s silly. Really silly. I’m an introvert. A pretty extreme one. But I have a very active, exuberant family. My kids are 11 and 12 as I’m writing this and they are VERY active and VERY present. I love them more than my own breath, but there are moments when I feel spent. Like if someone says one more word to me or needs me for one more thing or I have to make one more decision about which movie is appropriate or where my girl’s phone is in the house or when my dogs need to go to the vet or the groomer’s or, or, or…I might just walk out the front door and not come back.

On top of that I’m a thinker. I’m constantly thinking. Shutting my mind off is nearly impossible. It’s exhausting. I have no tools. I don’t journal. I don’t have anyone I can really talk to and pour out ALL that’s on my mind. So it sits, just rolling around. The thoughts aren’t negative or toxic. They’re just constant. Like being on a treadmill that never, ever stops.

So a drink gives me a brief break. Or at least that’s what I think it will do. And sometimes it does. I’ll admit…I mean let’s be completely honest. Sometimes those few moments of escape are pure bliss.

But inevitably, at least nine times out of ten, the aftereffects are much, much worse than what I was trying to escape from in the first place.

Alcohol tends to turn me negative. It tends to highlight, heighten, and exacerbate anything in my life I might be discontent with.

The feelings of discontentment and discouragement can be so overwhelming that, guess what, I want to drink more to get away from those feelings. And the vicious cycle continues and there’s no escaping it.

Sober = Rational and Logical

Pure, clean, clear-minded sobriety is surprisingly the only real escape. Because when you’re sober, you get to decide what you want to think about or how you want to relax instead of the drink deciding for you.

I’m so aware of this now, as I’ve gone through multiple attempts of remaining sober over the last eight or nine years. Recently, when I found myself in such a state of drunken negativity and started saying things to my husband that were very unhelpful, I also said, “See, this is why I shouldn’t drink. I didn’t want to say that. I shouldn’t have said that. I never would’ve said that if I was sober.”

One might ask, are those things you actually should be saying but are holding back? Are you not dealing with issues?

Maybe. But I often find that when I am clear-minded, I can look at my “issues” rationally and logically without all the emotion of booze behind them.

I find I’m more content with my life when I’m clear-headed.

Alcohol is like that person who’s always trying to stir up problems and poke the bear. It likes to push your buttons and knows all of your buttons to push.

Sober may be intense sometimes, and that’s when I excuse myself and go to bed early or go for a walk or go sit in my car.

There’s always a better way than soothing with alcohol. Always.

And the pouches under my eyes are going to shrink too.