I had a weekend! Friday night I went to the climbing gym and climbed with Maddie. On Saturday I climbed outside in Clear Creek with Caleb and Ashley. Then on Sunday I went to Copper Mountain with Caleb and went skiing.
On Monday I needed a rest day.
I used to live by the mantra “Never Miss a Monday”. I would force my still hungover body to spin class on Mondays after work because I had to start the week-long process of burning off all the toxic shit I put into my body over the weekend. I would feel immense amounts of shame if I wasn’t able to dig up the strength to get to that class. There were some Mondays that I hurt too much to do anything more than head home right after work, eat something full of carbs, and head to bed.
It was not the way I wanted to be living.
It was so toxic. This constant cycle of binge drinking, eating unhealthy late night food, staying up so late and then sleeping past noon the next day. And then trying to rid myself of it at the gym all week. It was punishment. I thought I had it figured out.
Now I go hard on the weekend but in a different way. I try to figure out how much I can squeeze out of my body, not how much I can put in. And so far I’m pretty impressed with what I am able to do.
Lately I might be missing my Mondays but I’m not missing the way they used to be.
I had my third therapy appointment and we talked more about my family. About how I carry them around with me even though I moved away ten years ago. How I wish they would take steps to improve themselves and the family dynamic. About how I’m the peacekeeper, the deflector. I put my needs last in order to deescalate. It’s not my job and making it my job is inappropriate. The word inappropriate really stung and it stuck with me. It’s my family, of course I’m going to help them and of course I want to make things better. But I can’t, it’s not my job, and it’s hurting me.
I was tired and cold when I got home because I’m refusing to turn on my heat because I don’t want to pay for it. I couldn’t journal like I planned because feeling all of those emotions was too much. I distracted myself with SNL on YouTube. The thought of going to Jarrod’s was overwhelming. I wanted to eat an entire cake or a gallon of ice cream. Driving and finding parking and then sitting outside was too much. I didn’t have the energy to fake being ok to my friends. I sat by my window frozen. I’m so lonely but I can’t reach out to anyone. So I laid down in bed, fully clothed, under the covers. It was defensive sleeping because being a breathing, feeling person was too hard. I didn’t want to eat my feelings so I slept them off. I lied to myself that I would only lay down for a little while to warm up and rest but I knew exactly what I was doing. I wasn’t going anywhere. My phone never rang so I figured no one cared if I was there or not. No one missed me. That’s fine. Except I had the ringer turned off, my friends did text me wondering where I was. Kara was really concerned. I called her just as she was about the leave and check on me. Then the shame spiral started. I felt terrible for not going. I should have texted Kara that I wasn’t going. I knew I wasn’t going. Only Kara knows even part of the truth about why I wasn’t there. I’ll see her tonight and try to explain, I hope she understands.
I think the only Monday night plans I can make from now on can only involve Kara or Caleb and climbing. No big plan commitments for the time being. Just Alyssa and Mike’s housewarming (I need a costume, kill me). No other plans except climbing and outdoor stuff. Only things that make me feel genuinely happy.
I want to get to a place where I can sit with discomfort. I’m not there yet and I need to forgive myself for that. Do I need to start meditating? Fuck, I don’t want to. What else can I do?
I have started seeing a therapist. My anxiety has been off the rails lately and instead of waiting for it to subside and then convincing myself that I don’t need help I seized the moment and made an appointment.
I have a history of not feeling believed by health care professionals. My problems have been minimized. My pain has been untreated. My fears have been dismissed. My doctor didn’t believe me when I told her I was in fact still a virgin at 21 years old.
“Not even one time?” she asked. “Are you sure?”. Yeah lady I’m pretty positive I’ve never had sex. Fuck you Laila Attar, you treated my sister badly too.
I was fully prepared to hear this again on Monday. That my problems are normal, that I don’t need therapy, that I should grow up and deal with it all on my own. But that’s not what happened. At the end of the session where I hadn’t even addressed half of what’s going on my therapist said I should try to come in twice per week.
Seriously?!?
I thought you were going to show me the door because there are people out there who need therapy way more than I do.
I can’t go twice per week due to my schedule and financial reasons but I’ll be going once a week starting now. It’s going to be hard but I think it will help. I’m starting to believe that I deserve to get help and I deserve to be happy.
My sobriety is strong these days. I don’t have cravings and I rarely think about drinking. I still attend LifeRing meetings because I like the people and I usually glean something from one of their stories. Rarely these days do I hear something at a meeting that takes my breath away.
I heard something last night at a meeting that resonated with me. When I heard it, time slowed down, just for a moment.
“Alcohol did the things for you that you couldn’t do for yourself”
::Big Exhale:: Wow! Yes. It soothed my anxiety. It eased my social awkwardness. It made me feel interesting and fun and desirable. And it worked really well for a number of years. But then it stopped working and I ignored the fact that it had stopped working for a long time after that.
When I stopped drinking I had to learn to do those things myself. I’m still learning. The learning and the growing never stops. I wouldn’t choose to have it any other way.
I went to Crested Butte to celebrate the New Year with friends. They drank I was sober. I had a fabulous time. Christian, a friend of mine, asked me a bunch of very thoughtful questions about my sobriety. It was the first time in a long time that I’ve felt like someone really listened to me, heard me, and cared. He asked questions, I answered them and he listened. He didn’t try to tell me what to do or how to feel like so many people have done before. It was really nice.
During that conversation I told him I had started this blog and I immediately regretted it because I never intended for anyone in my real life to read any of this. He wants to find it but I don’t think he will. But just incase I have titled this blog post as seen above. Below is what I wrote about an experience I had while skiing by myself on New Year’s Day…
This was the view from the balcony of the condo we rented.
I generally don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I use my birthday to mark the passing of another year and take time at the end of the summer to reflect and decide how I want to move forward. This year will be different. There are a number of qualities and traits I possess that I don’t like. I can usually forgive myself when I’ve been lazy or spent money irresponsibly. One thing I do that I can’t forgive myself for is being judgmental. I really hate it when I do that.
I believe that every person we meet as the potential to teach us something. On New Year’s Day I was on the receiving end of some judgment. Two strangers made me feel like a poor dumb idiot. Long story short they kept pointing out how foolish it was for me to buy two half day lift tickets instead of one season pass. In a sense they were right. But they were also very wrong. They don’t have all the information, they don’t know me, and they don’t know my goals and priorities. I hate having to justify my choices once I’ve made them. While I’m still in the “deciding phase” I love to hear opinions and advice. But once I’ve made up my mind that’s it. I didn’t want to sit there and justify myself to two strangers, I didn’t have the energy or desire. So I shut down the conversation and we continued our chairlift ride in awkward silence. Looking back I could have chosen a different way to do this but what I said came from an honest place. This interaction has been dominating my thoughts ever since. If I’m going to think about what happened and replay what was said over and over again in my head then I might as well try to find the lesson.
The lesson I learned is to quit it with the judgment. Those two strangers knew nothing about me and I knew nothing about them. They don’t know that I almost drank myself to financial ruin. They don’t know that I’ve had to work hard on my relationship with money. That I took out a debt consolidation loan so I could pay off my credit card debt. I have a car payment and I’m still paying back my student loans. They don’t know that I just spent half of my emergency fund on dental work. They don’t know that I’m doing the best I can. Let me repeat that for myself: I am doing the best I can.
It didn’t feel good to be judged by those people on the chair lift so moving forward I want to judge people less. I want to ask more questions so I can learn where they are coming from. I may not agree with the choices other people make, the things they do, or the words they speak. But that’s going to have to be ok. I won’t always understand but I’d like to work towards acceptance. I also want to choose my words and the tone with which I say them more carefully. I know that sometimes I can sound judgmental when it’s not my intention. For example, talking about how a ten mile hike is no big deal for me in front of a person who would struggle to do that same hike might make them feel bad. And not too long ago I was that person.
I want to be less judgmental. I want to be more accepting. I want to recognize the path that others are walking and even though it’s different than mine it’s no less right.
I had a major personal breakthrough about a week ago while I was listening to my favorite podcast, HOME. The hosts, Holly and Laura, have both dealt with disordered eating in the past and it comes up as a topic on the podcast. During this episode they interviewed a woman who also struggled with disordered eating. I was shocked at how much I could relate to what they talked about. Here is a list of things I never thought were that abnormal (but it turns out they are):
I can’t eat or drink anything without evaluating it’s degree of healthiness or unhealthiness
I have always felt a fear of scarcity around food
I am hyper aware of how much others eat around me and how much I eat around them
I get anxious when there are too many people eating in the break room at work
I constantly think about all the food I eat before, during, and after I have eaten it
I have felt angry at myself for being hungry when I think I shouldn’t be
I have done very intense workouts in anticipation of eating a lot or as a result of it
Food was my first drug. It’s that simple. It’s also something that I’ve always known but now I know. I have always had disordered eating patterns and thoughts. Now I see that many of my behaviors around food are the same as those I had around alcohol. One bite is too much but then I can’t get enough. The same with alcohol. I would constantly monitor how much everyone around me was drinking and making sure I wasn’t drinking more than them even though I desperately wanted more. When a bottle of wine was ordered to share I would make sure I somehow got the biggest pour without being detected. When eating family style with friends I have an inner struggle between how much food I want to take and how much I allow to end up on my plate.
Growing up, eating dinner in my house was a competition. Who could eat the most before the food was gone. There were no leftovers. It’s not because we were poor and couldn’t afford enough food it’s because no matter how much my Mom would make it all got devoured. My Dad is a fast eater. There was no such thing as not taking seconds. To this day I portion out servings at dinner so I can go back for more even though the total amount of food I eat could fit on my plate at one time, I have to go back for seconds or I don’t feel satisfied.
I tired to become anorexic. I learned about anorexia and bulimia in middle school and while the idea of throwing up turned me off I was very interested in the concept of just not eating. In high school I would skip breakfast and then eat a bite or two of a sandwich at lunch. As I left school I had every intention of not eating until dinner where I thought I would eat a small portion. But as soon as I got home I would eat everything I could. I would graze on everything that was in the house. By eating small amounts of everything I could I avoided being detected. After my binge (because I was starving, no shit) the shame would hit me and I would sink so low. My stomach would hurt and I’d feel sick but I never made myself throw up. I wanted to sit with my pain and discomfort because I deserved it because I was failing at being anorexic. BECAUSE I WAS FAILING AT BEING ANOREXIC. I was ashamed that I wasn’t strong enough to starve myself.
So it should be no surprise to anyone, including myself, that I fell in love with alcohol. Considering my anxiety, depression, low self esteem, and intense need to fit in it’s no wonder that alcohol took the place of food in my life when I went to college and drank for the first time. Alcohol was even more effective than food. It was the thing I had been searching for, clawing for, to use to change how I felt.
I have been dealing with addiction for much longer than I first thought. I have been an addict my whole life. My first drug was food.
I need to be easier on myself, kinder to myself. I need to treat myself gently because I’ve been living in a way that has been tearing me apart for a long time.
I have an app on my phone called Thoughtback. You record a thought and save it and the app randomly sends thoughts back to you. I love it. I use it mainly for motivational quotes. Every once in awhile I’ll get a really weird random thought, those are from when I was still drinking.
The thought I got sent today was “you’ve worked too hard to give up now”. This applies to two areas of my life: sobriety (of course) and weight loss.
Yesterday was my 11 month anniversary and I feel like I’m cruising right along. One year will be here before I know it. I don’t feel like I want to give up on my sobriety but I’m starting to feel like “isn’t this enough?”. I haven’t drank in a year isn’t that amazing? Can I just be done now? I confided in a coworker that I no longer drink and she couldn’t believe it. She said “even if you decided to start drinking again right now I’d still be so impressed with what you’ve done”. And I guess it’s true, what I’ve managed to do is impressive. But is it enough to be impressive? That’s not what I started out to do. Being impressive was not the end goal. The end goal was to live a healthy, happy, and balanced life without alcohol because I just couldn’t keep it around any more. I don’t want to give up but I want to know when it’s over. When is the learning and struggling and the meetings and the work over? I know the answer is never, it’s never over. Dwelling on that thought is overwhelming.
My weight loss journey has been going great, Omada is really working for me. But I’m getting back to the weight I was at around my 30th birthday which is great to be back down there but also a little terrifying. When I push past a certain number on the scale I will be entering unknown territory. I will also reach a point where I have no clothes in my closet that will fit me. Haven’t I lost enough (86 pounds) already? I’m no longer obese, I look good and I feel good, my friends are noticing and giving me compliments, can I just be done? I know the answer is no. My goal was to be at a healthy weight, being overweight was never my goal. If I continue to lose weight at the rate I have been, which is a 7% loss over 16 weeks, I will reach my goal by November 7th. Of this year! Nine months from now!
I better start saving money for new clothes or it’s going to be a cold winter.
This past Saturday marked 10 months of sobriety for me. It feels like so much and nothing has happened since the last time I wrote. My most important accomplishment was going through the holiday season sober for the first time in a decade. Maybe I’ll share more about it at a later date. All I want to say for now is that I spent New Years Eve alone in my apartment and it was fine.
Here is what moved me to my keyboard and got me typing today: I want to become a yoga teacher and use my skills to help people in recovery. There it is, I have set my intention.
Last night was the first night of the Great American Beer Festival. I have either attended or volunteered at this festival every year since 2008. This has been a do not miss event for me every year. Two years ago I chose an expensive flight home for a wedding just so I could squeeze in two sessions. I used to base much of my identity on my knowledge of craft beer and the industry itself. I prided myself on who and how much I knew.
I could never have guessed where I would have been last night instead. When I decided to get sober seven months ago I would never have thought I’d be at an Y12SR meeting instead of GABF. But I was and I’m so grateful that I was able to be there and I was actually happy to be there.
I shared last night about how much life can change in just a short amount of time. Sometimes these seven months have felt like the longest stretch of time and then it can also feel like a blink of an eye. It was nice to look back and reflect on how far I’ve come. I started and still maintain a regular yoga practice, I’ve cultivated relationships with my home LifeRing group, I’ve lost weight, I experience less anxiety, I’m more active, I ended a relationship that wasn’t working, and I’ve saved up a significant amount of money which makes me feel more secure.
Sobriety is fabulous.
Today:
March 7th, 2016 was SEVEN months ago so happy anniversary to me! I will celebrate by going for a run, maybe yoga if I can get there in time, not drinking, planning tomorrow’s day hike, eating a healthy dinner, and getting to bed early.
Everything:
I’m been struggling with depression since breaking up with Dave. I was ok the first two weeks or so but now all of a sudden this week the loneliness and depression have hit my hard, seemingly out of nowhere. I don’t want to drink because I know it will only make the situation worse. I don’t want to drink because my sobriety is so important to me. But at the same time I am grasping for something to make the way I feel go away. I don’t want to sit with these feelings. At the same time I don’t want to talk about it either. I just want to be alone. I know that’s not going to make me feel better but it’s what I needed this week. I’m really glad I dragged myself to LifeRing Wednesday and went to Y12SR last night because I am feeling a little better today. I’m going to be ok, I know I won’t feel like this forever.
I’d like to end this post with a quote from Holly Whitaker:
“Dealing with the world straight up with no numbing is hardcore. Not the other way around.”
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Sink Full of Dishes 