Day Sixteen: Waking Up To My Life

I started off doing this really naively and thought life would continue mostly as normal.  It would just be me not drinking and not spending long nights at the bar.  That would be the change.  And I still feel that way much of the time, then I start looking at sobriety blogs or listening to The Bubble Hour. From there I am learning about all the complexities to lifestyle, identity and loved ones that sobriety impacts.  After I read or listen about sobriety I’m left teary-eyed, with a knotted stomach and slightly panicked.  I can’t tell if this information are veils being pulled aside to help me see some truths or if they are causing unneeded angst about situations that don’t parallel mine.

I did not realize how far reaching my non-drinking quest would become in my life. Sometime sobriety feels like these tentacles growing out of me and wrapping themselves around everything around me.  I don’t think I need to make sobriety the center of my world like some people need.  I’m not going to do a career change to focus on sobriety, I still don’t want friends that are specifically recovering alcoholics, even though I’d like to ask a resource person some questions face-to-face as I go through this.  Fuck, only at Day 16!  Doesn’t feel like such an accomplishment sometimes.  I feel like I’m learning how to roller skate in front of everyone that are professionals while not picking it up very fast.  They are staring bemused and I’m feeling so stupid and an object of ridicule. Why do I imagine sober people laughing at my struggling first steps? Ugh.   So much unnecessary shame.

I need to tell Husband what I’m planning to do. It’s time, and we are now moved into our new place, love it!  I have some weeks under my belt to prove to myself and show him that I’m serious about this and I need his support.  I don’t know what that support will look like yet, we will have to figure it out together.  I hope he does not come to resent me taking the fun out of our lives.  I hope that this brings us closer and does not divide us into drinking and non-drinking camps.  That is the worst fear of them all: will there come a point that I have to choose between sobriety and my husband?