Dear Diary: Life Looks Different Now

Read a bit about the new path I've found myself strolling.

Sometimes, I feel the urge to get more personal with my readers, but I don’t exactly want to share my thoughts with the broader Substack audience or the general public. So when I saw this lovely little gem…

…I knew what to do. Lock those little diary entries behind the paywall, baby!

I notoriously keep my words to myself locked away in various places: a handwritten journal, my Notes app, random scraps of paper in a folder. They are things that make my heart burn and never see the light of day. Sometimes I rip them up, light them on fire a ceremonious “letting go” of things that hold me down. Maybe now I will start putting them here, behind the paywall, to spark conversations. Or maybe it’s just therapeutic for me and you get to read some more of my words. Either works, I suppose.

Ultimately, I want to get comfortable sharing more raw material with you. Maybe you can relate. Maybe you’ll read something here and tell a friend “you can’t miss this!” and point them in my direction. Or maybe you’ll scroll on with your life after enjoying a quick peek into the depths of my journal(s). This exercise in freewriting/journaling has always helped me sort things out when I need to the most. It’s helped me to read entries like this from other writers I enjoy. In any event, if you’re a paid subscriber and reading this, I’m grateful and hope my reflections spark something within you.

With that… I’m trying out some new vibes around here. TBD how often they will drop, but I’ll feel it out and see where this goes. Definitely let me know if you’re vibing with it! Thanks for coming along with me on this journey, and welcome to “Dear Diary” — my raw thoughts and feelings, [mostly] unedited.

Dear Diary,

I have been sober for over nine months. It’s been something I’ve wanted to write about, but couldn’t find the words for a while. Being sober isn’t something I sought. It wasn’t something I needed to focus on, or frankly, something I decided to do with intention. It just sort of happened.

My last drinks, beers from a local brewery, were last July. My husband and I had dinner with some friends who were in town visiting family. We didn’t get drunk or anything. In fact, I didn’t even leave feeling too buzzed. The morning after, I felt off. Kind of gross. And I had no idea it’d be my last drink for a long time.

My sobriety was born out of a few different situations:

• The pandemic changed me. I no longer eat out at restaurants, or get together with larger groups of friends in bars or coffeeshops.

• I am frustrated every time I deal with someone who is not sober, when I am.

• I felt like utter crap after drinking. Nearly every time, very rare exceptions.

• I no longer feel the enjoyment of being “on something” and actually realized it was a major blocker to my writing, as much as I never wanted to admit that. (Whew, feels good to write that, if I’m being honest.)

I am sure if I sat here long enough, I could come up with more reasons on how and why I landed on a sober path.

I haven’t really talked about it with anyone. I don’t want to make it a big deal, because I don’t know if I will stay this way forever. I’m not trying to make some declaration. Sometimes, my husband will ask if I want to have drinks and my response since last August has been… I don’t really feel like drinking anymore. “What if I became a sober person,” I asked. Well.. what if I did, at least for a while if not for longer?

When my dad was dying, I was forced to reconcile how his drinking affected me. Part of me wishes I told him how much it hurt when he would call and say nasty things to me when he was drunk… but instead, I chose to enjoy every last visit I had with him before he passed away last August. While I don’t regret that, I do wonder how that would have played out. I don’t think any good would have come from it, if I’m being honest. Saying goodbye to him, I guess I subconsciously also said goodbye to alcohol.

Some people need sobriety. They need programs or therapy to help them maintain it. I fully believe in, and appreciate, the helpfulness of those programs. But what if I don’t need a program? What if I didn’t feel like I had a problem? I feel so ridiculous sometimes for thinking I’m a sober person, when there are people out there who have gotten sober for life-or-death reasons. And I’m just over here saying “meh, I don’t feel like drinking anymore,” like it’s no big deal, and so I don’t, and that’s how I became sober. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy, right? It makes me feel like I can’t share my journey or be honest about why I’m not drinking anymore, because I don’t want to take away from the importance of sobriety for others.

Alternatively, I suppose I can reflect on the fact that addiction runs in my family and I’ve always been very conscious of it. Because of that, I vowed to never let this extra-curricular control my life. I grew up watching the adults in my life be blasted, more often than not. Perhaps that’s why, when I was in high school, I always offered to be the designated driver for my friends. I’ve watched what addiction does to people I love (and those I don’t). It turns them into someone unknowable and it’s heartbreaking. Some would laugh and have fun, others would get violent and mean. It was hard to watch as a child (or a teenager, or an adult), seeing someone I loved go from being kind and loving to spitting vitriol toward innocent bystanders. It made me never want to be that way. Maybe I’m just strong enough to know when to stop when I partake? I don’t know.

When I was nineteen, on the cusp of turning twenty, I enjoyed a night of drinking with a visiting family member, who later told someone in my family that I “drank them under the table.” At the time — actually, through my entire drinking life — I was a social drinker. I didn’t drink often, but when I did and the situation called for it, I could get down. I would wake up feeling awful, of course. This led to an accusation of me being an alcoholic, and that I shouldn’t work in a restaurant anymore because I had a drinking problem. But I knew the truth — I didn’t drink often, and for the most part, a few drinks were all it took. It was infuriating for someone to tell me what my truth was, without them being there in the moment with me or to see it with their own eyes what really happened. It hurt and it made me question myself — did I have a problem and I just didn’t see it? But I’m not like so-and-so. I don’t drink every day, or even every week! I can’t be the one with a problem… but I know now they were actually just deflecting. I digress.

Even if I don’t think I have a problem with alcohol, I can recognize I have a complicated relationship with alcohol. But the one thing I consistently come back to: I simply don’t like how it makes me feel. I don’t like the decisions I make when I drink. I just simply don’t like it. So why did I keep doing it? Societal pressures? Knocking back a drink or two with some friends is hardly a problem for loads of people. But if I just simply don’t want to drink, I shouldn’t feel the pressure to do so… right?

Easier said than done.

Drinking culture has always made feel I need an excuse to say “no, thanks, I’m good.” Like I need a broader reason for not wanting to imbibe. If I don’t feel like it, and if I say no, that should be enough. The older I get, the less pressure I feel. Also, it’s the company. The company I keep nowadays has made it easier to simply pass and take a water or tea. I’ve also become the person sipping an iced coffee at a concert. I even don’t miss drinking alcohol.

Life looks different now, I guess.

<3

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📸 Image: Unsplash