“The bigness that a life can be when we center it on our true desires, compared to the smallness of the one we accept when we center it on the desires we’re supposed to have.”
Holly Whitaker, Quit Like A Woman
It’s been 133 days, and it’s only been recently that my sobriety is something I feel confident enough in to talk about. I started this journey feeling like sobriety was a death sentence – that somehow my life was over at 26, all possibility of fun and connection stripped away from me. But over time, and with some help from wise, soulful women, I’ve discovered that sobriety is such a gift. It is a true home coming – the process of filling each crack of brokenness in myself with love and compassion. I’m equally terrified and over the moon with excitement to share some of my thoughts with you.
“You can be made whole again, but it is a different, more complex whole than if you had never been broken. There are new fault lines, new weaknesses, new strengths.”
Elizabeth Cunningham, Magdaline Rising
I remember sitting down with my therapist years ago, and saying, “There’s something that comes out of me when I’m drinking, it brings out my depression and makes me act like a person I don’t recognize. I’m here because I want to fix that – that shouldn’t be happening.” She tenderly responded with, “Have you ever considered that alcohol is a drug and that it doesn’t bring out your true self, but rather it’s a chemical that may be making you someone you aren’t?” ….No, I had not considered that. It had not occurred to me, and it scared me to my core to think about exploring that sentiment.
I just wanted to be normal. I was working at a Commercial Real Estate firm and was the amenity manager at a high rise building in Chicago. “Normal” was weekly, sometimes daily, happy hours, work events infused with a plethora of booze, going out until 2 or 3am with my superiors and colleagues, and showing up at work the next day, on time, with a full face of makeup and ready to drink bloodies with my coworkers. I received a promotion earlier that year because my Director told me, “You love events – you stay out late and take them seriously.” When she sat me down in her office and said that to me, I genuinely thought, “Damn. I’m either getting a promotion, or I’m getting fired.”
It was a promotion. My drinking and partying had rewarded me with a $10k raise and brand new role with the company. Of course, I was a dedicated, workaholic-type employee – that helped. But this is what I genuinely believed successful, bad-ass adulting looked like – work hard, play hard. If at any time I thought, “hey, maybe this is an issue for me,” I quickly squashed that question with the rationalization that this is “normal” behavior.
“This is important. My drinking problem, or lack there of, was qualified by comparison to other people’s drinking. It never occurred to me that people who don’t have problems with drinking don’t run around comparing their drinking to people who do have them. What did occur to me back then, was that I’d rather die than be labeled an alcoholic.
Holly Whitaker, Quit Like A Woman
You’ll notice a lot of quotes from Holly Whitaker’s book, “Quit Like A Woman.” I found this book after listening to Holly speak on a sobriety podcast, about 2 months into my sober journey. Holly’s work is transformational – and I owe almost all of my sobriety wisdom to her. I would recommend this book to anyone – as Holly’s work focuses on creating a life that you don’t have to escape from, rather than just abstaining from drinking. It’s changed my mindset from one of scarcity to abundance, and I’m forever grateful for discovering her work.
Holly writes about how the world likes to divide people into two camps when it comes to alcohol – alcoholics, and everyone else. Odds are, if you’ve ever questioned your drinking, you’ve probably determined yourself fine as long as you’re not waking up and reaching for a bottle of Jack. But I believe there is a gray area of drinking that we simply don’t talk about, and the truth is alcohol is a highly addictive, depressive, substance that can cause us all to act out of our power. I wasn’t drinking every day or doing something I regretted every time I drank, but I did come to feel that every time I did something out of my power or something that I regretted, it was while I was intoxicated.
“Alcohol is addictive to everyone. Yet, we’ve created a separate disease called “alcoholism” and forced it upon the minority of the population who are willing to admit they can’t control their drinking. And because of that, we’ve focused on what’s wrong with those few humans, rather than what’s wrong with the culture itself.”
Holly Whitaker, Quit Like A Woman
Alcohol culture – woof. I’ve found one of the hardest things to deal with in sobriety isn’t just “not drinking” but it’s navigating what life looks like in a culture completely obsessed with alcohol (thanks again for the wording on this sentiment, Holly Whitaker). Alcohol is marketed as the dream drug that is safe for everyone, unless, you have a defect that leaves you unable to handle it. I spent my whole life thinking that alcohol was such a privilege – a wonder drug that most people can handle and some people just can’t. This sentiment couldn’t be farther from the truth, and it breaks my heart that I believed, and so many believe, the only way to live your one wild and precious life is to infuse it with craft beer, fine wine, and cocktails. It isn’t a character defect or deficit if alcohol doesn’t make your life better – it’s a substance that is not essential for living a life.
Another one of my sober gurus, Glennon Doyle, speaks to this on her Addiction episode of her incredible podcast, “We Can Do Hard Things.” The entire podcast episode is phenomenal, and I HIGHLY recommend a listen.
Glennon explains that her substance abuse was a direct reflection of the society we live in. That it’s as if there’s toxic smoke in the world and some people have a gene that reacts negatively to it and makes us sick. And it’s as if we go to the Doctor, and they tell us, “Damn. You better start apologizing. You better admit that this is an issue with you and no one else. That’s the only way to get better.” (I’m paraphrasing her words here).
“I have a humility in my recovery, that understands that I am an addict and I am powerless against alcohol. But it also has an, “F You,” my recovery. That’s like, hold on a second, I was born in a culture, where every single message that I heard from the time that I was a baby was that a girl’s worth is in her beauty, and her beauty is in her smallness. That girls aren’t allowed to have big appetites and desires. That a girl’s job is to stay small. That was plastered on every billboard, and every TV, and in my home. And by the way, alcohol culture was pumped into our family…the messages we got were everywhere. The smoke was everywhere and I was just breathing.”
Glennon Doyle, We Can Do Hard Things Podcast
This hits home for me. I reject that we have to make ourselves small when it comes to addiction. I believe that we need more love, more empathy, more healing, more grace, more compassion, more softness, more rest. It is the boldest act of self love and compassion that I have ever done, to stand in the face of this world and its drinking culture and say, “Not This.” I’m done with the shame, with thinking that I am broken or not enough because this substance strips me of my power and makes me less of myself. My heart breaks for the world that we live in, that makes us believe we could ever be made whole from something outside of ourselves.
Sober Adventures have lead to much more time outdoors 🙂
I started this journey with a commitment to 30 days of sobriety. I wanted to find a sense of groundedness and clarity, as navigating my new life in Korea became increasingly difficult. As I reached the end of the first 30 days, I realized that I had no idea who I was without alcohol. I realized that it’s how I relaxed at the end of a crazy day, how I celebrated the happy times, how I planned romantic date nights, and how I created community with new friends. I loved wine so much that it became part of my personality – I loved happy hours, pairing wine with food, and sharing it with friends. I loved having a glass of wine in my hand while I cooked and sharing a bottle at a dimly lit wine bar with my boyfriend on romantic date nights. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with any of these things, but I found that I had to discover who I was without this substance in my life. I don’t want to find myself on my deathbed wondering who my true self was, or who I could have been without it.
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Mary Oliver, The Summer Day
A year or so ago I wrote in a journal, “I wonder who I could become if alcohol wasn’t in my life.” It took me over a year to answer that deep call my heart was begging for. I’m so empowered and ya’ll, there’s STILL not a day that goes by that my brain doesn’t dead ass go, “What if you never drink wine again in Italy?” Yes, I love Italy and would like to live there long term someday but like, WHAT IS THIS QUESTION?! You know what would happen? I’d go to Italy and take in the food, and the sea, and the sun, the music, the architecture, and the history and the beauty and I’d be present for every god damn second of it.
I have the worst “fear of missing out” or “FOMO” out of everyone I have ever met. Truly – it’s comical. But rather than feeling like I’m missing out on things by being sober, I think of all I’ve missed out on by drinking, and all I will miss out on if I keep alcohol in my life.
I had this idea that success as a travel blogger was traveling the world and pairing all my food with wine and drinking beer in dark pubs. I wanted to be Anthony Bourdain and “drink heavily with locals whenever possible.”
But, I’m not Anthony Bourdain. I’m Lexie Fucking Polk, and I plan on being present for every moment of this one wild, and precious life of mine.
All my Love,
Lex
