How sobriety transformed me from an outsider to an active participant in my own life

I went from life happening to me to making it happen✨

It’s dark, and it’s raining. “I need new windshield wipers” I tell myself for the hundredth time, resolving to write it down as soon as I’m home since mental notes are not reliable these days. Perimenopause’s short-term memory problems are alive and kicking. As I’m squinting through the driving rain I suddenly see something odd.
There’s movement ahead of me, barely discernible, but there’s definitely something. It almost looks like a chain swaying in the wind across the road, but that’s impossible. I’m on a main road, a highway, there can’t be a chain.

And then they suddenly come into focus, and I hit the brakes hard.

Cows.

A row of cows, black as night, walking next to each other like an approaching army, blocking the entire road. They are completley unfazed by my car in the way only cows can be, unaware that I could have seriously hurt them. The movement I saw are the bright yellow tags in their ears, the only thing (barely) visible of the black animals in the black night. They have stopped and stand there now, staring at me, seemingly as puzzled by my sudden appearance as I am by theirs. I roll down the window and start shouting at them: “Move, you guys, get off the road! You gonna kill someone!”

About to scatter

I snap the picture to send to a rancher friend who knows all the ranchers in the area. These cows need to be caught as soon as possible; they are both in danger of getting seriously hurt or killed, and doing the same to someone else. I chase them off the road down a lane, and then speed dial Rich.
”I almost hit a herd of black cows on the road!” I yell. “Call Ed and Jim and find out who they belong to!”
With the herd at least temporarily off the road I get back in my car and drive home.

And it hits me.
I have never done this before. All my life, if I encountered something like this - something out of place, a problem that needs to be solved - I didn’t switch into problem-solving mode. Not because I didn’t care, but because I didn’t think it had anything to do with me. I didn’t know the people of the places I lived in before. I wouldn’t know who to call. I wasn’t part of the community. So I didn’t feel part of or responsible for anything that happened there. I was like a stranger passing through, except that I wasn’t passing through - I lived in all my previous homes for many years.

For as long as I can remember I had a fear of not belonging. I felt like an outsider in my family, in the town I grew up in, in my group of friends. Speaking of friends, that was another fear: that they didn’t really like me, that they couldn’t be trusted or would leave me if I did anything wrong, that I didn’t actually had any friends.
So what did I do with all that fear and uncertainty? I drank the juice that promised to make it all better, to give me wit and confidence and a life that sparkled.

If you read my book you know how that story ends: with terrible self-loathing, significant mental health problems, and an intense fear of people, the future, and life in general.
Alcohol amplified my anxiety about not fitting in and made me an outsider in my own life.
If you’re regularly drunk, hungover, or consumed by thoughts surrounding drinking (am I drinking too much?, should I not drink tonight?, is my drinking normal?, should I stop? can I stop?) you don’t have the mental capacity to make sound decisions.
If you feel unworthy, you don’t seek out people you look up to (the contrast between them and you is too painful).
If you frequently numb yourself, you are out of touch with your own life. You don’t respond appropriately to the subtle cues your body sends you, because every time you have an emotion - anger, sadness, frustration, happiness, joy - you respond the same way: with drinking. You use alcohol to celebrate, commiserate, vent, “wine about it”, combat boredom, feel better about yourself (which always backfires, but you do it anyway, because anything else is too difficult and painful), de-stress, or because you forgot what you used to do before you started drinking all the time.

When I quit I was amazed (and initially alarmed) by the vast amount of free time I had all of a sudden. Drinking is an incredibly time-consuming activity, and once you stop it might take you a while to figure out what to do with all your newfound extra time.

I’m coming up to two years of sobriety in December. My book covers the first year, which was challenging, exhilarating, difficult and emotional. When you turn up the volume on your life after years of dialing it down, it gets overwhelming fast. Friendships were lost, my relationship changed, I stood up to bullies for the first time in my life, and I had to navigate many firsts: first sober summer, parties, birthday, Christmas.

The second year has been different in the best possible way. If I could use only one word to describe it, it would be this: EASE. Everything has been much more effortless. Peace and calm have settled in, and I’ve developed a quiet confidence I never had before. I don’t experience the restlessless that’s plagued me all my life, the urge to be or do something else, the doubting and questioning and imposter syndrome.
I know who I am, and I’m at peace with her. I like her. And with that confidence have come new friendships, new opportunities, and a certainty and positivity that are mindblowing.

Everything I’ve ever wanted in life is happening, because for the first time I’m sitting in the driver’s seat. I no longer let my anxieties and fears lead the way, because they have proven to be poor leaders. If you constantly imagine the worst, doubt yourself and believe the trolls, your life is chaos and pain. But once you take control, they lose their power over you. It simply ceases to matter what they think.
My lifelong crippling need to be liked, combined with a paralyzing fear of criticism and other people’s judgment, has disappeared.

In its place are now community, a sense of belonging, and the knowledge who to call when encountering a herd of cows on the road in the middle of the night.

Sober life truly is as good as they said - better than I could ever have imagined.

❤️ Miriam