Tag: sobriety

sober lifestyle

Inspiration

jenwielgusjournalism

I’m a recovery junkie, craving anything and everything having to do with beating addiction. No amount of “you are not alone” seems to be enough.

That might explain why I’m now writing two or three blog posts per week on this subject, and on top of attending a regular Thursday 12-step meeting, I’m filling most of my free time devouring the inspirational stories of fellow addicts.

Including “Approved AA Literature,” I’ve read 24 “Quit Lit” books in the past 427 days. Some of them multiple times.

Can’t count the actual number of sober podcasts I’ve played on my phone while working out in my basement or walking in the park, but I have a solid rotation of four or five “shows” that I subscribe and look forward to every week.

I owe so much of my progress to these authors and speakers. I’ve never met them, but they feel like friends, and I owe them all a huge debt of gratitude.

Thus the list I’m going to post below. Not that anyone mentioned will ever know how much they’ve done for me, but for anyone reading this who’s struggling with addiction — or just an unhealthy relationship with alcohol/drugs/food/love — I feel like my heroes can help you, too.

Enough with the intro. Let’s get to that list.

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sober lifestyle

Aspiration

jenwielgusjournalism

You know how people ask, “What would you do if money wasn’t an issue?” as a way of getting at your true goals?

As a little kid, I would’ve replied, “Cover the Cubs for the Chicago Tribune,” except I thought being a reporter was, in fact, a stable, well-paying job that set you up for a comfy life. 🤣 I also had no clue that life as a pro sportswriter was 90 percent waiting around to talk to dudes who just stepped out of the shower and were, like, actively trying to avoid talking to you. 🤣🤣

My gut said, “Write books,” but I only verbalized those words as a kind of pie-in-the-sky “reach.” Even in a childhood characterized by creative invention, I had trouble imagining such a free-wheeling, left-to-your-own-devices lifestyle. How would you support yourself, just sitting there and writing?

You had to pay your bills. You needed a “real job.” Dreams were cool, but money was an issue, and despite my youth, I somehow understood the importance of setting “practical” goals. Middle class kids who wore clothes from Venture had to pick something “safe.” Dreams were for the rich kids with a built-in safety net!

That’s how I thought, and it probably explains why it took me until age 42 to start thinking about my true purpose and how I might go about pursuing it.

I think I might have figured out what my dream is, and instead of throwing up a bunch of knee-jerk “reasons why not,” I’m sort of actually allowing myself permission to say, “Why not?”

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sober lifestyle

Negativity

jenwielgusjournalism

Forgive me if I play the blame game here, but I just can’t accept that my absolutely 💩💩-y attitude this week has been due to my being an actual 💩💩-y person.

It has to be side effects from the mental health medication and the hormonal 💩💩-show of middle-aged menstruation, topped with a liberal sprinkling of work stress, that’s making me a snarling, feral beast who wants to eat the face of every human I encounter — in person or virtually (especially virtually) — and smash to bits every inanimate object that doesn’t fully and immediately cooperate with my efforts to open, move or operate it (I’m 👀 at YOU, broken washing machine), and who is currently sitting here flinging 💩💩 at strangers on the internet.

I’m also sitting here with 425 days of sobriety, and while that’s notable, I think it’s clear that it does not make me a shiny, happy person able to deftly handle her 💩💩. (Ok, I’ll stop with the poop.)

I went on my weekly Zoom recovery meeting, video turned off so no one could see my bitter, sulky facial contortions, and confessed to “hating everything and everyone right now” and “not wanting to be here,” and while “hate” is indeed a poor choice of words, that was me actually trying to hold back. So as not to offend! Truth be told, when I went to share, about 20 minutes into the meeting, I contemplated hitting the “leave” button instead of the little mic to un-mute. Just, you know, 🤬 this! I’m out!

So, you get the picture. It’s ugly. I’m acting c*nty, and I own it.

Now what?

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sober lifestyle

Regret

jenwielgusjournalism

It’s not that I don’t have some beautiful memories of the once-in-a-lifetime, two-week trip to Hawaii I was fortunate enough to be invited on, back in August of 2015. It’s that the “bad,” or at least cringe-worthy, ones are so hauntingly vivid that they crowd out everything else.

I suppose I’m lucky to have any recollections at all of that time, given how much of it I spent intoxicated.

Part of early sobriety, I’m finding, is flashback attacks that hit at random moments, without warning. It’s like my brain is healing itself by scanning for sores and starting to apply ointment, creating some ugly, pus-like seepage in the process. 🤢

Sound gross? I’ll tell you, it is. Picture me relaxing on my deck at 14 months sober, listening to a peaceful, calm “beach massage” meditation track and suddenly, WHAMMO, I’m back to slipping on the wet tile stairs of a cabana in Kailua while double-fisting bottles of Corona I was drunkenly carrying back to the beach, then lying there bleeding profusely in a pile of broken glass while my traveling companions look on disgustedly, no doubt noting that just a few days earlier, they watched me drunkenly horsing around at the pool, and slipping and face-planting on a rock, cracking my front tooth and busting open my lip and cheek.

(Enlarge the attached picture — snapped, I think, in a blackout — and you can see the scabs.)

I lost a lot of blood on that trip. I also lost quite a few friends.

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sober lifestyle

Renunciation

jenwielgusjournalism

So we could also call shenpa ‘The Urge’ — the urge to smoke that cigarette, to overeat, to have another drink, to indulge our addiction, whatever it is. Sometimes, shenpa is so strong that we’re willing to die getting this short-term symptom relief. The momentum behind the urge is so strong that we never pull out of the habitual pattern of turning to poison for comfort.”

— Pema Chödrön

The Urge is strong with this one. It has been all week. I could feel it building, or more like steadily pulsing in the center of my chest, and I described it to my therapist as feeling like I was plugged in to the Tesseract…you know, from the Marvel Universe?

She knew. Thank goodness. Nothing more awkward than when a pop culture reference falls flat. 😉

It’s an apt analogy, too: an indefatigable, incredibly powerful energy source that will not stay frozen or buried and can reawaken at any time and threaten to destroy everything. That, my friends, is the compulsion behind addiction.

It distressed me that at nearly 14 months sober, after several dull, sleepy — one might even say balanced — months, my old core issues had seemingly jolted back to life. Why now? What triggered this familiar, scary rush of need, to buy things, exercise all day, scroll through Twitter and Facebook, snap selfies…and write blogs on blogs on blogs?

All of the above = healthier than drinking tequila. So, there’s that. At the same time, it’s plain to see that the mere absence of alcohol does not remedy the underlying problem. It merely exposes it, more raw and real than ever before.

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sober lifestyle

Profession

jenwielgusjournalism

I didn’t tweet it. That’s the old me, rushing to share publicly every thought and event that moves me personally. (I do that here now! Much more mature! 😂) I don’t want to sound tone deaf. Or materialistic. Or like someone who thinks she’s immune to the universe’s twisted, jinx-y sense of humor.

“Watch me get fired tomorrow,” I texted my parents, along with a screenshot of my bank statement, showing what I believe to be the largest direct deposit of my post-college life. 🤑

Recovery from alcoholism doesn’t cure fatalism. I’m still a girl who’s prone to go to extremes.

This girl 💁🏼‍♀️👈🏻 just made it through her first payroll cycle as a full-time content marketing manager for a multi-brand, multinational company (I was part-time in July)…and she did not celebrate with a drink. 🚫🍻

Celebration does seem in order, though. Yes, my salary is relatively modest, and pretty much all earmarked for paying off credit card debt, but given my uphill professional journey over the past two years (411 days of it stone cold sober), I can’t help but be proud of this paycheck.

It’s nice to be able to help my husband with the burden of the bills, after saddling him with the lion’s share of responsibility in our relationship for so many years.

It’s nice to feel like my skills and contributions to a company are valued. It’s nice to feel like I’m moving onward and upward, rather than hopelessly stuck or desperately sinking.

As an active addict, I was basically living in quicksand. No wonder my professional life seemed, for such a long time, to be headed for a dead end.

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sober lifestyle

Expansion

jenwielgusjournalism

What to say about the sky? I haven’t really known, so thus far, I’ve let my pictures do the talking.

The above was taken just a few hours ago in one of my favorite places on Earth: the top of the big hill on the main road into/out of Tyler State Park. The huge expanse of unobstructed, endless openness that greets you when you’ve hoofed your way up that steep incline has an effect that I can only describe as spiritual. Transcendent. Other-worldly. I’d say that the view “takes your breath away,” but unless you’re a world-class athlete, you don’t have much left to lose after completing the climb.

Today’s humid, stagnant morning air had me wheezing even more than usual.

Physically, right now, I’m not…shall we say…in great shape. At 13 months sober, walks in the park are my go-to form of exercise (when I do ramp it up to running, I head to the all-flat canal path). And at 42 years old, with a sedentary job and an increasing affinity for big meals, long naps, audiobooks and Netflix crime-show rabbit holes, I’ve…shall we say…lost some leanness from my old CrossFitting, strict-eating days.

Pre-Climb Selfie on Day 391
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sober lifestyle

Transition

jenwielgusjournalism

One day earlier this week, I was so wrapped up in trying to get a handle on my new job that I burned my dinner to a crisp.

Throwing chicken on the stove to cook, then getting distracted and completely forgetting about it is something I used to do all the time when I was drinking — no fires OR DUIs in 20 years…miraculous 🙏🏻 — and yet here I am, at 370-some days sober, up to the same dumb tricks.

I thought I’d hit a year and experience a mental metamorphosis. I’d even heard people talk about “the fog lifting” at their 1-year mark, and I’d come to expect the same. So how is it that I feel foggier now? How is it that I wake up with headaches, when I long ago traded in my tumblers of tequila for copious coffee, energy drinks and diet soda?

OK, so I know the answer to that. Hydrate properly or get hangovers; this is a fact of life for alcoholics, teetotalers and “normies” alike.

And while we’re on the subject of Wisdom We’re Currently Ignoring, they caution recovering addicts not to make any major life changes in the first year of sobriety. Well, duh! How did I not see it coming, that leaving a relatively stable, structured worker-bee role at a small agency for a leadership position at an international multi-brand company with more moving parts than I can calculate — much less comprehend — at this juncture, when skyrocketing anxiety issues have been my biggest struggle in recovery so far, by far…might be a potential trigger?

Just reading my own rambling words right now, I’m like, “Wow! This chick is NUTS!”

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