I never planned to quit drinking. But I did plan, a lot, to take a long break. It wasn’t a decision I necessarily entered into with enthusiasm and gusto. And when I look back at my journals I had been thinking a break from drinking would be a good idea for many many years before I made a plan.
One reason I was successful, I believe, is because I got support and I saturated myself with stories, information and resources. I never in a million years would have believed that I would prefer not drinking, but I had to experience it in order to develop my desire to keep going.
Even considering it felt impossible, scary, and produced a whole lot of questions:
How will I have fun?
-Will my friends still like me?
-Will I still be invited out?
-How will I relax or handle stress?
-Who would I be?
Would I discover that I had made too many mistakes and realize I needed to change everything in my life?
The first step, I think, is willingness.
The year leading up to my 43rd birthday was hard. I was frustrated with my teaching job, my sons were 8 and 10 and I was exhausted. And while on the outside my life looked great, on the inside I felt stuck, sad, lost and so so so tired. I didn’t know who I was, what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I had lost my sense of wonder and possibility. Each day felt like a slog with no end in sight.
Meanwhile, I had been voraciously borrowing quit-lit from the library and listening to sobriety podcasts, privately peeping in on the lives of others who had cut out alcohol and were thriving.
The summer before I had picked up a copy of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and had been writing “morning pages” pretty much every day. This process of writing out longhand three pages of stream of consciousness first thing each day had started to loosen things up. Unknowingly, I was learning the power of daily practice.
For the next 7 days I am going to be sending you an email outlining the reason I took a long break, in the hopes that sharing my story will resonate with you, and to be honest, that it will inspire you to join me on a 100 day journey into a life without alcohol. That you will be willing to see for yourself what your life is like when you remove just one thing.
Please forward this onto anyone you know who might also be interested.For the next 7 days I am going to be sending you an email outlining the reasons I took a long break, in the hopes that sharing my story will resonate with you, and to be honest, that it will inspire you to join me on a 100 day journey into a life without alcohol. That you will be willing to see for yourself what your life is like when you remove just one thing.
Please forward this onto anyone you know who might also be thinking about their drinking.