Welcome to the sober and happy podcast where we talk about all things recovery related, how to navigate the challenges that we will face along the way on our journey towards our best lives, and how we can go from living a life of simply just being sober to a life where we are both sober and happy.
There was a post in our Facebook group that stated: Alcohol and love don’t mix. You either drop the alcohol for what you love, or you drop what you love for the alcohol.
There was disagreement in the comments about whether you can experience love and addiction at the same time which got me thinking. Even if we may experience what feels like love in our addictions, I don’t know if we can really achieve deep love, because we are not the authentic version of ourselves within our addictions.
The love is based on the addicted version of us. The one that has characteristics that are brought on by alcohol and the version of ourselves that stuffs down a lot of feelings and emotions.
So how do we even begin to discover the authentic versions of ourselves and learn to embrace and love who that person is? And how do we try to develop some of the characteristics we feel alcohol gave us that we are afraid to let go of?
That is what we are going to talk about today.
So buckle up, this is going to be a great episode.
Welcome back. A few quick reminders before getting back to the episode. Our private Facebook group in less than two months has grown to over 3500 members and the members in the group are absolutely amazing. I couldn’t be more proud of the community that is growing in there. If you are looking for a great community to help support you in this journey, please go check it out. You can find it by going over to facebook.com/groups/soberandhappy. I will also leave a link in the show notes for you.
OK, now back to the episode.
When we think about addiction and recovery, we often focus on the process of breaking free from substances or destructive behaviors. But what comes after that? Sobriety is not just about abstaining from alcohol or drugs; it's an opportunity to rediscover who we truly are beneath the layers of addiction.
In the early stages of recovery, it's common to feel a sense of emptiness or loss. The substances that once masked our emotions are no longer there to provide a temporary escape. This can be both intimidating and liberating.
We also have characteristics that we feel alcohol was able to enhance or even create for us. This is one of the biggest fears people express to me when they are reaching out telling me that they are struggling with the choice of whether or not to get sober.
We worry that we won't be fun anymore or that our friends will no longer like us.
So, I think back to my drunk version of me. I felt more outgoing and confident. My fear of judgment and rejection was reduced or even eliminated at times.
But that version of me is not my authentic version. If you noticed, I said that I “felt” because alcohol never actually helped me develop those characteristics I wanted in myself. It just temporarily gave me a boost in those areas.
If you have ever played Mario Brothers, it really is like when Mario eats the star power-up that makes him invisible. He can run through all the obstacles that would once kill him completely unfazed.
However, just like in the video game, the power-up is limited by time. After it runs out, Mario is back to being regular Mario and he has to keep searching for stars to eat if he wants to regain invisibility again.
The difference though is in addiction, the power-up becomes less effective every time we use it, and the obstacles we are going through get more powerful each time.
Earlier I mentioned that alcohol made me feel more confident. But as the consequences of my addiction grew, my true confidence began to plummet. This was the case in each of the ways I thought alcohol provided benefits. It temporarily helped with my anxiety and depression, but both were worse the next day.
And then we go through the cycle of drinking or using more to try to reach that point of relief, coming down harder, and taking our use up another notch until we eventually get to the point that we really are only shooting for not feeling the pain because we rarely are able to reach the point where we get the perceived benefits we once did.
And in that whole process, most of us completely lose touch with the person we truly are. And that is when we begin to feel lost.
And getting clean and sober does not magically return us to our authentic selves and most of us feel even more lost. This is why people who simply quit drinking and stop there end up relapsing. We get so far removed from our true selves that the only person we know is the addicted version, so when things get uncomfortable and we feel lost again, we gravitate toward what we know.
But you don’t have to feel lost in your recovery.
When we face our addictions and remove alcohol or drugs from our lives, we also have the opportunity to confront the emotions and experiences that we've been trying to avoid and also work to authentically build the character traits we were chasing with our drinking.
But how do we do that?
One of the first steps in discovering your authentic self is practicing self-awareness. I find it can be helpful to look back on your past, your interests, values, and qualities that were important to you, and most importantly your dreams.
Really look back at who you were and what you enjoyed before your addictions took over.
As we start to peel away the layers of addiction, we are going to also uncover unresolved trauma or underlying issues that contributed to our struggles and led many of us to our addictions.
For example, I talked earlier about how I felt alcohol gave me more confidence. That would mean I had confidence issues before I started drinking and I was not born with those issues. If you look at a young child, they don’t have self-confidence issues. A kid learning to walk doesn’t tell himself how worthless they are and how they will never be good at walking every time they fall. They just fall, shake it off, get back up, and try again. And when they take those first two steps, they are not thinking about the other kids that are better at walking than they are. Nope, they think they are the greatest walker ever!
So, as I look at my struggle with self-confidence, I know there were a series of things that began to chip away at my confidence. Some events were little chips, and others were big chunks.
So the authentic version of me is that courageous little kid that didn’t give a shit whether I fell down in front of a room full of people. And if they laughed after a good tumble, I thought they were laughing because I was funny, not because I sucked at walking and I laughed with them.
So often when we try to develop characteristics, we think we need to learn how to become that person. However, as you see in this example, I already possessed that quality. So, my focus shouldn’t be on learning, but rather on unlearning everything that stripped that quality away from me.
Let me give you a few examples.
At some point in elementary school, I became a chubby kid. I honestly had no problem with it and didn’t know that other people would judge me for it. Until the first time someone did. I remember playing at the lake one day running around with my shirt off and someone made a comment about my belly giggling when I ran and the other kids laughed at me. I distinctly remember thinking to myself “I am not taking my shirt off in front of people anymore”. And with that one moment not only did my self-confidence take a little blow, but it began a pattern that when I was ridiculed for something my instant response was to say to myself “I am not doing that again” and I changed something about myself. With each of those moments, I drifted a little further from that authentic version of myself.
The second example has to do with my dad not being around when I grew up because his addictions caused him to be an absent parent who eventually ended up in prison for most of my childhood.
I remember thinking at some point that he didn’t love me enough or he would have chosen me over drugs and alcohol. There were many things that from the perspective of me as a child, I felt confirmed this belief.
There were the kids teasing me at school for my dad being in prison, not having him around to take me to father/son outings, and pretty much every time I saw one of my friends' dads spending time with their sons I felt their dads must love them more and as many of us do as a kid, I thought I must have done something wrong to make myself not worthy of that kind of love.
In retrospect, having experienced my own addiction problems, I know now this is not true. However, it was very real then, and had a major impact on me, that I carried forward well into my adulthood.
Identifying these things is only the first step. We have to go through the process of also unlearning the things we picked up along the way.
I am not able to explain that part of the process in this podcast for a couple of reasons. First, because the processes to do this vary and are way more than we can cover in 15 minutes.
More importantly, this is about discovering the authentic version of you, so the process also needs to be specific to who you want to be.
For example, I am still the chubby version of myself and I am working on it. For me, it is important to lose weight and get in better shape. However, someone else that has self-confidence issues around their weight may want to stay the same weight and the work they need to do revolves around body image and learning to embrace themselves as who they are.
Find the methods that align with who you want to be and that you are able to do. Therapy and self-learning have been my go-to. There are so many resources available now. Podcasts, youtube videos, support groups both online and in person, blogs, books, and online courses just to name a few.
This process addresses where we have gotten lost in our past, but what about the person we want to become? Growing and developing characteristics about ourselves is the best way to continue your progress in your recovery journey.
To do this, we need to look at the qualities that we wish we have that we may have never had the chance or the guidance to develop growing up.
I find two exercises helpful in doing this. The first one would be to look at the qualities that you felt the alcohol or drugs were providing you. These are the things we feel we are losing when we quit drinking, so it is important to work on developing these qualities once we get sober, so that we do not feel that we are losing out by no longer drinking.
The next would be the qualities that you admire in other people. We usually admire qualities that we value and would like to possess in ourselves.
The best way I have found to begin developing the qualities I desire in myself is to spend time with people that already possess them.
If you are a single man and have always struggled with maintaining healthy relationships, and your desire is to be in that type of relationship, you need to develop those skills. Do you think you are more likely to develop them by hanging out with friends who are in unhappy relationships where they treat each other badly, guys out chasing women every weekend or hanging out with people that are in healthy, happy, relationships?
Lots of people love to give advice about things they have no experience in. Surround yourself with the people that have shown that they possess the qualities you desire in yourself and you will see firsthand how to develop them.
The last thing I want to touch on is to go out and try things to see what you enjoy. I drank my entire adult life, so I really didn’t know what I liked when I got sober.
Try things you currently enjoy, things you enjoyed before the addiction took hold, and experiment with things you don’t even know if you will like or not.
I always enjoyed the outdoors. This love started when I was a kid, continued throughout my addiction, and has grown even more since I had gotten sober.
I loved bowling in high school but stopped at some point during my drinking. A few years ago I decided to join a bowling league again, and rediscovered how much I love bowling and look forward to every Monday night getting together with the other people in my league.
And I have tried many other things that I had no idea whether I would like or not. From yoga which I found definitely is not my thing to woodworking which I found is a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon every now and then.
The process of discovering your authentic self takes time and should be a lifelong process as you will continue to grow and evolve. Be patient with yourself. Your authentic self isn't something you uncover overnight. It's a continuous journey of self-exploration and self-acceptance.
But don’t let that deter you. Discovering your authentic self after getting sober is a beautiful and transformative process. It's about peeling away the layers of addiction and reconnecting with the person you were meant to be and I can’t wait for you to meet that person.
I want to thank you for listening to this episode and I hope you are finding value from listening to my podcast. If you are, I am asking for two huge favors from you this week that would help me. Share the episode with one person you think would find it impactful, and please subscribe to the podcast, both of which will help it grow.
New episodes come out each Friday, so I look forward to connecting with you next week. And as always, thank you so much for listening, and keep living sober and happy.