Sobriety, Part Three
This was originally written and posted as a series on Instagram on October 28th, 2021
Got engaged? Cheers!
Went a week without drinking? Cheers!
It’s so ass backwards that I felt like the best way to celebrate how good I felt after a week of not drinking, was to drink. But this is what we are taught our entire lives. When you try and shift this mindset you are literally rewiring your brain and undoing years of conditioning. It’s only natural that you’re met with resistance from your own mind.
Despite the feeling of wanting to celebrate my sobriety, something in me kept pushing to go a little longer. I felt good, and I didn’t really have any reason to drink except in celebration of my week off. So I kept on.
On day 8, I had an encounter with someone who I saw regularly at a yoga class. And to this day, I truly think this was a major factor in transforming my sober curiosity into a sober lifestyle.
She and I chatted before class, and I told her about my week off from drinking.
She stopped and said, “ohhh that’s it! I can see it in your face.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You look brighter. Your skin looks great and I don’t know, you just look …bright.”
I was floored. To be honest, I probably I hugged her after that.
Call me naive, but I had no idea that my wine in the evening was fucking with my FACE. We hear about the negative effect alcohol has on the body all the time. But you never think that it’s actually happening to YOU. Or at least I didn’t.
In my head, that only happened to alcoholics. Only people with severe addiction would see the effects of alcohol visibly on their face and body. Surely that wasn’t happening to me.
🤯💡 🤯💡🤯
Someone I saw on a regular basis had just told me that I looked VISIBLY better this week than I did last week.
Call me vain, but do you think I went home and grabbed a drink after that?
Hell no. Onto week 2.