When staying is actually the hardest part.
They say that starting something new is always the hardest part, right?
The first day of embracing a new habit. The first shaky step into an unknown future. The first few words of the first blog post - hopefully the first of many to come! Whatever it is…it’s always fucking tough to just get started.
Or is it? Maybe starting is actually the easy part?
I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty good at starting new things. I find myself making bold decisions and launching myself into new possibilities all of the damn time. And it feels GREAT in the moment, exhilarating even. I can really get off on that shiny, brand-new kind of feeling.
Yet, the part I personally really struggle with, the part I’m reeeeeally bad at is…staying. It’s the commitment piece. The bit where I see things through no matter what. The part where I am able to stay grounded and locked into my integrity and chosen values. Especially when life gets lifey.
That is what I suck at. Completely. In all areas of my life. Very sucky indeed.
But especially when it comes to not drinking alcohol.
Over the past 10 years, I have flipped flopped all over the place with my decision around it.
One day I’m “never drinking ever again.” The next I’m parking my car outside of the Bottle-O, marching inside (with a sense of quiet desperation) to buy yet another bottle of wine to disappear into and with a quick zip of my bank card, I break all those promises I made to myself the night before.
After a whole decade of living in this place of ambivalent purgatory, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is definitely not the place I want to be.
After a while, it starts to take its toll. The mental flip-flopping is confounding. The ongoing self-loathing you face when you have just gone and fucking done it again when you said you’d never, is completely draining. Soul-destroying even. I’m not wanting to be all dramatic over here, but seriously! It’s a hard way to [live] exist.
I’m so freaking done with it. I have to be. Because this is only getting worse.
Whatsmore, I know enough to know that the only way to avoid getting completely sucked into the centre of the inevitable black hole that is alcohol addiction, is to stop. Now. Today. For keeps.
It’ll never improve. I’ll never be able to moderate. I’ll never be the person I want to be and live the life I want to live whilst I still have alcohol in my life - period.
I get it. I accept. And with that, I begin again (for what is likely the 100th time of beginning again) to unravel myself from the chains of alcohol.
And I want to write about it here because I need to. I need to dig deeper this time. I need to have a space where I can practice telling the capital T truth. I need a place where I can safely unravel all the layers upon layers of traumas, and lessons that my 26+ year relationship to alcohol has provided me, whilst also being witnessed and seen along the way.
Hopefully, my messy ramblings here will be helpful to you too? I hope you will join me in this space and add to the conversation I crave to have here.
Let’s begin and perhaps somewhere along the line, I’ll actually figure out how to stay too.
