Spring Clean
The beginning of February marks the pagan celebration of ‘Imbolc’, the beginning of spring. It is the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox; it’s a celebration of returning light to the world after the long dark days of winter. It’s the promise of renewal and growth, and is amassed in hope and possibility.
Today, I am 36 years old and 25 months sober. I started this journey over two years ago, exhausted by the weight that two decades of drinking had burdened me with. I was a teenager in the 90s, a time where wild behaviour and excessive partying was writ large as a rite of passage for many. Twenty years later, it was time to step off the rollercoaster ride of excessive drinking I’d been hurling about on – I was dizzy and confused and more than a little bit weary. Throughout the years I drank I always felt I knew who I was and what made me me… I adopted the persona of ‘party girl’ with enthusiastic and all-encompassing gusto, and was always up for a drink and whatever came with it. What I realised very quickly in sobriety was that I had a lot to learn about my true self, and it was going to require work to uncover what I’d buried for so long.
When the time came for me to stop drinking, wasting my own time, and to start taking proper control of my life, I didn’t know how much work I was going to have to do to reconnect with myself. I had no understanding of the spring cleaning I would have to do to even begin to move myself towards a place where I felt happier. I had already been through so much in my then-34 years of living; so much hurt and pain, which I had carefully hidden under countless empty bottles. It is my belief that when sobriety comes knocking, you have to want to be free from alcohol in order to make that change. I had been in a dark place when it came to my drinking habits for a very long time. Finally, in January 2020, I felt such a strong need for change that sobriety felt like the clearest route to finding happiness, restoring my health, and healing the damage I was willing to do to myself physically and mentally each day. I wanted to be sober with everything I had left in me.
I’m a mum to two daughters, and there’s never a day that goes by where I don’t feel lucky for that. Recently, however, I’ve noticed a change. I don’t feel joy very often anymore. I watched my daughters play hopscotch out in the garden yesterday and knew as I watched them that I should cherish that memory forever. And yet, no joy sparked within me. I looked out over the fields behind our house that same evening as the sun went down and a powder pink sky took over for a few minutes, and I felt a stirring of something. Something that felt a bit like joy’s supposed to feel, something that reminded me of joy except I couldn’t quite grab ahold of it. Instead, there was a kind of emptiness where my inner joy was supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while now – the absence of joy – and what I’ve come to realise, and on many levels what I have known for a long time, is that I have a sense of being disconnected. Even pre-sobriety, the world has felt like a slippery place with no handle for me to hold on to. And 25 months into sobriety, all the work I have done on myself to get me to this point leaves me disengaged and in a place that is often shrouded with sadness, and sometimes rage. I am not here out of choice. I was swept along with societal expectations and the dominant culture at a young age. I was eager to be a part of something that felt bigger than me, more fun and more exciting. It was so easy – all I had to do was drink, act wild, and suffer the next day along with everybody else. For a long time, that was what I did. Throw in a pandemic and the multitudes of stress and complications that have been added to all of our lives in some shape or form and to say I don’t know whether I’m coming or going is pretty accurate right now. Fortunately, my decision to be sober remains unwavering in this uncertain landscape and time.
As I mentioned already, I am a mother to two daughters and although I haven’t been on my own in bringing up my daughters, but situations and circumstances have all too often left me feeling like I am. So many opportunities no longer come my way and are replaced instead with struggles; financial, emotional, physical. I swallowed down my struggles with glass of wine after glass of wine, replacing the lid on the bottle and on my disappointment too. Why does this happen to so many women? There was a little while where my life seemed to make more sense and I felt like I knew where I was going and how I was going to get there. Over the years, I’ve battled anxiety, insomnia, endless hangovers, feelings of unworthiness, and self-doubt. But I was younger then, and what made it all bearable was that I still had hope in a world that felt full of possibilities.
Now, I find myself feeling deeply unsure. The possibilities feel less, and I am often left wondering what it’s all for, if women like me are just left behind after having children, overlooked and undervalued. I am a self-employed, full-time working mum with two daughters, a good education,lots of skills and experiences, and yet I am suspicious that my time may have come and gone. It feels like my age and social status mean that I am no longer first in line for much of anything other than emptying the dishwasher at 5am. That perhaps I wasted my best years in a fog of alcohol-induced skullduggery and nonsense, lead astray by wild fancies and too many unsavoury people.
Even after two years of not drinking, I’m still reeling and putting back together all the scattered pieces, flung far over the horizon in a carefree “who gives a fuck” and “I’ll deal with it another day” kind of way. I imagine that even though I’ve stepped off the alcohol rollercoaster, I’ve stepped straight on to another one, which is also known as living… and not just living, but living consciously.
I believe that there comes a point where we have to spring clean our lives. As in really tidy out the internal wardrobe and chuck away all the old skeletons and all the old clothes that no longer fit and leave the door wide open for a while before making space for something new. Sobriety has given me an intrinsic need to make sense of what’s been so that I can move on with what’s yet to come. I must pull out all the dusty old skeletons from the cupboard, look them in the eye, and then place them firmly in the bin, along with the stuff that worked for me years ago but is no longer fitting with the person I am today; a person who looks for solace where previously there was none.
It's not always easy or straightforward to spring clean our lives and start all over again. How do we empty out the cupboard and wipe the slate clean, ready to start afresh?
Sobriety is a big change, but it can start small. It’s important to learn to walk before you can run and just allow yourself to settle for a little while in your new state before you go hurtling off down the track and wear yourself out. When I first started my own sobriety, I felt completely floored for weeks. I don’t think I’ve had a sober glow yet because I’m still working on so much within myself. It’s coming, I can feel it! In the beginning, I promised myself that I would just stop drinking. I wouldn’t add any more pressure to the situation or to myself than that. I ate when I needed to eat, I scoffed sweets like they were going out of fashion, and walked for miles and miles to clear my head. I also went to bed early most nights because sleep was such a relief from the energy and focus my early sobriety required from me.
Fast forward another couple of years and my life has seen ups and downs. Sobriety is far from a bed of roses, but neither is living. I will say that every day I wake up without a hangover is a massive win. Each day that I find difficult that doesn’t make me reach for a drink, I feel the success in the choice I made to live alcohol-free and the effort I’ve put into making that choice a reality. And for all of those days that I’ve accumulated, and for all of the things I’ve learnt along the way, I’m now at a stage where even more work is required to do what’s needed to take life to the next level.
It’s now time to really start prioritising myself and what I want my life to look like. It won’t happen overnight. But with the return of spring, I feel a change coming on. It’s like something’s snapped in me, and I’m finally ready to bloom.
If you too are sober or sober-curious, you may also be feeling the need to spring clean your life; to make choices that heal your weary soul or improve your day-to-day living somehow. As the light returns and the world begins to wake up again, perhaps you are, too. Protect your health, your mind, and value every inch of who you are. If you plant the seed and nurture it, who knows how big and strong it may grow?
About Sophie:
I’m Sophie Cartmell (she/her) and I’m an artist and writer based in Derbyshire, UK. I love writing, reading, being outdoors and walking. I also love tattoos, rollerskating and painting on walls. Most of all I love my daughters, Freya & Elsie, who have kept my sparkle alive through all the times I thought it was fading. I became sober in January 2020 and I write and illustrate my experiences on my blog www.sosober.org
Instagram: @sososober_ / Writing and artwork enquiries: www.sosobersociety@gmail.com