Sobriety Good, Recovery Better
For the longest time, I was a people-pleaser. I figured if I always strived to overachieve and put “niceness” out into the world, people would reciprocate. I didn’t like conflict. and I certainly didn’t want to make people feel bad, so when the callousness of a corporate job put me into situations where I felt I was compromising who I was, I just drank to feel better about it. I was happier with a buzz – why be worried about all the conflicts I didn’t know how to manage if I was feeling good? Who cared if I was drinking heavily on a work night? But that’s the funny thing when you develop an alcohol problem — no matter how much you know the next day is going to be awful, you’re still going to go for it.
After a particularly harrowing breakdown in 2018, I resolved to lean into those conflicts that I was avoiding and be hard-nosed about things. Of course, the booze then became a way to numb myself and build up the courage I needed to do it. By the time late 2019 rolled around, I had fooled myself into thinking I was some new person who wouldn’t take shit from anybody. The truth is, I wasn’t strong – I was propped up. It took me getting blackout drunk on a Wednesday night and not remembering how I got home to knock some much-needed sense into me. I quit cold turkey the next day.
The first weeks without drinking were a blur. Although I was actively seeing a therapist, I wouldn’t say I was in “recovery” yet. I was simply “not drinking” and trying to survive. There were days I would ask my wife if I was actually here, having convinced myself I was either in a coma and hallucinating or, worse, already dead and living out some cruel afterlife. I could barely look my family in the eye and was questioning the very foundation of who I thought I was. Frightened and rudderless, I limped into 2020.
I marked the start of 2020 largely by counting the days – 60 days without a drink, 61 days, 62, and so on. Then as the news of an emerging public health crisis started to gain momentum, I just couldn’t help it. I was already living out my own personal hell; how I could I handle this, too? But that’s the funny thing about life on Earth sometimes — you often don’t get the option to choose your struggles.
Life in the COVID-19 pandemic taught me a lot about who I really was. The most important lesson being that when you quit using booze to co-exist with all the conflict and discomfort in your life, you have two choices: deal with your shit or spiral even more, likely risking a relapse into your self-destructive tendencies. And I actively contemplated regressing. I vividly remember standing the Beer & Wine section of our grocery store having a full-on war with myself over buying a six pack of something that would knock me sideways. I won that battle that day, and opted to move forward in a way that I imagine many early-stage recovery folks do: I got angry.
To some of my coworkers, I had become a lightning rod of radical candor but, in hindsight, I had become mean and unpleasant. So much so that my manager raised it in a mid-year performance appraisal. I tried to justify it as me trying to figure out a new way of engaging and pushing back against things that I disagree with when what I really wanted to say was, “Help me. I am newly sober. I’m lost, and I’m lashing out at everything.” While the rage was a little too strong, it did help me begin to unlock a source of innate courage I never knew was there all along.
Somewhere in all that lashing out, something was changing. There was a shred of truth when I told my boss I was trying something new, especially after years of rolling over and taking it. Was my anger always productive? No, but it was unlocking something in me that I had never tapped into before – a sense of self-worth and confidence. A belief that I was actually able to rise above the bullshit and call it out rather than surrendering to what I had deemed to be an inevitable downswing into soul-crushing madness.
This may come off as juvenile but at 36 years-old, I was finally figuring out how to grow up and actively press back against the things that were trying to force me into submission. Moreover, by starting to deal with my own problems more effectively, I was beginning able to better engage and support with problems far larger than my own. As time wore on, what had started as eruptions of emotion and venom had cooled into measured, yet pointed, challenges against the things I felt were pushing against me. As 2020 drew to a close and I celebrated my first full year of sobriety, I had reached a serene state, something I had never felt before. In Zen practice, the term satori is used to define a deep understanding of one’s true nature, and I think that was what I was starting to experience.
Despite having evolved into someone who is far more at peace with who he is (and who he is not!), there is still a sense of loss. That person who had always led with this people-pleasing exuberant kindness was gone. He couldn’t figure out how to exist in this world and had turned to alcohol as a crutch. That person effectively vanished that morning in November 2019 when I cast the booze aside. There’s still sadness for me knowing that person I was is gone. He was so genuinely and innocently sweet. That’s not to say I don’t lead with kindness now, but if you’re that person who is looking to start some shit, I am ready, willing, and able to match energy with you without hesitation.
As I write this now, I am 3 ½ years sober and actively in recovery. I emphasize “active” because the moment you become inactive is the moment problems can start. My recovery has given me many gifts: a deeper connection with my wife and kids, greater control over my work/life balance, the courage to quit my job and find something far better to me, and a firm commitment to improving my physical health. Recovery has also forced me to live with and to think deeply about intentions. I used alcohol with the intent to escape the challenges that lie in front of me. If I am not diligent in my recovery, I can easily find other things to take its place. Recognizing the fragility of my recovery and the gift a clear mind has been for me and my ability to be of aid to others, I claimed Straight Edge in 2022.
Recovery is not sunshine and rainbows but it is the path to a better life. It takes work, and when you put in that work, you won’t let anything ruin that for you. Life has so much to offer but with that comes the ups and downs. Recovery gives you the resources to navigate those peaks and valleys and experience them how they are meant to be: with humanity. My recovery mantra has been to “live life head on.” I won’t shy away; I won’t seek cover. Whatever it may have for me, I am here to experience it. Will everything be great? No, but it’ll be better to have lived and experienced than to have lived and be numb to it.
About the Author:
Sean (he/him/his) is an actively recovering alcoholic who is dedicated to celebrating recovery out loud and making society much more sobriety-inclusive. He lives a Straight Edge lifestyle in suburban Philadelphia with an incredibly supportive family.