Sobriety Souvenir

Sobriety Souvenir

by | Feb 15, 2025 | Alcohol Free, Blog, Early Sobriety, Healing

Today’s blog entry is from Katherine D.  Katherine is a member of Café RE.

Sobriety Souvenir

By: Katherine D

“It’s that little souvenir, of a terrible year, which makes my eyes feel sore”

The music had been in the background of my attention until that lyric just struck out to me; that little souvenir of a terrible year. I made a mental note to look up the lyrics and turned my attention back to the morning routine. Coffee. Organize bag. Dishes in the sink.

“Here’s where the story ends. It’s that little souvenir, of a terrible year, which makes my eyes feel sore”

The lyric broke through from the background again and I started to smile, almost laugh, as I paused and reflected back.

November 2022

Feeling lost, adrift, alone, isolated and stuck. You know what I’m talking about; just all the feels. I had to make a change. After decades of self-destruction, I was finally doing the work. I was seeing a therapist. I was journaling. I had stacked days again, but I was largely alone with only podcasts keeping me company in between weekly chats with family. I decided to leave early for the holidays and drove south where the world wasn’t buried in snow.

Alcohol was in and out of the picture and I’d be lying if I said I was drinking responsibly, particularly as I was traveling by car. But, I was convinced I needed it to endure and, while I knew it was a problem, it wasn’t something I was ready to tackle just yet. I had enough problems. Finding a job since returning to the US had been a struggle, but I was on track to getting a government job with my foot in the door. It wasn’t a great wage, but it was getting me out of the living situation I was in. It was getting me out of education. It was getting me a new start.

That’s when I would do it.

That’s when I would quit.

That’s when things would start to go right for me.

I just had to make it until January.

December 22 2022

The job falls through. Budget cuts. I can stay on the waitlist but there will be no job for me in Portsmouth come January. Well, at least I hadn’t already signed a lease and put myself in further financial challenge. I had only mentally sketched out my new life; plotted out where my gym was going to be, where I was going to grocery shop and how long it would it be before I got a dog. The loss of my newly envisioned life cut me deep and sent me further into – I can’t, I won’t, I can never kind of thinking.

December 25 2022

Test positive for covid and spend the next week sicker than I’d been since covid first came to town. I was, again, isolated and alone. I was at my father’s house caring for his cat while he and his wife were away. And even though I was sick as a dog and only going from the bed to the couch, you would think I’d be drinking tea and caring for myself. Of course not! Vodka, filler up! With a little bit of cranberry so I get my vitamins. In my mind, it was the only thing that made this shitty little existence better.

I would spend the next two months drinking heavily, bouncing back and forth between my father’s house in Ohio and my mother’s house in South Carolina, and spending every day, all day, obsessed with finding a job. Did I mention I’m in my 40s?

Mentally I was clearly not in a good place.

Physically I was in an even worse place. Looking back, I’m surprised no one said anything directly to me about my state and appearance, but I’m sure there were thoughts and side conversations.

My thoughts, my body and my life didn’t feel like my own. It was like watching myself from the outside. I didn’t recognize myself. I didn’t know what I’d done or who I was anymore. Worse, I didn’t know how to make it better and was chasing the false hopes.

March 2023

I was back in education and teaching. But this was not like any school I had been at before. I had ignored the warning signals and red flags. I just saw it as a paycheck and a way to get back on my feet.

I endured more than I should have for months, but what it did do was get me back on my feet financially and able to get my own place, at an exorbitant price. In addition to teaching, I would have to get a second job.

I managed to stack days again and developed some healthy routines. Not only did I get a second job working at a local concert venue, but also started hosting trivia. The jam packed schedule with three jobs and just the basics of life to maintain myself, I didn’t have time to wallow in myself and I was getting the much needed social connections that I needed.

I was also bingeing and teetotaling like a Jekyll and Hyde.

August 2023

Moving up in the world – I got a job at one of the best elementary schools in the district!

Again, I ignored all the red flag and squashed my concerns. I convinced myself that this was going to get myself back on track.

Nevermind that I was still stuck in the groundhog day of Day 1.

Nevermind the fact that I knew I was my own worst enemy.

No one could say worse about me than what was running through my own mind on a moment to moment basis. I was doing better at squashing that voice, but I was still sitting in the front row and a very attentive audience to that self-sabotaging voice.

November 2023 – The Knockout Punch

A month of illness had landed me in the ER.

Testing confirmed that I had had Mono, but it wasn’t treated, in fact, it was kicked off worse and amplified due to the Strep throat meds I had been on, yep, Strep too. So with the Mono amplified and still in classrooms with 720 students each week, I got Pneumonia. Because, of course, I was still drinking.

I had had it.

I couldn’t.

Not one more Day 1. This had to stop. It was the root from which nothing was ever going to grow. I didn’t know if I could make it through the holidays, but I had to try and this was different.

I knew I was going to die if I didn’t.

November 2024

Just over a year without alcohol.

“… Here’s where the story ends

Oh, here’s where the story ends

… It’s that little souvenir, of a terrible year, which makes my eyes feel sore”

I don’t know what the song is really about.

But sobriety is my souvenir of a terrible year. It’s a souvenir I’ll be keeping.

At the time of submission Katherine has 13 months without alcohol and just finished a three month long journey across the US and Canada. She is excited to return to international teaching and in January will relocate to Monterrey, Mexico, as a middle school design teacher. 

Paddle Downstream 🛶

Paddle Downstream 🛶

by | Nov 15, 2024 | Blog, Early Sobriety, Healing, Helpful Tips

Which way are you paddling?

 

I was listening to an audio book recently, The Astonishing Power of Emotions,  that introduced an analogy I wanted to share with you all.

Imagine there is a stream of well-being. Imagine that you show up to the stream with your canoe and you get in. Once you are in, you have two choices, you are either paddling upstream or downstream.

Going upstream requires you to hold on tightly to the oars. It requires you to paddle as hard as you can.

Going downstream requires you to actually stop trying, in fact: you can even let go of the oars, grab a bag of spicy chili mango, and enjoy the view.

The more you go with the flow, the more you allow for the stream of well-being to work for you.

Alright, try not to overthink this, stay with me and let’s apply it to sobriety.

Imagine the stream is your alcohol-free journey. You want to finally get rid of this toxic relationship you have with booze and you are willing to do whatever it takes.

When you are paddling upstream, you are working hard, going to meetings, checking in with your community, not drinking… and that is all amazing. But, what you are also doing, is sometimes getting frustrated because things aren’t going the way you wanted them. “Isn’t life without alcohol supposed to be better? Why am I still having cravings? I shouldn’t be feeling this way. This is hard. I can’t do this. My friends and family don’t support me.”

Anyone felt this way before?

The contrast of this, is paddling downstream. And this is a choice. Yes we have to engage in our attempts, exercise our physical agency to do the things we need to do, like: going to meetings, checking in with your community and not drinking. But how can we practice letting go of the oars and allowing the magic of sobriety to happen to us? When you paddle downstream, you may have negative thoughts and negative feelings – but you deliberately choose to recognize them and then diminish them. For example: you are upset that your friend who knows you are attempting sobriety keeps inviting you to a bar. “Doesn’t he get it? Is that what a good friend would do?” These thoughts are upstream thoughts. You can detect the and do the best that you can to turn your canoe downstream.

How do to do this? Choose a thought that brings more relief than the thought you are already having. Yes my feelings are hurt, yes I am disappointed at my friend. But how can I feel better about the situation vs worse? Maybe you can choose to think: he does not know he is hurting my feelings and perhaps he is struggling since he misses his drinking buddy. Whatever thought you choose to have doesn’t have to be the solution to the problem or the absolute truth, it should simply bring you some sort of relief vs fuel your negative emotion.

Thoughts that fuel your negative emotions (which will inevitably happen to all of us) are upstream thoughts. And thoughts that fuel your positive or neutral emotions are downstream thoughts.

I am not trying to promote toxic positivity, the overwhelming feelings that we experience while on this journey are A LOT. I do want to highlight how much power we have over them though. You can 100% make yourself feel better or feel worse, at any given moment, with the thoughts that you choose. Don’t add more weight to the backpack of sobriety. Focus on feeling good, you are doing something AMAZING for yourself. Keep reminding yourself of that. What you focus on expands.

Who wants to try paddling downstream with me?

Always rooting for you, RE!
xoxo

Odette

The Importance of Validation and Self-Compassion in Recovery

The Importance of Validation and Self-Compassion in Recovery

by | Sep 15, 2023 | Alcohol Free, Blog, Early Sobriety, Healing, Helpful Tips, The first Year

Today’s blog entry is from Amanda McLean, who has been a member of Café RE since November 2019.  Amanda has been alcohol free since March 26, 2019 and is very active within her Café RE GO community.  

“Another day one, I’m such a loser.”
“I’ve ruined everything.”
“I’ll never get sobriety to stick.”

In my journey with alcohol abuse and recovery, these are just a few common mantras that run through my mind. I am someone who chronically struggles with self-judgment and negative self-talk. I know that my inner critic can be harsh and unforgiving. Since our thoughts drive our emotions, this unrelenting internal talk leads to painful feelings including anxiety, sadness, and low self-esteem. For many people, this self-hatred inner monologue and the associated feelings can lead to relapse or other forms of damaging behaviors. In my personal recovery journey, I have learned that being kind and supportive to myself during times of suffering is critical in maintaining my sobriety in recovery. 

 

Avoidance is the Enemy

 

As Paul states in Recovery Elevator Episode 274 – I Feel Your Pain “In order to shift stagnant energy inside of us, we have to talk about our emotions.” Avoiding our thoughts and feelings never ends the way that we hope it will. And experts agree that one of the contributing factors to addiction is avoidance. As a person in recovery, I am guilty of minimizing, invalidating, and negating my feelings. But the more we avoid distress or attempt to suppress it, the worse it becomes. The more energy we use to push emotions like anxiety or anger away, the more powerfully those emotions come back toward us. 

 

Another disadvantage of avoidance is that our bodies interpret avoidance as proof of danger, and this signals our internal alarm system. When my internal alarm system is activated, I often crave something to soothe my nervous system. Historically, I used and abused alcohol to calm my painful emotions. Although this solution proved to be immediate, it came with long term undesirable consequences including more painful emotions and negative self-talk. And thus, the cycle continued. 

 

Start with Validation

 

Rather than avoiding negative self-talk and painful feelings that we would rather not face, we need to make a shift. We need to remember that the thought and the feeling are not the enemy. We need to remind ourselves that our thoughts and feelings are allowed to be here. We can tolerate discomfort. This starts with noticing the thought and/or the feeling and then providing validation. 

 

Validation is useful for addressing any uncomfortable thought or feeling. It starts with acknowledging or labeling the feeling. For example, “I feel like I fail at everything, and this feels rough” or “I feel like I can’t do anything right and my entire body is tense” or “My chest feels tight and I feel so anxious”.

Once we acknowledge what we are feeling, we can then tell ourselves why it makes sense that we feel this way. In other words, tell yourself the story about why it makes sense that you feel the way that you feel. For example, “It makes sense that this feels rough because I worked a long day and now I am cooking dinner for my family while my kids argue”, or “It makes sense that I feel like I can’t do anything right and I am tense because my boss just snapped at me”, or “It makes sense that I am feeling anxious because this is my daughter’s first day at her new school and I am scared she won’t make friends”. 

 

Self-Compassion

 

I know that feeling. That feeling of shame. When I was abusing alcohol, I didn’t want anyone else to know the things I had done. This is exactly when we need self-compassion. Self-compassion reminds me that I made a mistake but that does not mean that I am fundamentally a bad person. I can separate my worth as a person from my behavior. 

 

When I fail to validate and hold my feelings, when I shame myself, I cannot learn from my mistakes. Shaming myself through self-judgement and self-criticism shuts down the learning receptors in the brain. Shame freezes a person. Self-compassion allows me to acknowledge and validate my thoughts and feelings, commit to not making the mistake again, and then forgive myself. 

 

Dr. Kristin Neff, a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research, states that self-compassion is acting toward yourself the way you would act toward a cherished friend when you are having a difficult time, when you fail, or when you notice something that you don’t like about yourself. When something goes wrong or we have a difficult moment, avoiding or fighting against the suffering in that moment will only increase our anxiety, distress, and self-criticism. Self-compassion is a method for soothing or comforting our nervous system.

 

The 3 steps of Self-Compassion

 

When I was at the height of my alcohol abuse, waking up each morning feeling like a failure, the most common self-criticism that I heard in my head was, “I am such a loser”. More often than not, self-criticism caused me significant distress which led me to soothe my system with alcohol. In recovery, I have learned the value of self-compassion: giving myself kindness, care, and support. 

 

Self-compassion involves three steps. First, I must hold the pain of my mistakes. This takes a lot of courage because I must acknowledge the pain I have caused myself and others. Second, I remember that pain and suffering are a part of being human and therefore other people have felt this way as well. I am not alone. Third, I must be kind to myself. Self-kindness means that I treat myself with sympathy, warmth, and patience. 

 

Practicing these three steps may sound like, “I drank again and I was not present for my children and my husband. Other people struggle with repeated mistakes, and I am not the only person who has felt and experienced this pain. I have been through a lot this year and quitting alcohol is hard. AND I can do hard things.” From that space of openheartedness, I can do everything I can to commit to doing it differently in the future. This allows me to soothe my nervous system without using or abusing a harmful substance.

***By Amanda McLean; Café RE Go Group

Journal Speak

Journal Speak

by | Aug 15, 2022 | Alcohol Free, Early Sobriety, Healing, Helpful Tips, Resources

Who doesn’t love practical tips that help us out with daily tasks?  I know I do.  And count me in if it is something to help me on my alcohol free journey.  

 

Today I want to give you a practical quitting drinking tip that I recommend you try. This is called JournalSpeak™ which is probably the most informal, writing from cuff, type of journaling you can do. Paul learned about this type of journaling from a podcast called The Cure for Chronic Pain with Nicole Sachs. He was listening to her podcast about back pain that he had been experiencing, but the journaling technique she teaches is also applicable to ditching the booze. So today I’m hoping to bridge the gap.

 

Okay, let’s do it. 

 

First…what is the point of JournalSpeak?

 

The point is to get unprocessed, uncomfortable emotions, out of you, and onto a piece of paper, a note, a napkin, post it note, a scroll, a computer screen, whatever. This also makes you feel less alone, it’s as if there are two of you. Another point is you begin connecting with you. Here at Recovery Elevator we do believe the opposite of addiction is connection as Johan Hari coined in a TED Talk. A major component of this is connecting with the raw, unheard, vulnerable, pissed off version of you.

When you feel a craving coming on, this is one of the best times to do this, because there’s a part of you screaming to be heard.  ???

 

Now, let’s talk frequency.

 

Nicole recommends 20 minutes a day.  I get it…that can be overwhelming to start with.  So don’t start there.  Paul started with 5 minutes first thing in the morning, and then 5 minutes at night before he went to bed, a couple times a week.  

 

Also, you can use this “as needed” throughout the day.  Sometimes, if Paul was feeling pissed or feeling fear he grabbed a pen and ‘just let it fly’.  ✍?

 

When I say JournalSpeak – I’m not referring to you opening your leather bound diary, writing the date, and beginning with, 

“Dear Diary, 
Today…I went to work and my parking spot was taken…”

 

None of that. ??‍♀️??  In fact, I don’t recommend you keep any of this JournalSpeak. Get rid of it, that’s the point.  Get it out of your body and onto the paper…then get rid of it.  ??

 

JournalSpeak is full of incomplete sentences, horrible grammar, expletives ?…if you choose, shitty illustrations, and giving that pissed off, or sad little kiddo inside permission to speak. That’s really who is doing the talking. 

 

Yes alcohol in itself is highly addictive, but most likely you are unconsciously (or consciously) using alcohol to repress emotions or shitty memories. Getting this excess mental baggage out of your head and onto paper is the beginning of letting it go. Once you’re done writing, throw it away, burn it, command A delete. It’s out, it’s gone. It’s been heard. The energy has been moved. Throw that shit away. ?? You don’t need it anymore. Make that part of the ritual, or routine, toss it. After all, it’s garbage. It’s not serving you.

 

Paul always felt better after his short JournalSpeak sessions. Sometimes he would go way longer than his five minute timer, things would just keep coming out. Let whatever wants to come out, come out. It may surprise you. 

 

JournalSpeak can cure your pain. Physical and emotional pain. Is this woo-woo?   Maybe.  But Paul gives it a quantum spin.  (He says his first car, at age 16, was a 1982 Volkswagen Quantum, which he feels qualifies him to talk about quantum science.) When you take a thought, which has an atomic weight swirling in your brain, and you place it on paper, two things happen…

  1. You lessen the energetic density of the thought in your own brain. It was in your brain and now part of it is in the form of graphite on paper (if you’re using a pencil). 
  2. Next, when you see the thought in physical form, on paper, the thought/wave collapses. Almost like a wave landing on the shore. ? The energy of the thought hits the paper, and then softens. 

 

Trust me, you will feel better after these JournalSpeak sessions. Paul says he’s batting 1000 on this one.

***Taken from Recovery Elevator Podcast, episode 389, host Paul Churchill***