And it feels good.
I’ve been back and forth lately about posting–I know I should, but life gets in the way.
Sometimes (my) sobriety feels like the Blob, just a mass of heavy, hot water hanging around the Pacific, hugging me as if I’m the west coast. Sometimes I don’t even think about it anymore. And some days, like when I was out running a few mornings ago, I just stopped, stared out at the water, let the hot sun draw the sad sigh out of me, and admitted: I will never be free of this sobriety thing, and I don’t know what to DO with it. I feel like I have to do something with it, my past and my struggle to get sober; but I just don’t know what. I can’t get rid of it, and I can’t let it go. What should I do with it? I have no idea, so I keep plugging, hoping that one day, I’ll wake up and know what to do about it.
So, yeah, I’ve stayed off Facebook for the most part (went on a few times and got sucked into my feed, but mainly, if I do log on, I just check “on this day” and my individual pings and user groups), and it feels really…peaceful. My daily life is just easier not having all those other people/places/things in it–they are merely distractions, and since I need all the focus I can get to make the transition that’s coming up, it’s helpful to not have to worry about all that other stuff. I do wonder if this is just another symptom of my increasing tendency to accept being a hermit; though, not being a part of Facebook has…given me back to me. Maybe when I ramp up my science writing again (freelance journalism), it’ll be worth it to get back onto social media (Twitter, mainly), but until then, I’ve realized that I’m not missing out on anything but my OWN life when I log onto “the ‘book.”
My contract was extended, and all I felt when I woke up at sunrise (yep, I continue to wake up at the hour I used to when I was working morning barista shifts) is trapped. WHAT ON EARTH IS THERE LEFT TO DO HERE? I have these moods at very specific times: around 11 pm, I crash and the world sucks and I have done nothing in it; and around 5 or 6 am, I am raring to go, but…there is nowhere to go and nothing to do, and I feel utterly trapped. And, it’s funny because these moods are consistent in content, and occur at the same time of day. Of course, when I wake up, all is well, I feel good, and I tackle the day–and along the way, try to appreciate the outstanding geographical beauty that has become so familiar that it’s easy to let it go unnoticed. It’s just funny, to have these swings of thought, to notice them, and to know that while they’re emotionally (and psychologically) powerful, they’re relatively meaningless.
I need a change; we both do. In fact, my fiance and I have been having serious conversations about moving, and I have been applying for new jobs in different places. Soon come, a change. You can’t rush it. You just cannot. I have a couple of friends who have decided to just move to a city in the Midwest, and, uh, I wish them the best but I feel like they’re doing it out of this desperate need that is so familiar to me–to just CALL THE FUCKING SHOT because you are so sick of weighing your options and feeling stuck. It’s so tempting to just say, OK, we’re leaving this place, we’re moving here, and we’ll figure it out when we get there. I did that in my early 20s, and even my 30s, and, well, look who JUST paid off her student loan debt–at 42 years old. It’s time to be patient, to plot and plan and plod through the tough conversations with spouse–where makes him happy, what are my dealbreakers, and what, really, do we envision for our lives?
It’s so hard, it really is. But, I don’t want to drink in the face of it. I do have the tendency to shut down when the options become too many, but I know that I have to do better, and stick the process out. And, I will. We will. And we’ll be better off for it.
Facebook-free is helping me figure out my life if only because I’m forced to focus solely on it. And, it’s wonderful to see that I don’t need Facebook, that I can live happily without it, and that I am (for the most part) not really missing out on anything. Sound familiar?
Drunky Drunk Girl 
Interesting question about what to DO with sobriety…
sometimes i just look at is as grief, its there, some days it hits you, other days you just keep moving. There’s nothing to DO about it but just live it.
I think what we DO with sobriety is keep living a so much better life…you se that, as do I, and so that’s the payoff. We accept it as a gift and live with it, in a way we weren’t able to live when we were drinking.
IDK..just thoughts drifting, but certainly an interesting question!
Midwest = SNOW! ugh.
I’m in California and I never want to leave!
I too am realizing how much time I actually spend on social media. And with 4 kids to raise, really, I shouldn’t be spending much time at all on it. But for me, it’s that distraction, to zone out, become in my own world and disconnect. I find I do it most when I’m anxious or stressed… looking for support or an ego boost. Lately, I have the Suttle voice saying.. Your HP is the only real validation.. And to find validation and contentment in stillness and alone.. man that’s work. I’ve master learning how to distract myself in many outside ways.
I think it’s somehow difficult to see your life as it is now compared to how it was. I remember when just not drinking for one day was an achievement of monumental proportions. To get out of bed, to make it to work, to believe in a future were sometimes out of my reach. If I sat here and listed how different my life is now (after almost one year of sobriety), I would realize that I am doing something!! I am sitting here, right now, not drinking! And I am thrilled about it. So I try to start from a point of self-love and give myself credit for the amazing run of sobriety I now have. Then, I be grateful for having choices. I didn’t have choices before. I had only survival. Now, my biggest burden is finding out what I want to do with all this free time and good health.
It’s a good problem to have.
xoxo!
Shawna
I logged out of fb a while back. but i have tentatively joined a buddhist recovery group…. we’ll see what happens there, dont want to get sucked back in…. but what to do with time id have otherwise spent drinking…. i get bored. i flap around seeking distractions, but they are all so involved with ‘i have a drink whilst doing….’ that i get frustrated, bleak, that i end up sitting, doing nothing, feeling blank and depressed…. god its a struggle.
Yes, it is. It took months before my brain “flipped” and I could actually just sit, or do nothing, without feeling so…desperately bored/unstimulated. It is a struggle, but hang in there–it will change, and soon. Are there things you can force yourself to do that offer complete distraction (mine is exercise–yoga, running, walking, anything)?
I have also quit facebook. I actually removed all my friends off of my friendslist to make it more difficult on myself to start using it again. I quit back in November during the peak of the election season and haven’t been back since for personal social networking. I only use it to post my blogs about sobriety on my blogs facebook page. It has been such a freeing experience.
It is SO freeing! I sometimes feel guilty, I guess, that I feel so good not caring or involving myself in all the groups and friends circles, but…I need this. We deserve to feel free…
I closed my Facebook account two years ago. I have no self-control so I kept logging back on so axing gave me now choice. I downloaded all my photos from nearly a decade, etc. so have that as a record. I don’t miss it all and glad I was not on their during the last election.
There are some social stuff through my kids that I have to figure a workaround for, and need to work harder to stay in touch with friends and families. To be fair, I did it as part of getting divorced but it still was a good step.
However, I am only 9 days sober after relapsing in September around 33 months. So first things first! I have followed your blog for awhile so glad you are at it still at it.
“I will never be free of this sobriety thing and I don’t know what to do with it.”
I don’t know either. And I’m not moving the earth, or my butt. I don’t have a life to go back to. The ‘long sigh’ was me stopped half way across the parking lot on the way into work, BEFORE I drank. And now it’s long sighs sober again. At 52 I’m stuck bad. And more later, time’s up.
Huh, timely! In recent months I ended up house sitting for family in the home I more or less grew up in. The strange part is there is no cable or satellite (so no TV) and no active internet service since both have been put on hold. I have my smart phone but eh, what a pain.
My cousin lives only a few blocks away with internet so for job searching and such I either go there or hot spot off my phone now and then, again a pain. So for weeks my laptop more or less has been off and lying in the corner, I would check mail and texts on my phone but other than that….. Isolation. A good chance to self examine and figure out what I’m doing with sobriety this time around.
Several weeks ago I decided on a whim to just go and kill my Facebook account, if somebody wants to reach me and I care enough to let them they know my email and my phone number. Such a free feeling!!! I read, I cook, I do woodwork, I think for myself again (which I admit is not always good). And recently, I’ve found myself online just long enough to post a blog entry with a positive message every day, what used to be a habit of scrawling rants in my notebook daily has now turned into a self satisfying challenge to train myself in positive thought.
Reading this on a sleepless night just reinforces my thought that maybe Facebook was just another avenue for me to build up self loathing and depression about everything around me. Thanks for the timely post!
So glad to hear! Good for you! Yeah, FB really does affect me like this as well–I come away feeling worse about myself, and about what I “haven’t done”… It’s hard to explain, but also, I just like being free, I guess, of everyone else’s shit! Haha… I have enough of my own to figure out. It’s just hard to explain, but I feel more excited about what I’m doing with *my* life–probably because I’m no longer able to constantly compare it to someone else’s?
Yeah, comparisons tend to be a driving factor for a lot of “wasted life”. I had a rehab counselor once tell me that if I feel the need to make comparisons I should only compare myself against myself. Kind of a “check in” to see if I am doing better, or worse and if I am working toward who I want to be.
Though, after about the second week with no FB all I could think of was the scene in Braveheart where Mel screams FREEEEEEDOM!!! Then again, I grew up in the era of payphones and passing notes in class as a means of communication.
I think social media can be both a huge trigger (talk of nights out, photos of ice cold bottles of bubbly) as well as a type of avoidant behaviour in itself. I often challenge clients to check their facebook only once per day for a month and the results are astounding. Removing yourself from pages, groups and not-so-real friends can also help. It has become an addiction in itself.
Agreed! My life is much improved without Facebook…
Check out my new blog…Despite Dysfunction a blog diving into the world of what it looks like to be a child of an alcoholic who eventually died of the disease.