In this episode:
I reflect on 1,000+ days of sobriety and two lessons learned. One, it’s a lot easier to “just” be myself. Two, quitting can be great, and I don’t mean just alcohol.
Resources:
Bottomless to Sober – Coaching, Writing Classes, and Workshops
Transcript:
Hey everyone, on today’s episode, I want to do some reflecting on having hit a thousand days sober last week. I hit a thousand days sober, I believe it was on August 20th, ooh, maybe 25th, I can’t remember the exact date, but my tracker tells me, and it’s funny because I completely advocate for people doing whatever they need to do, whether it’s counting days or not counting days. I let devices count days for me, and then when it’s certain milestones, I’ll pay attention to it, and recognize it, and celebrate it. but I personally don’t go on a daily basis counting how many days I have because that’s just, that’s a lot for me to keep up with. Definitely in the beginning, I did love to keep track of my days once I felt like it was finally sticking because it absolutely felt really, really good to hit like 30, 60, 90, right? But now that the numbers are growing, I just let the apps do it and then I go back and check and celebrate. So anyway, with that, let me go ahead and jump into kind of like the two big things that I wanted to talk about with reflecting on lessons learned in a thousand days of sobriety. So the first one is that I don’t have to have multiple versions of myself, right? And I share that with you because I hope that if you have found that you compartmentalize yourself a lot, even in your current recovery, to invite yourself to kind of see where you can reduce or remove some of those barriers between yourself, right? Like, why is it that some spaces get certain parts of you and other spaces don’t. What are the questions that you’re, what are the thoughts that you’re telling yourself, right? That make you feel that you can’t just be who you are authentically everywhere. So I’ll give you a great example. I started working again at a college and the funny thing is I remember when I was a professional teacher, I refused to let my students see the fun side of me. Like of course I had fun with them. but they would have never seen Jessica the performer, right? Like if you give me a microphone and you put me on a karaoke stage, especially when I drank, I would completely take over that stage like no other. And for the longest, I really thought that was a side of me that was quote unquote unprofessional, that nobody should ever see, that students should only see me as this really serious focused person. And I really judged that part of me that. can be loud and can be fun and can be animated and dances and moves. And I never wanted the people that I educated to see that side of me, because in my mind, I believe that an educator just had to educate, period. And that was that. So this past week, I actually helped the group of students that I work with create like this whole choreograph routine to some 90s, like classic 90s songs that I really love. and they were like, oh, you should absolutely take the lead and do like a Mariah Carey version of it, of one of the songs. And I did it, right? And it was something that I never would have done when I drank because when I drank, I thought that I had to be a certain type of person. I was living in the word should very, very heavily, but to jump up on that stage, throw on a wig, pretend to act like Mariah Carey and lip sync. my soul out, right, and like dance and everything in front of others was so freeing and it was so liberating because now I know that I never ever have to worry about someone knowing a secret of mine. I’ll give you another example. Last week also randomly had an opportunity to share on my experience with drinking as an educator after the new story came out about the teacher who was arrested because she was drunk. And, you know, somebody that I know saw it out of context, and I guess they were worried that people were saying that I was drinking. And I was like, uh, no, anybody who listens to the story knows that the story wasn’t about me. And then, you know, however they spliced it, you know, I feel bad that they showed that woman’s video, personally speaking, I don’t think that was necessary for us to see. even though I was having a one-on-one conversation with a client, and the client stated that video helped her in terms of reminding her of exactly where she could land, right? So, you know, it is really hard to see people in pain. It’s really hard to be in pain. It’s really hard to be reminded of how painful these experiences are. But, you know, everyone gets what they need out of different things. And all I say is that, going back to the point, was that there were people who were alleging that, like, oh, did she start drinking again? because they didn’t like stop to actually watch the news clip. And the news clip gives context to everything. But it was funny because when my friend said that to me, I wasn’t stressed at all because again, I really just show up. I put very little effort into thinking about how I’m presenting today for the simple fact that I just let myself just be. And when I say I let myself just be, or I finally get to just be myself, right? The word just sometimes can be used to minimize something or make it seem less than or take away the value of it. When I use the word just, when I’m saying I get to just show up or just be me, for me, that’s really more of a celebration of the simplification of my life. Getting sober has allowed me to stop wasting so much mental energy on keeping track of who I am to who and what I offer to different people in different groups. Right? Getting sober for me has created this beautiful simplification of my life where I am myself wherever I go. It’s a gift. I’m very grateful for it. And it makes my life a hell of a lot easier. And honestly, it’s just so easy on the brain to not be constantly thinking about who I’m creating on the spot if I get to just be authentic. And by being authentic, I get to breathe and also accept that, like, I’m going to attract the people that need to be in my life. repel the people that don’t need to be in my life. And that’s okay too. So with that being said, right? Like I want you to, if you are currently in a place where you feel like you’re constantly having to show up differently in all these different spaces, how does that feel? Like how does that feel on your energy? How does that feel on your soul? Is it, does it feel good or is it exhausting? If it feels exhausting, what are some measures that you need to put in place? so that you can exhaust yourself a little bit less because it is tiring to have different masks on. It is tiring to be putting on different hats all the time and not being able to just be yourself. So that’s one thing that I learned from these thousand days. It’s just that being sober for me allows me to get rid of all those different versions of me and just be one person everywhere. Two, the second thing that I feel like I was taking away from these thousand days, is the idea that quitting is okay. And it’s not an original thought. I feel like I’ve heard it on social media plenty of times, right? But this idea of quitting is okay, and that’s quitting anything. I don’t mean just quitting drinking. I reflect on the fact that when I quit my teaching job, I thought that I would never go back to education. And here I am, right? Just in a different form. It looks totally different. But at the end of the day, the fundamental work of what I’m doing, which is helping younger people see their worth, see their value and help them contribute to their own lives and that of others. Like, I’m still absolutely doing that, right? Except this time around, I get to do it from a place of authenticity and not from a place of low self-esteem, from a place of lack, you know, not from the bottom of the bottle, so to speak. Quitting is okay. If you’re in a place where you have a job that is really impacting your mental health to the point that you are unable to cope healthily with your job and you have other options and you know that maybe you’re just not tapping into them, but you know you have a resume that you can update, right? You know that maybe there’s a cover letter that you can write. You know that there’s some opportunities that you just haven’t tapped into. I hope that you listen to this and you take this as your sign to go for it. You absolutely need to go for it. Because at the end of the day, you don’t know what’s waiting for you on the other side of taking a leap of faith for your own health. And I didn’t know two years ago, three years ago, I had no idea that I would be here exactly where I am today, but I definitely would not have made any strides. And I wouldn’t have made any strides in my sobriety journey if I hadn’t taken a break, if I had not taken a break. And there were things that kept me from walking and take breaks, right? Like for me, I was very attached to this pension idea, very attached to this retirement idea, but I’m sitting here creating problems 30 years in the future when if I didn’t stop drinking, I would probably not even have made it another year or two. Right? And so I invite you to like release your worries about future outcomes. if your today is looking really, really treacherous, right? Like, let’s get your today settled. Let’s get your present day at peace. Let’s get you some stability first. And then you can worry about the longer term goals. But there’s no long term if your short term is filled with alcohol, right? So I just wanted to, again, put that out there because for me, having quit my job basically a thousand days ago, to find myself back in the same field 1,000 days later, but 1,000 days stronger has been very, very empowering because now I understand that it wasn’t necessarily the career, it was just how I coped with life, right? And it wasn’t necessarily the career, it was maybe the positions that I was working with, right? Like maybe being the classroom teacher was the specific area where I have no business going back to, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t be in the field of education. And so again, you might need to expand your vision, step back, take a break, and look at what you do for a living, if it’s something that you love, or if it’s something that you really enjoy, and think about what that might look like if you did it differently. But if you did it differently in a way that it could help you in terms of your drinking, taking care of your mental health, meeting your needs better, you being able to be there and be more present for the people who love you and really need you, because at the end of the day, right, like… If you aren’t at your job one day, suddenly no longer, because your health failed you, guess what your job is going to do? Your job is going to immediately replace you. But you know who cannot replace you? Your family and your loved ones, right? Or your chosen family. The people who love you can’t replace you. Your job can always replace you. And so when you are looking at anything that you’re holding onto, but it’s draining you, and hurting you, I invite you to step away from it and give yourself the possibility of knowing that maybe one day you can come back to it. It doesn’t mean that it has to happen right now. So with that, just wanted to share those quick reflections for a thousand days of sobriety. Thank you so much for listening. Next month, about a month from today, I will be hosting a free writing workshop. So I absolutely invite you if you’ve been struggling with writing your story. telling your story. It is a free writing workshop. You can sign up at my website, bottomlisttosober.com. Thanks so much for listening. Have a great one.
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