My anxiety without alcohol
When I recently made the decision to go sober, I thought it would be the beginning of the end. It turned out to be the beginning of a really rewarding adventure. My first party “off the sauce” was a Christmas do during which someone asked me, “Were you drinking that much?”. It was that entrenched belief that you have to reach a spiritual rock bottom to be motivated to quit booze. In reality, in was simply too many painful anxiety-fuelled hangovers that made me want to stop the cycle. I reflected on when I first started drinking, like many others, in the early teenage years and how much pressure had been placed on low calorie intake, parties and alcohol consumption. Basically, not as much nourishment as I would have liked from things that I love like reading and writing.
Alcohol creates, not manages, Anxiety.
Typical casual drinking meant I was neglecting the honest truth that I suffered from seriously acute anxiety. All the help I got for this condition was prescribed in order to counter the anxiety, an anxiety which alcohol (or ethanol) just creates, not manages, so ultimately- the help was proving to be pointless. The anxiety became unbearable, especially with age, and hangovers were excruciating affairs with little recollection of how much you drank and weekends wasted in hibernation. Basically, I was misusing my precious free time and feeling my mental health suffer the consequences. With my Sunday mornings back, I am finding that I am engaging with passions that do help moderate my anxieties, giving me new avenues of purpose that feeling disassociated was isolating me from.
Sobriety means sitting with your Anxiety in an honest way.
The new clarity of mind without alcohol definitely had its hauntings; it meant that I was now dealing with my anxiety in a higher definition and having to sit with some difficult memories on my own. This was a great blessing because I was being given total lucidity to figure out how to actually manage my thoughts, not suppress them or run away from them, but simultaneously have them screaming at me in a unique way. The emotional whiplash could be exhausting but I was able to find online communities who had faced the same issues, particularly reading Bad Drunk by Millie Mackintosh and Dr Ellie Cannon which explores this exact subject and of course The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober by Catherine Gray, as well as the podcast They Think It’s All Sober. These confessional documentations were really aspirational. In other words, it was a jump scare but it was 100% worth it. I was suddenly learning to sit more with my feelings on my own rather than using society’s favourite form of ‘self-care’ or anaesthetic tool and that made me grow what felt like a true confidence.
Drinking to feel socially confident
As someone who experiences anxiety, stepping into a party without a drink does initially feel like the nightmare of being naked in a public space. It makes you remember how you relied on that drink as an emotional shield. Artificial social confidence felt so real at first, but now I see it was a method of trying to shape shift into a different version of myself. Louder but not necessarily authentic. This is a brutal wake up call in understanding who knows the authentic ‘me’. Walking into a party with a cute little non-alcoholic alternative (I prefer alternative to substitute) is perhaps building a confidence that is more honest to myself. Sometimes people even want to try your drink and it becomes a fun activity to share your take. Sure, it requires more effort but I know it to be an identity that does’t merely evaporate in 24 hours. I sometimes feel like I might be perceived as somewhat ‘inadequate’ at socialising without an alcoholic beverage to hand but it’s actually me learning how to socialise without using a normative false shortcut, connecting to people in a more fulfilling way and to those who really form part of my ‘tribe’ i.e those who wouldn’t care whether or not I’m drinking, just that I’m there. Now I can be there and be even more present.
“The Sober High”
When I first started on this sober journey, I felt immediately reinvigorated and super curious about experimenting. Several months in, I felt the early ‘euphoria’ of sobriety begin to become a little more difficult as I realised it wasn’t going to be this quick process of change. At first, quitting feels like the ultimate life ‘fix’. It’s going to entirely eradicate my anxiety overnight! I thought. But heavy emotions, intrusive feelings and that churning in your stomach do still creep up, it’s just instead you can now realise- Sobriety doesn’t instantaneously ‘fix’ all elements of life, but with work and community, it lends you more clarity to face it and that’s what makes it so worth it.
I'm Carrie, a 27 year old girl from South London with an MFA from The New School, New York and a passion for writing. I write an online journal @pocketoricle and a small account on my sober journey @carrienocosmo.
