31 days of sobriety

31 days ago i decided that i wanted to take a break from drinking. i wasn't sure for how long, but i was gonna try and go at least 30 days.

i had my doubts those first few days. but as the days turned into a week and that turned into weeks, it got easier and i found myself enjoying sobriety more.

i haven't known for a while what it's like to be sober for so long. i've always had drinking to break up the monotony of sobriety. i think that's why it was hardest in the beginning. it used to be if i was stressed at work or elsewhere i'd tell myself, "no worries, we'll drink this all away a little later." i didn't have that anymore. a shitty day at work turned into a shitty night of me sitting around my house bored and sober and thinking about my shitty day.

but that's part of the lesson here. i've always ran from dealing with shit. when things got shitty, josh got drunk. it got me away for a little while. sure i always had to go back to it, but i didn't need to worry about that till the buzz wore off.

when i first started the sobriety thing, i posted on facebook that i was gonna go a while without drinking cuz i wanted to prove life is awesome without it. this took some time to find. life wasn't awesome at all that first week. a part of me thought i had cast awesome away as long as i decided to stay sober.

but then i found myself having to deal with my issues and my bullshit. i had to have a lot of internal dialogue with myself and figure things out. i never much worried about being awesome sober cuz the awesome times came later at night. but now i was stuck with my sober self and i had to find the awesome in that.

that's the realization that had the effect of a light switch on me. i was suddenly on and bright and looking for what's awesome about me and what's awesome about life. i wasn't gonna just accept that there was no awesome without drinking. fuck that! it's there! i'll find it!

and i think i have. i feel more awesome today sober than i did 31 days ago. there's a part of myself that i was running away from through drinking. the running stopped. i dealt with that part of me i ran from and kicked him around a bit. he needed to get roughed up cuz that was the part of me that held me back, that was afraid to be myself and to constantly be on an adventure to keep creating who i was.

i was stagnant with the booze. but life's a fluid motion that demands your fluidity if you wanna truly feel how awesome this ride can be.

(okay, i'm abusing the word awesome and it may seem cheesy at this point...)

i used to feel shitty a lot more than i do now. a whole lot more actually. that's the bottom line. i could write and write and write for hours to try and explain it away, but it's as simple as i tried to stop drinking, did for at least 31 days, and feel better for it.

and don't get it twisted. sobriety's not all sunshine and rainbows. alcohol helped numb a part of my brain... a part that sometimes i think may have been better numb. cuz my tolerance for assholes and douche bags has severely decreased. and now that i'm sober, i've noticed there's a helluva lot more assholes and douche bags out there. i've come to realize life is a fucking bitch sometimes... shit ain't easy.

but now that i know all of this, it's like i gotta learn to deal with it. i gotta toughen up. no more hiding in my fortress of booze. this world's gonna scar me one way or the other, gotta learn to deal with shit as it happens, learn my lessons, and keep moving forward.

i do miss hanging out. that's probably the hardest part of all of this. my social life has declined a little bit. i don't go out as much. i pass up invitations to go out to bars with friends. but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. i've noticed i'm not spending money as recklessly. and when i do go out now, it's outside a bar. and anything outside a bar seems new and adventurous to me at this point cuz the bar was the crutch of my social life.

and i've done some cool shit sober! been to shows, movies, bowling, hosted open mics. i went to the beach and i finally rode the cyclone at coney island.

and i jog a lot more now. i started jogging during lunch at the gym in my office. i'm now running 5-7 times a week (i run in the park on the weekends if i'm up to it). i didn't really need to quit drinking to start doing this, but i'm sure it helps.

i don't know when i'm gonna drink again. if you ask me right now at this very moment, i feel like i could go a really long time without a drink. i've already confessed here how i feel better for not drinking... by that logic, why would i wanna drink?

and i'm not trying to come across as preachy. this is my blog so this is all about me. i'm not gonna tell anyone else to quit drinking or even that drinking is a bad thing. i was in a place personally where i felt like i could use a change and that change was drinking. but that's cuz i let it tear away at other parts of my life. people handle shit differently. so to each their own. we all got our own unique drumbeat we gotta follow.