Alcohol Freedom Blog

I remember asking myself this question almost every day when I was in the primary stages of my final recovery from drinking. I simply could not smile anymore; people I was now depending on were walking around me on egg shells. Getting sober wasn’t supposed to suck the life blood out of me. I had stopped drinking before often to ‘dry’ out and after a few days of the shakes and the longest hangovers in recorded history, I always seemed to be able to get by without alcohol, at least until my next drink.

That sounds like a strange sentence but its true. I’d sober up for awhile, prove to myself that I wasn’t an alcoholic, and take my medication to control a serious illness that I couldn’t take while drinking. When I started to feel better I would think okay then, things are back on track health wise so its time for a drink. During this sober period I was a grumpy cynic but still with a sense of humor and a sarcastic wit that people found funny.

I laughed a lot and made others laugh as well and it was a side of me I enjoyed, especially when drinking. Everywhere I went, I used my sense of humor to my advantage and it worked. It helped me in business, it helped me meet new people, and I was the life of every party I attended. I was also a drunk who didn’t understand that drinking actually made me outgoing and funny and it wasn’t until I stopped drinking for good that my true self would appear. The one I had to get used to living with once again.

I could not understand why sobering up this particular time was taking so much out of me physically and emotionally. I was sick physically and my active mind would not shut down. Nothing made me smile let alone laugh. I truly believed that my life as I had known it for so many years was over. I just didn’t know who I was anymore. Without alcohol in my life would I ever have any fun again?

Sobriety apparently was a monotonous, unhappy and unappealing reality, and I had to make a conscious decision to accept the fact I would not be drinking 7 and 7’s in the beach cabana bar down south anymore. Sitting in a lawn chair drinking a cold beer on a hot summer day was going to be a thing of the past. I enjoyed an after work happy hour at a local watering hole just like the TV program ‘CHEERS’ and actually conducted business deals during this time - there would be no more of that.

The last several years of my drinking I was a functioning alcoholic who required some alcohol in his system to lead a normal life. Without it, I was in a sorry state. This is why the last time I had to get sober was so hard on me physically. As far as emotionally, I never expected the long road back to regaining my cognitive abilities and senses. Going through this physical and mental health crisis, it was no wonder I couldn’t smile, laugh at something - anything that others found funny.

Others around me were very worried by my change in demeanor and my physical woes were obvious. It was unsettling to them. Sensing their concern, I would try and force a smile and occasionally laugh at what others found amusing but my face literally felt like it would crack. I felt nothing.

This went on for what seemed a very long time, but in reality was probably 7 or 8 months of no laughter and a seemingly joyless future. One day I was casually perusing the newspaper and was reading the comics. One of the comics I read was called “Sherman’s Lagoon”, (yes I still remember it.) I read this cartoon and it struck me as so funny I just cracked up laughing and interestingly it continued into a laughing jag that would not stop! I remember as clearly as if it was yesterday how great it felt to finally laugh out loud.

Clearly the comic itself was only the catalyst to something much deeper happening within me. It was around this same time that my acceptance of lifetime sobriety started to sink in as well. This was as Churchill claimed in one of his famous speeches ‘not the beginning of the end but perhaps the end of the beginning’ of my difficult initial phase of recovery.

Recovering alcoholics need to remember that they have put their bodies through quite a bit physiologically speaking and like any trauma; time is needed to heal the wound we cause. Mentally and physically we must restore our fitness level before we start feeling alive again. The length of time this takes depends on the severity of one’s drinking before quitting.

No matter how strong you think you are or how much time you think you have, the longer you leave the blinders on when it comes to your alcohol abuse the harder it will be to get sober. Two years - 2 years of living as a functioning alcoholic after 15 to 20 years of problem drinking, with perhaps the last 5 years considered serious problematic alcohol consumption. This pattern nearly cost me my life or as my physician stated, I had 6 to 8 weeks.

So, does quitting alcohol mean the fun is over?

NO WAY! And what’s really out of the ordinary is now I remember all of it.

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