2 months sober

2 months feeling like an open wound.
2 months sober.

Here’s a reminder to myself who will eventually be on the verge of giving in to the cravings, — “It wasn’t that bad anyway, one glass won’t hurt.”

Whether God exists or not, we need him. Humans are born with a God-shaped hole, a yearning, a hunger to be complete. We get to choose how we fill that hole.

– Sarah Hepola

I filled that hole with glamorized disaster — depression, smoke, alcohol, drugs, regret, living recklessly and dying young.

Why am I still infatuated with this beautiful train-wreck of a life?

I’m a control freak, I can’t stand not being instantly good at something, can’t stand coming across as lame, can’t stand getting embarrassed, can’t stand getting flushed, can’t stand failure, can’t stand being awkward and not knowing what to do or say. I can’t stand not being good enough.

So I would drink in order to drown out this never-ending noise.

I kept running away to alcohol. To calm the inner critic, to force words out of me that I wouldn’t have the courage to speak otherwise.

Never actually learning to face up and to express myself in a healthy way.

The more I think about it, the scarier it is; just how integral alcohol was to my life.

I used to put it in my dating app and SNS profiles, I drank to celebrate, I drank to grieve. My go-to phrase was “Let’s go grab a drink”, drinking was my personality trait. Everybody here knows me as the one who will not turn down a drink.

I ran away from my past self only to create a false image that in order to preserve, I had to drink myself senseless so continuing with the never-ending charade.

Yet the little shit inside me still wishes to just throw everything away and let alcohol ruin me, to become the beautiful disaster I so adore, to let booze take control and just ride it out together until death deals us part.

The same way that one clings to the familiar from your childhood when choosing a potential partner, I cling to the familiarity of the clammy, cold, lonely tragedy.

No, I refuse to have to deal with this guilt, this shame, the self-hatred, and the self-sabotage any longer.

The more I step out of my comfort zone, the more cravings I’m going to have. The craving of crawling back into the familiar oblivion of a blackout, of a hangover and ultimately disaster.

I am still afraid of taking back the control, afraid of the responsibility and having to deal with my thoughts and feelings.

But that’s not how I want to live anymore.

I need to do better.

I choose better.