Projecting Abundance: 3 Months of Sobriety

Today is my 3-month sober-versary, and it's a very incredible milestone. I have never made it this far. And I credit making it this far to one damn thing: believing my highest self needed me to.

I've always had a complicated relationship with substances. It started as a fun experiment, as it always does. But then the flip switched. That's the best analogy I can use, and one that I use all the time when I talk about my sobriety. A flip switched that reassured me that who I truly want to be- what I truly want to say, do, act on- exists with, and only with, booze. And weed, eventually. Alcohol was the initial catalyst though.

When I drank, there wasn't much I wouldn't do. I took liquid courage to a whole other level. If I thought you were attractive, I'd let you know. If I always thought you were so cool and always wished I was your friend, I'd tell you. Never before that though. Those are mild examples. There are other specific instances that those near and dear to me know about, that I may share one day. Trust me when I say, I was a whole other girl after several drinks.

I would describe the feeling before I drank as a longing to let go of the Shelby I was presenting and to unleash my true self. I never went on days or weeks-long benders. I was a binge drinker. I'd drink 2x a week at my peak, but I was drinking, you know? And during the day, if I knew I was going to drink that night, I would think to myself, "I can't wait to not give a fuck about anyone's opinion of me. I really can't wait to tell XYZ that I think they're hot, and I can't wait to just text whoever whatever and get it off my chest."

A couple of things here: that was the absolute fucking worst. I would wake up, back as inauthentic, terrified Shelby, with receipts from that fearlessness. I would shame spiral, have the worst anxiety attacks of my life, and go on apology tours. I get why I kept doing it though. There was this longing so deep within me to do what I wanted. Say what I wanted, be who I wanted. And I was doing it in the worst way possible, and it was causing me to believe that authentic me was shameful and bad. I equated the day-after scaries with the feeling of being myself.

So I did this from 17-22. And I'm so lucky. That is not a lot of time. But it is a lot of formative time and I do wish I had believed I was worthy all along to be me without any substance prodding me to be me in the very worst ways.

My anxiety has always, as long as I can remember, come from a place of inadequacy and low confidence. I lived in a lack mindset- I wasn't enough. I didn't have enough for others, or myself, already within me. I didn't like myself and so I wanted every. Single. Person. To like me and I would achieve that by being whoever they "needed" me to be, regardless of if they were who I needed. And now I recognize that booze was just an aid to that. It was the only way I could let my walls down.

With that said, I've considered quitting many times and my mom and a couple of other people have told me they think I have a substance abuse issue for a long time. "Why did you take it so far, you were just hanging with your friends?" my mom would ask me after a random binge in a friend's basement. I couldn't articulate the answer then, but it was because I needed a break from fake Shelby.

What always hindered me, besides my desire to "hold onto my authentic self" was that I wouldn't be able to connect to people the way I wanted to. Drinking allowed me to be fun and social around people that usually intimidated me. Believe it or not, I used to be pretty shy. I stuck to my group of friends, and I'd talk to other people but I actively tried to avoid it. I would replay conversations over and over and pick them apart. I could tell you every wrong word or expression I made. Connection was something I craved but it was exhausting in every feasible way.

I made a lot of "friends" through drinking. I would say weed was a big part of this, too. There's this social aspect that comes with stoner culture, at least with the people I knew. You know you sit all together, and you smoke which takes some time, and then you laugh and say dumb shit and go on these spirals. Usually, everyone opens up if they're having a good high and suddenly you're talking about all kinds of stuff. Sometimes it'd be substantial, sometimes it wouldn't.

I can't tell you how many people weed bonded me to. It's something to do when there's nothing to do, and as I said, it can open up the doors to deep connection. I made so many friends that way that I was certain if I stopped I'd have absolutely nothing to bring to the table in my weed-centered relationships.

So, yeah, staring down the gauntlet of stopping my main communication aids seemed daunting. Above all, I was certain I'd lose everyone. Those who I smoked with all of the time would be uninterested in me without the weed. My party friends wouldn't want me now that I was a boring stick in the mud who wouldn't drink.

The last two years have brought me an intense amount of confidence. I see a difference in myself all the time. I talk to strangers. I very rarely find myself intimidated by anyone. And this is sober me. It's taken a lot of work that I'll get into the specifics of at another time. But I swear this is what it took to get me to the place where I felt I could, at minimum, survive and navigate the world sober.

The last time I got drunk was with my best friend (who has remained one of my best friends even without the drinking.) We'd planned a day of drinking, and I remember thinking all week leading up to it, I can't wait to let go. And this is now coming from a confident woman, who lives her truth, and tells her truth. It begs the question: what the hell are you letting go of? You've already let go!

I woke up the day after our drunken escapades with literally no regrets. My drinking in the last 6 months of it was not detrimental, I wouldn't say. I'd found a good balance. I knew when I was going too far, and I had a self-awareness and self-control that I had lacked in the years prior. What I did wake up with, however, was the most gloomy depressive mood I'd felt since 2018. I felt so low. I was crying for no reason and suicidal, and I kid you not, that lasted a week.

I'd noticed this was a pattern in that last 6 months. I had all kinds of control and my apology tour dates were way less frequent, but I would wake up and be depressed for the whole day, if not the whole week. It sucked. It was terrifying. I wanted to just experience alcohol like a normal person, and the day after my last binge, I realized I couldn’t.

So I looked at my therapist that week, told her I wanted detox acupuncture and that I was done. She'd heard I was done 3 specific times before, but never had I asked for the detox. Or for her to hold me accountable. Never could I answer her question, "What do you need from me to help you stay sober?" But this time, I had a list.

That was the thing: I wasn't running from anything anymore. My life was ideal. I had nothing going against me. These depressive episodes were my fault now. How the fuck was I going to come home and fight tooth and nail against my own brain for months, just to drive myself back into the gloom? Who did I think I was? How could I do that to the people that stood by me while I fought? I couldn't, so I stopped.

And I'm happy to report that my fear of losing connection was very misplaced. Well, sort of. People did fall off. But I saw this as a clearing of the roster. I was not going to pour into people if they couldn't support my sobriety. This was something I said to myself from the get-go. So yeah, there are people I don't talk to at all anymore now that I don't have weed to offer them or won't get shit faced with them. But as they left, other people who love me and my journey wandered into my life and took their place. I don't even know if you can call them place-takers. They've helped me level up in my life. They are serious blessings and I accredit a few of these 90 days to them solely. Life weeded them out for me, growth eliminated them, and I wish them nothing but the best.

Most everyone stayed, though. And in the best ways. I still go out, I just don't drink, and I haven't once felt pressured to drink. Everyone has been so sweet and honestly over considerate. I am on no moral high ground, so I am always reassuring people they can drink around me and I have no judgment. If that's my biggest problem in my relationships, I'll call that a profound win. I have friends that have found other things to do with me, and I see the intentionality behind it and respect it and feel so honored to get to go on new journeys with them.

My connections have become deeper because they're more wholesome now. And they are based in love that I now wholeheartedly believe (not that I didn't before. But when someone is willing to meet you where you are and love you for it… it's priceless.) The connections I have are all real now. There's no more surface-level bullshit. I was afraid I'd be losing out if I wasn't in the pot circle, or drunk in the back of an Uber, but I've done nothing but gain in my relationships since the day I decided to quit.

Beyond that, my authentic self showed up the second I decided she was allowed to. All of these connections, new and old, are now based on the Shelby who isn't drunk or high. Therefore, everyone that loves me must love this me. They must not think I'm a stick in the mud. They must think that I'm whole all on my own. This is a blessing in and of itself. It's reinforced my confidence. I know, confidence is something that comes from within. But when you're building an entirely new belief system surrounding your self-image, external confirmation is nice.

I feel more like me than ever. Want to know how I feel about you right this second? I'll muster up the 5 seconds of courage and tell you. I'm not afraid anymore. Part of this goes back to that whole "gratitude for rejection" mindset, which I heavily endorse and practice every day as of late. If you can't handle me, if I'm too much or too little, that is fine. I know not everyone is for everyone and by leaving all you do is open a spot on the roster. I am enough to me, and I am the perfect amount of me in my own eyes, and I won't waste another second of this life living in any other mindset ever again. I will never need anything to make me who I want to be.

All of these things are seemingly a little redundant at this point, but I'll keep saying them over and over because I'm astonished that I believe them. I sound kind of cocky, but I swear I'm not. If anything sobriety and it's many battles are humbling. But I am proud as fuck. It's taken so much work, pre and post sobriety, and I'm living an amazing life because of it. A flawed, messy, beautiful life.

On December 8th, 2019, I decided that my higher self needed me to show up wholly and soberly. And I was so right. This season in my life requires me to be mentally fit. I am in a city where not a single person knows drunk Shelby. And I don't want them to, because she's not in alignment with the dreams I'm pursuing. I have so much compassion for and offer so much grace to that girl, but I'm not her anymore. I require more of me, and I can't be who I need coming from that mindset. That was a mindset of lack, of not being enough, and I only project abundance these days.