Nine Years Sober

My thoughts on reaching this milestone.

Photo by Jasmine Bartel on Unsplash

Tomorrow is the ninth anniversary of what is probably the most important day of my life: The day I quit drinking.

Whenever I reach one of these big sober milestones, I feel a huge mix of emotions. I’m proud of how far I’ve come. I’m grateful to all of the people who helped me along the way. Most of all, it feels surreal.

When I was still drinking, I had so much trouble believing that I was really an alcoholic. It felt like I was watching someone else, or like my alcoholism was just a dream that I would eventually wake up from.

Now that I’ve been sober for nine years, I sometimes feel just the opposite. It’s my sobriety that’s hard to believe. I can’t wrap my head around the fact that I’m just one year shy of a decade without booze.

Through all of these confusing emotions, most of all, I’m normally incredibly happy when I reach another year alcohol-free. It’s truly one of the great accomplishments of my life.

However, with all of that said, I have to be honest and admit that this year is different.

If you go back through old editions of this newsletter, you’ll find that just a couple of months ago, I was writing about how I was happier than ever before. Then, a month or so ago, I got hit with a sudden wave of sadness.

I think a lot of it comes from loneliness. I’ve been moving too much the past few years, and I need to stay in the same city for a while and build some better connections.

I went back to my home state for a visit last week, and it was amazing to be around so many people I know and love. Now that I’m back out west, the solitude is hitting me even harder.

To add to that, one of my closest friends in town is isolating due to COVID, and the other has been too busy to hang out. Through a misunderstanding, I thought I had plans for NYE, and at the last minute, realized that there had been a miscommunication and the other person involved had totally different plans that didn’t involve me. It makes me feel like that friendship is falling apart.

These are the kinds of things that I can get through when I’m feeling happier, but that hit me incredibly hard when I’m already so sad.

But the longer this sadness goes on, the more I’m beginning to realize that it’s likely more than just feeling sad or lonely. I’m probably going through a depressive episode.

So, on the eve of my ninth sober anniversary, I’m feeling sad and also concerned about my mental health.

I’m sorry that this isn’t the type of positive, motivational article that I wish I could write for the occasion. Sometimes I write to motivate others, sometimes I write to work through my problems. This definitely falls hard into the latter category.

Right now, what’s bothering me most acutely is the idea that I’m not going to have anyone to celebrate the sober anniversary with. The last few years, I’ve gotten a cake on NYE to mark the anniversary, but I’ve just discovered that I’ll be spending the holiday alone, and I think having a cake by myself would make me feel even worse.

I’m not sure what the solution is. I might try reaching out to acquaintances in town and see if any of them need NYE plans or have space for me in theirs. Or I might just have a quiet night in and try to call a few friends and family members.

Before I end this newsletter, I do want to share a few hopeful thoughts. The first is that I really do believe I’ll get through this, whatever “this” is. If it’s just being lonely, I’m sure that this time next year I’ll have more friends. If it’s depression, I’ll find a way through that, too.

I don’t think that being sober is what caused any of this. I’m even fairly confident that if I had still been drinking, this would all be much worse.

And lastly, I’m proud to say that despite feeling like absolute crap this past month, I’m not even remotely tempted to have a drink. I’m talking to other sober people and keeping an eye on my emotions anyway, just as a back-up, but I think that after nine years sober, I’ve finally retrained my brain a bit so that I don’t immediately start craving a drink whenever something goes wrong.

This is the time of year in which a lot of people get sober. If you’re one of them, good luck! Despite the tone of today’s newsletter, I still believe getting sober was the single best change I ever made in my life. It was hard, and it didn’t solve all of my problems (obviously!), but sobriety has kept me alive and, most of the time, happy.