Staying Sober During Times of Stress
What I do when life is making me anxious
I recently started applying for new jobs and it has been incredibly stressful.
As I’ve mentioned in previous newsletters, I moved abroad about a year and a half ago. Depending on which job I get, I could end up staying here in Europe or returning to the United States within the next few months.
I’d be perfectly happy with either option, but it’s driving me a little crazy not to even know which continent I’ll be living in at the end of the summer.
These periods of stress are a normal part of life, but they can also prove quite challenging to people like us who are in recovery from an addiction. It’s often hardest to stay sober when we have big stressful unknowns lurking in our future.
I had a thought yesterday, that if I was still a drinker, I would have been getting black-out drunk every night of this past month, doing my best to completely ignore all the stress of the job hunt. Of course, that wouldn’t have been a good strategy, but it’s the one that I would have taken.
By getting drunk, I would have given my mind time to relax and not worry about my problems for a few hours each day. However, I also would have been sabotaging my chances in the job market and setting myself up for far worse results in my search. In addition, I would have been feeding an awful addiction that was damaging my finances, social life, and health. Clearly, getting drunk to ignore our problems is a terrible idea.
But what can we do instead? What can sober people do when they feel like one massive bundle of stress and anxiety?
This month, I’ve responded to the stress in two ways—one healthy, and one not so healthy.
The first is that I’ve focused on running. Going for a run is always a great distraction for me. It’s one of the few times of day when my brain completely relaxes and I can just zone out. Like alcohol, it allows me to forget my problems. Unlike alcohol, running is great for me.
This month I ended up running tons on my own and with a friend, as well as entering two enormous races. I managed to set personal records in both the half-marathon and 10-kilometer distances.
Running is a better response than alcohol in just about every way. It’s cheaper, it’s better for me, and it helps me to be social instead of closing myself up in my apartment.
However, there’s a limit to how much a person can run each week, and for me, it turns out that limit is about seven hours. So what have I done with all of my other free time?
I wish I could say that I used it all in such a healthy and productive way, but the truth is I’ve mostly been playing dumb games on my phone—chess, sudoku, crosswords, and a bunch of those grindy apps that barely count as games (candy crush and the like).
I’ve been stressed enough that I’m having trouble concentrating on reading or writing, and I’ve run just about as much as I can, so these games have filled a big chunk of my schedule lately.
I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with playing a lot of chess or sudoku, they can be fun hobbies. But, when you’re just playing tons and tons of quick, easy games, it starts to feel less fun and more like a way to kill time.
I’m not thinking hard while I play or trying to get better, I’m just playing so that I don’t have to dwell on the job search.
And yet, even though this isn’t the healthiest response, I’m still OK with it. Why? Because it’s a million times healthier than drinking my problems away.
Sometimes, since getting sober, I’ve felt the pressure to live my life in some kind of “perfect” way without a single bad habit or wasted second. Of course, that’s an unachievable pipe dream.
It’s not realistic to live a perfect life, and putting too much of that pressure on ourselves can be incredibly counterproductive. That type of black-and-white thinking can feel like self-improvement, but it’s often just a way to disguise our desire for relapse.
When I tell myself I want to be perfect, then any imperfection becomes an excuse to let everything else slide too. I end up telling myself that if I’m going to waste time playing a bunch of games on my phone, I might as well be drinking.
However, as we all know, not every vice is equally bad. It’s far better to kill a couple of hours on my phone each day than to get black-out drunk each night. It isn’t even a contest.
When I compare killing time on the phone to a relapse, it’s so incredibly, obviously the better option.
No, it’s not a perfect use of my time, but it is an acceptable coping mechanism to get me through a tough month or two.
Hopefully, within the next week or two, I’ll have a much clearer sense of what I’m doing next. In the worst-case scenario, I’ll know within a couple of months.
Instead of allowing these weeks or months to ruin the rest of my life with a relapse, I’ll prioritize my sobriety and allow myself to live a little imperfectly in the ways that don’t matter as much.