After Four Weeks of Not Drinking, I Can Finally Breathe

 

Four weeks ago I felt like I was literally drowning.

And looking back, I actually was.

There is a reason that people use the term "drowning our sorrows". And I was doing just that. I was drowning my sorrows, my anxiety, my overwhelm, and myself.

I told myself that I had reasons to have that drink. Of COURSE I had reasons to have that drink.

I was a single Mom of three busy boys. I ran my own business, and well...Covid. I had financial worries and motherhood worries and lunches to make and laundry to wash and clients to service. All of these burdens deserved a drink to get me through AND THEN after, as a reward for me getting through them.

What becomes clearer to me everyday is that every single glass that I drank pulled me deeper and deeper down into that poisonous liquid, drowning me- instead of saving me.

I drank because my kids were 'too much'. Now that I am not drowning myself I simply see a teenager navigating adolescence. I see my 10 year old empath, that takes on everyone's energy (good or bad) from the day and needs to share that with me in order to make sense of it. I see my 7 year old trying to make sense of this mask-wearing, fear-driven world we are living in.

And now that I can breathe, I am no longer overwhelmed. I can comfort, soothe, listen and love. And I now realize that this time is fleeting.

I drank because I was overwhelmed with work. Which caused me to become more overwhelmed with work because I drank. I felt that I had it under control. I never got hangovers, but that was because I was constantly topping up the cup that I was continually drowning in. It never got empty.

Drowning had me constantly in a state of panic. Fearing what my life would look like if I could ever stop pouring the liquid that was actually killing me. I felt safe in the blurry. In the numb. In the oxygen-deprived life that I had created. 

But now- I can breathe.

And now that I can see clearly and compare both ways of living- I choose breath.

I have come up for air. I have breathed freely for four weeks. 

And I know that I will never drown myself again.

Blessings.