One Year

One year ago, today, I was at rock bottom on a 4-day bender.  I told myself it was ok to drink, Matt was gone hunting, he’d never find out.  (I should mention I had been trying to get sober for a few months, going to meetings and some other classes; however, sobriety never lasted more than 2 weeks at a time.) Well, I didn’t stop at the weekend and Matt found out and I still continued to drink.  Wednesday, November 30th, 2016 I woke up in a daze not remembering the night before and Matt was sitting on the edge of our bed.  He said we needed to take a break.  Those words stabbed me in my heart.  I knew right then that if I didn’t change not only would I lose the best man that ever walked into my life, I’d lose everything else as well.  I called my mom crying and said the most important words I have ever said my entire life, “I need to get help”.

That afternoon, I arrived a Rogers Memorial Hospital’s detox center in Oconomowoc. 

I returned home Sunday, December 4th broken but sober and Matt waiting for me.  It was tough the next few days, not necessarily with cravings to drink but beginning to feel emotions again, guilt from all the lies I told and feeling as if I didn’t deserve Matt’s love.  But he supported me fully, along with my family, and that had helped tremendously.

With it being the holiday season, attending functions/parties where alcohol was readily available was the biggest test for any newly sober person.  I knew that I would just have to leave if any cravings started to arise.  Again tho, it wasn’t so much the not drinking that was hard, it was attempting to socialize sober while having mild social anxiety.  But going through that ended up shining a light on where my addiction stemmed from, my own insecurity of not fitting in, not being a part of the ‘cool’ group. 

Over this last year, I used counseling, family support, and yoga to aid my sobriety, but it was yoga that gave me the coping skills and mental strength to remain sober.  Yoga also helped me realize the alcohol was a form of distraction for me, a way to become that outgoing, fun girl I always wished I was, but all it did was temporarily fill the emptiness growing within me, distracting me from the swelling sadness from not letting myself be who I was meant to be.  I was pushing the true Katie under, drowning her with alcohol all because I was looking for approval outside of myself.  I believed that if I was the crazy, outgoing, life of the party girl I’d finally feel like I fit in, I’d have more friends.  Wanna know the crazy part? All those friends I thought I had seemingly disappeared when I stopped going out in an attempt to stop drinking. 

What am I getting at?  Today, I sit in front of my computer writing this blog (and enjoying it, lol) because I have found my voice.  Today, I carried my massage table in and out of houses because I’m building my own business.  Today, I wake up every morning excited to see what life has in store for me.  I don’t think it was sobriety that got me here, it was taking the opportunity to learn from the process of becoming sober that brought me to this point.  I didn’t just stop drinking... I reflected, I let myself feel and cry, I finally accepted who Katie is, a kind, soft spoken woman that enjoys intimate gatherings over large parties.  This filled the emptiness within me with love, compassion, and confidence that I never had before.  

That’s how I got here today but everyone has their own journey.   I’m just glad I followed mine, so I could write this and maybe help someone to follow theirs.