I wake up not hungover on my ninety-fifth day of sobriety but being not hungover is not the first thing that occurs to me upon opening my eyes. I still smile like a dork first thing, tho, because I can hear the coffee maker grinding fresh French roast beans as I lay warm and toasty still beneath the blankets. It suddenly strikes me as a little bit odd that I am not ecstatic about another sober morning. It wears off, I guess. That ‘pink cloud’ from the very first few weeks when each and every morning you are astounded that you have busted up a pattern you were certain could never be interrupted. Sober mornings are the new normal for me now. As are wine-free evenings. Even the weekends. Even the holidays.
It is hard to quit ‘gray area drinking’ or whatever the fuck they are calling it at the moment. It’s stupid to name it just like it’s stupid to label anything but it’s referred to a lot these days because a good lot of us are doing it and asking ourselves over and over if we are doing it ‘too much.’ You do not qualify for rehab. You haven’t lost anything that would indicate to the outside world, not even your closest family or friends, that you had a very serious problem. But on the inside of your mind it is a shaky chaotic minefield. You cannot trust yourself to stop. You do not stop. You do not see the point in stopping because then what the hell else is there? Wine saturates everything. It belongs everywhere all the time. It belongs at a party just as much as it belongs in bed with you at the end of the night. It belongs to you and you belong to it. It hurts you and controls you and ruins you but it also romances you, soothes you, holds you, takes care of you. You don’t mind drowning. You deserve drowning.
The real mindfuck of trying to quit the kind of drinking no one wants to believe they are doing whilst they flail around inside of very active addiction is that half the time your brain is telling you to stop making such a big deal about a nonsense problem. The other half the time it’s ragging on you to stop denying the glaring, deafening problem. And because there is no clear definition of what constitutes ‘the problem’ exactly, the battle rages on inside of you about whether or not to address the situation even as you can’t stop making it exponentially worse.
This is not a fully fleshed out blog post. Please forgive me. There is so much more to be said and explored and pulled apart and shared and yet I still have a nine-to-five corporate gig I need to keep up with. There is a very huge part of me that wants to give every waking moment over to studying addiction and recovery. Maybe one day I will. Fuck knows I never thought I would get this far. I keep wondering how many of us are out there struggling with the mental torment of being addicted to alcohol. Questioning what is normal and what is deadly. Have no where to begin to understand. Laughing along when on the inside we are scared to bits.
Allison Marie Conway 
That’s it; the shaky chaotic minefield.
This speaks to me, literally- In early sobriety I used to feel like, and speak about tap dancing through that minefield.
As always,
Thank You!
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So grateful this supports your well being. 🕊🙏🏻🕊
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I can never stop admiring your courage and the beauty and the elegance of your words. You might feel good knowing that I am taking home many lessons from your journey. I am not addicted to alcohol. However, I am addicted to toxic people. The people I need to stay away from, but cannot because apparently I can’t differentiate between manipulation and affection. Trust me, letting go of people addiction is no fun, haha.
I am thankful to read your words and find comfort in them. ❤️
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Thank you so much. Hearing this means more than I can say, that my words in any way help or comfort. That’s all that matters. Addiction is addiction. No matter what we numb ourselves with we are losing our precious lives to it. Lives worth saving over and over again. 🕊🤍🕊
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I love hearing about how you feel when you wake up happy and clear. And the way you described the hurt and the comfort of wine, it really makes it clear what an emotional abuser it is. Smooth seductive love bombs before the brutal hangovers. But you don’t have to deal with any of that anymore. ❤️
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How grateful and joyful I am to receive this beautiful intuitive comment from you.
Yes. It is abusive. It is a cycle of abuse and self harm. And you just don’t see it when you’re in it. Everything is just immediacy – it hurts, numb it hurry.
I love that you see it. You get it. Makes me feel less crazy. Thank you endless, dear heart. ❤️
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Oh thank you too, you’re just like a warm hug 🤗
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The best 🥰
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Keep going, Allison!
How has sobriety affected your approach to the corporate side of life?
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Thanks, man.
It amplifies my desire to run far far away from corporate. But perhaps you had a more specific question that I’m not answering?
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Haha, I can understand that for sure!
It was more of a general question. But more specific would be if you’ve noticed if work stress increased the want of the drink.
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Let me put it this way – work stress increases my desire to kill off that stress. My subconscious is now convinced drinking it off is 100% no longer an option. Knowing that, I put up with a LOT less bullshit up front. I will stop the cycle wayyyy farther upstream. I know what is too much. I will not take on what isn’t mine to carry. That goes for work as well as marriage and family and friendships and blogging and writing and social media posting and all the rest of it.
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That’s awesome, I’m happy for you!
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Speechless
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🕊🤍🕊
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Amazingly written. I appreciate your courage in choosing what’s best for your mental health. ❤️
If you’d like reading some personal musings from my diary then follow my page. I have more upcoming posts scheduled. ✌🏼
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I know you don’t know me, but…
Girl, I am beyond proud of you. You are walking one of the hardest paths and you seem to be rocking it.
Seriously, so so proud. 🤗
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That you would reach out and say this warms my whole heart. Thank you sincerely. It means so much. 🤍🤍🤍
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