Why October is So Special to Me
October 1, 2018 changed my life. It was a choice I made to stop drinking alcohol for 90 days as part of a #Last90Days Challenge by Rachel and Dave Hollis, now the Hollis Co. (Also, they’re getting divorced but that’s for another post.) I’ve told the story already here if you want to read more details.
But here I am, two years and a few days later, and I’m 98% alcohol-free. I say 98% because I have a glass of wine or a hard kombucha once a month or maybe every two months? It’s so rare it’s hard to remember. Giving it up two years ago absolutely changed my relationship with alcohol forever. I’m so, so grateful and before you roll your eyes, let me share my story.
I grew up with an alcoholic father. I’ve seen what alcohol can do to a person. To a marriage. To a lifetime. Even though I saw all of that, I started drinking at an early age. It was the summer before my sophomore year in high school. I had tagged along with my older sister, who was one year ahead of me in school along with my cousin, to a party the night before we were going to a family funeral the next morning. Normally, I wouldn’t have been invited (our high school was 10-12th grades so I wasn’t “cool” yet) but my sister had to take me with her, per my mom’s instructions, to wherever she had told my mom she was going.
I was nervous as hell because there was a boy there that I had had a major crush on for the past couple of years. He had gone with me to our Sadie Hawkins dance in junior high when I was just a dorky seventh grader and he had been a FRESHMAN. Can you imagine that now?! What the hell was he thinking? I’l never forget the moment “Crazy for You” by Madonna started playing while we were dancing, and as we did the typical Frankenstein slow dance, I started shaking so bad that it was like I was standing in a snowstorm without a coat. I was weird, he was cute, and maybe that’s why he ended up ditching me to go hang out with my sister and her friends at Pizza Hut afterwards. This high school party included him and all of his friends. I was awkward AF.
Then something miraculous happened. I was invited to join the card table with him and his friends, all who were going to be SENIORS. I felt special. I learned how to play “Up and Down the River”, a drinking game where cards are flipped and you either take or give as many drinks as what the card instructs. The point of the game, clearly, is to get drunk fast. I thought I was cool by being at that table. Instead, I was part of the game. Let’s get the little girl drunk and see what happens.
I accomplished drunkenness but because we missed curfew, I stumbled right into my mom and aunt at the door looking at me with disgust. Or at least I interpreted it as disgust. But I didn’t learn a damn thing from the early morning car ride (longest of my life), or from the hangover, or from the throwing up in the church basement bathroom. Hell, I was just getting started. Here’s why.
Something more intoxicating than alcohol happened at that party. I learned alcohol got me a seat at the table, wherever I was. I learned people thought I was funny with alcohol. I gained confidence with alcohol. I became someone else with alcohol. Someone other than the shy, awkward, insecure, and afraid of everything version of me came alive. Even the embarrassment of being hungover at that funeral, the shame of disappointing my mom (funny, I don’t remember my dad saying a word to me about it), and the physical discomfort of the actual hangover were nothing compared to that feeling. I wanted alcohol because it meant I didn’t have to be the real me or feel he things I didn’t want to feel.
But alcohol has never been the friend I thought it was. It left me alone with boys who had zero honor. (Yep, I’ve got a couple #metoo stories that I will share at some point. Not here, not now.) It was a horrible study partner and always taunted me to go “play” which always led me to skip my early morning college classes. It handed me cigarettes and Amigos or a slice of cheap, greasy pizza at the end of the night. It told me one more meant more fun. It told me to stop dreaming because who did I think I was anyway? I was just a stupid, naive, and nothing special small-town girl and alcohol told me I didn’t have what it took to be anything other than those things so I didn’t need to bother trying.
Alcohol was some kind of asshole. But I couldn’t see that until I stepped away. Some of the worst things that happened in my life were because of alcohol. Why I let it be a big influence in my life for so long tells you two things about me.
I didn’t love myself
I was a runner
I hated everything about myself, from the way I looked with my dimply thighs, my crooked smile, to the way I laughed, and even my handwriting. (Fact: I spent an entire school year studying one of my friend’s handwriting in the notes she would give me. I practiced and copied it because I wanted to write just like her all of her cool swirls and rebellious Ss. My writing looked juvenile with all it’s bubble-y swoops.)
I also ran from hard things. I avoided anything that caused discomfort: arguments or confrontations, dealing with my meager finances, being wrong, tasks that challenged me, and certain people, especially the confident ones. Alcohol kept me in a comfort zone. It’s also how I dated my husband and how we related to each other. If all else failed, we always had the alcohol. Until death do us part.
Ironically, that comfort zone became very uncomfortable. The shame I felt from drinking too much had finally reached its peak. I had been working on my health for over 10 years by this time and alcohol was the last to go.
To participate in the 90 day challenge, I had to give up one food category that I knew wasn’t good for me. I knew what it needed to be. In a bold move, I chose alcohol. I knew it was the only way I was going to do it. If I claimed publicly that I was going to abstain from drinking for 90 days, it was the only way I was going to keep me from breaking a promise to myself. Even if I was doing a cleanse or working with a trainer, alcohol intake may have been reduced but it was never taken away.
But as I made it through, week after week, wonderful things began to happen.
When I gave up alcohol, I realized I was choosing me. That by saying no to alcohol I was saying yes to myself. It was an act of love for myself. Those, my friends, have been few and far between.
I made new friends and reconnected with old ones when I gave it up. I connected with strangers, either other sober curious folks or those in recovery, because our mutual disenchantment with alcohol. Friendships from my past were rekindled because they had come to the same conclusion about alcohol and our connection became fresh and new.
I also let friendships fade that were clearly based on alcohol consumption. When they found out I stopped drinking, they were like deer in headlights. Like I’d grown another head. Maybe I had…one that actually worked.
My dreams came back. Or maybe I never had them until now. I felt motivated. I wanted more from my life. I felt empowered. I felt alive. I felt proud. I felt strong. I felt focused and clear-headed. God, it was amazing. That was more intoxicating than any buzz I’d ever had.
I became more creative. I created an online program to help others find a healthier lifestyle. I want to use my own experience to help others live awake, feel well, and be empowered. I tell you all about it here.
Sleep, glorious sleep.
Energy like I’ve never known.
This all because on the first day of October, two years ago, I said yes to myself and no to alcohol. I will never care again about being allowed at the table. I have my own damn table. I will never give up on myself or my dreams again. I will never run away from the hard things. They are what make me feel strong and alive. I’ve never felt more confident than I am now. I’ve never felt so happy with all the parts of myself, dimply thighs and all. I care about things that truly matter and not what others think about me. I. COULDN’T. CARE. LESS. I will never let anything control me or my thoughts again, like I did alcohol. I love myself more without it than any fake version of me that alcohol could give me.
Life is messy, hard, uncomfortable, sad, lonely, and full of lots of other tough feelings, but it is also wonderful, joyful, hilarious, exhilarating, purposeful and rewarding. Drinking alcohol can never ever give me the truth value of those feelings the way not drinking can. I may see her around here and there but alcohol and me are no longer friends. Our breakup had been long overdue and not once, NOT ONCE, have I regretted ending our toxic relationship.
That’s why I’ll forever be grateful for October. It gave me so much; the biggest was me.
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I’m sharing this story with you to encourage you to give #SoberOctober a chance. It may over a week in right now but it’s not too late to start. See how you feel at the end of the month and then keep going. It doesn’t have to be forever. Just do it for right now and see what gifts are revealed to you as well.
in AWE,
Hal