Discomfort

I know, it's boring when someone who's sober talks about being sober all the time. But you know what? It's fucking hard. I think we talk about it because it's a drag being the sober one. We have to figure out other things to do with our lives than what we were accustomed to doing - something that most people in our society are still accustomed to doing.

"Let's grab a drink." Well...ok, but I'm having soda or a 'Shirley Temple'. Why can't we say, "Let's meet up to chat"? I mean, I know it's basically the same thing, but I also understand the underlying connotation by it; if we get a drink, we can relax and really feel comfortable with each other. Otherwise, well...it's uncomfortable.

Sober people are trying to deal with that discomfort, too, but in a different way. And it's hard, to be honest. It's fucking hard.

I'm not talking about one day. Or even a week. I'm talking about days on end, each time you're faced with an activity, whether it be social or even by yourself, which used to entail the consumption of alcohol and/or smoking/vaping weed/ganja, you now have to think of something else to do with that activity or time or social encounter. It's like brainstorming all the time and trying to think of something that will be at least somewhat appealing to you to replace it. For instance, at a party, do you drink non-alcoholic beer instead? I did that. It's kinda gross. Ok, well, maybe soda? Well, I did that when we went rafting on the river for a few hours - had a whole 6 pack of diet Dr.Pepper...then felt bloated and gaseous for days afterwards. So scratch those ideas...

I don't really want to be sober from substances, but I feel like I have no choice because I do want to be sober from my love addiction - the crazy behaviors I can have when I feel like I'm losing love (after feeling a 'high' from getting it). Substances lower my judgments and I need them to stay clear so I can learn how to love in a healthy way. So sobriety seems to need to be all-encompassing for it to really stick - at least for me and almost everyone else I've ever met who was serious about staying sober.

Discomfort is a mild form of pain. What I'm learning in my 12-step meetings is that people with addictions learned that pain was not ok, that it is unbearable and must be stopped or at least reduced - no matter what one must do to achieve that goal. We find something that feels so good that it does take away that pain...but then we cannot always have it and soon it gives us less and less of that relief, but we still crave it, we feel like we might die without it (in some cases, this may be true) and thus, for our own survival, we'll do nearly anything for it - the definition of addiction. But when did we learn that pain was so unbearable?

I found out a couple of weekends ago when I visited my family, in a conversation with my mother, that she would do anything to reduce or eradicate our (my siblings and my) pain. She said this in a very self-assured manner (my therapist said it is 'egosyntonic') - like she was proud of this fact. I think I used to be proud of it, as well, and saw it as a self-less act of love. It is derived from love, but it's an enmeshment type of love - it's derived from her feeling my pain and her not being able to handle it. I'm not trying to put my mother down - I have been like this all of my life, as well. I can sympathize with my mother - she either learned it from her parents or came to it from other ways her upbringing taught her. I've always seen this characteristic as a result of being extremely sensitive and sympathetic to others. But now I see it for what it truly is - enmeshment and the inability to sit with pain, to just let it happen and let it pass.

Sitting with our pain is what we're learning to do in sobriety, in our 12-step programs, in our recoveries from our addictions and codependency. Yeah, it sure is uncomfortable. But we learn that it passes, just like everything in this life, in this universe - it's all waves. Up, down, up down...nothing sits still. But if we try to control it...we tend to prolong it or even make it worse. Just let it happen.

That is where finding peace and a 'higher power' comes in - we find peace even in the discomfort because we trust that the universe will normalize our lives again - the crest of the wave will fall, the tide will rise again...everything equalizes if we let it. That's either a belief in a higher power, or in the power of the universe or the wisdom of experience...but it's just trusting that it will come back and the pain that was here today will be gone tomorrow. Soon the discomfort becomes bearable - there's no need to do anything to diminish it, because it diminishes on its own.