Life Lessons from Recovery
As we ditch the booze and try to navigate our alcohol drenched world without it we often say we are on a “journey”. My guest this week got sober and then decided to embark on a physical journey.
From Mexico to Canada – on foot! – 2,500 miles! – 5 months!
She applied the lessons from her recovery to the walk and then wrote a book about it..
My guest uses her trail name which is Person Irresponsible – P.I. for short..
In this Episode
- PI grew up in a drinking home and married a drinker – a familiar story as we tend to seek out the familiar – our comfort zone
- In her twenties she doesn’t recall being worried about her drinking but there were certainly some “incidents’
- She realises that she was in deep denial – hanging around with other drinkers to normalise her behaviour
- As she got into her thirties her hangovers got more severe, her marriage collapsed and she started drinking until she blacked out
- Like many drinkers she fell into “victim” mode, blaming others – in her case blaming her ex husband
- As she looks back on this she can see that alcoholism prevents any rational thought
- PI became so unhappy during this period she didn’t actually care what happened to her or what harm she was doing to herself with alcohol
- She never read romance or chick lit but for some reason she had an urge to read Rachels Holiday by Marian Keyes
- At the end of the book Marian had written about AA so PI decided to call the helpline and talk to someone – as a result of this conversation she decided to try 30 days without alcohol
- She went to 30 meetings in 30 days and was thrilled to get her 30 day chip – one of the guys at the meetings said – now you have to do 60 days which came as a surprise but she decided to go for it, after all physically she felt so much better!
- PI loved the stories and the drama – and the chips at AA – she wasn’t so keen on the solutions and didn’t listen to those..
- Unsurprisingly she relapsed – on Day 72 – but the alcohol she drank didn’t give her the relief she was looking for
- She went to a meeting and heard a share that really resonated with her – and she finally accepted that she was an alcoholic
- That got her back on track and although she suffered from bad cravings now and again she learnt how to “break the spell” – whether by talking to someone or writing a list of reasons to be sober
- As she hit one year sober she started to hear a voice saying “surely you can have just one now” – as well as the voices explaining why that would be a bad idea.
- As she said she had a “war” going on in her head – full on cognitive dissonance as the psychologists call it..
- That made me think of the study by the Tempest that it takes a person an average of 11 years to reach out for help – that’s 11 years of listening to the battle between your rational mind and your limiting beliefs in your subconscious – exhausting!
- She made the decision to get her one year chip and then to try having a drink – but then she got a call from a sponsee asking for help – listening to this persons struggle “broke the spell” for her and made her realise that she didn’t want ever to go back to those difficult days again
- That’s why we encourage our members to stick around even after they have got sober – it's so rewarding to be able to help other people and it’s a reminder of how tough those early days are – after all who wants to keep doing the hardest bit, again and again.
- We even have a 6 years+ group at Tribe Sober and the conversations are quite different on that group – we added up our collective years of sobriety the other day - 184 Years in all!
- Like many of us PI found herself with time on her hands when she stopped drinking. Inspired by a movie called "Wild" she decided to walk the worlds longest footpath – from Mexico to Canada, the Pacific Crest Trail.
- We always say that your world will open up to new possibilities when you ditch the drink and PI is a great example
- She was able to apply the lessons she had learned in recovery during the walk – she gave us a nice analogy of the initial excitement at the beginning of the walk (pink cloud), followed by the boredom and the difficulty and the need to just keep going.
- Her walk was a perfect metaphor for her recovery journey – and she often just wanted to quit
- She describes the PCT as the second greatest achievement in her life (after recovery)
- At Tribe Sober we often say that Sobriety is a Superpower as if we can do that we can do anything!
- So do get hold of PI’s book which is called “Everything you Ever Taught Me” – I’ve read it and it’s great – very funny and full of insight
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