To One Year & Beyond: A journey of Sobriety

By Lo Hunter

*Triggering content possible

I’m almost one year sober.

I drank alcohol from the time I was 13 to make friends, to cope with stress and anxiety, and to bury my feelings surrounding my life. It was “never a problem” until I finally realized that it for sure had been a problem all along. A few years back when I got sober the first time, my world got turned upside down around my 10 month mark. Shortly after that traumatic time period in my life, I gaslit myself into thinking that I could moderate alcohol. I always thought relapse would be full blown chaos, but for me it was quiet, it was sneaky. Insidious. Outside forces validated the quiet whispers of addiction in my mind and said I could handle a single drink on occasion. The message pulsing through me was that I had made it that far, so I must have reset the problem and I was a clean slate. That isn’t the case for everyone and it sure wasn’t for me. Some people can drink and not harm their soul. I can’t. And that’s a fact of my life not up for debate anymore. It started out as a little seed in the back of my mind, then one glass of wine over a weekend, before it took over my life and put my flame out again.

I think that, along with my preconceived notions on what relapse “would be like,” I also thought I knew what rock bottom would be like. But just like everything else, I think it’s different for everyone. My rock bottom was a deterioration from the inside out. A slow self-harm, drowning myself in alcohol. An inner silent destruction, manifesting on the outside as what only appeared to others as going out with friends on occasion but keeping up with work and appearances. I always did good work and made it seem like I had it together enough outwardly, so no one knew how bad it really was on the inside. My rock bottom moment was that I knew what I was going to end up doing if I continued drinking. I knew because I even had a date and a plan. So I had a choice to make. The day before the date, I cried. It was a hollow one. One of those cries that feels like your insides are tearing themselves out. I ached of hunger, of emptiness. I was starving for food, and for love, as I had given up on both. I knew it could all end the next day if I went through with my plan and I looked at the just-opened beer in my hand. I pondered it for a long time. Eventually the tears stopped and something just clicked. I turned cold. I realized that this wasn’t the friend I thought I had had all along. A true friend wouldn’t want this for me. This thing in my hand wanted me to die and be an anxious, destructive, miserable mess in the process. It had tried multiple times. It was a liar. In that moment, I had just enough left in me to get f—ing pissed enough at it to try again. Maybe it was survival instinct, or just the last shred of spirit I could access at that point, but I knew there wasn’t only ONE choice here, to leave. There was a second choice, and that was to try again. To fight harder this time and that if I was going to survive this life by choice, it meant never drinking again. I walked to my bathroom sink, steady in my fury, and I poured my last just-opened beer down the drain. I watched it gurgle away and I felt the anger burn my eyes as it did.

I had people that were supportive and showed me love, got me out into nature, brought me candy (sugar cravings are wild), and for them I’m super grateful. But I felt the most alone I ever have in my life when I made the decision to get sober, and making that choice meant I had to lose some close relationships to be able to sustain it, especially early on. It’s not easy to face yourself and the full spectrum of human emotion without a buffer. I broke down, and slowly healed mostly in isolation. I needed to be alone, truly alone, with myself and my thoughts, my wounds, for the first time in my life to be able to get to the other side of why I felt like I needed alcohol for half of my life. I now look back at those first few months of detox and withdrawal and think “I caterpillar-ed.” I laid in my bed, the only place I felt safe, and I turned into figurative-goo as a part of me felt like it had actually died. The part that I had to let go of in order for me to step forward into my new sober self. A serendipitous occurrence happened though, just a few days after my first day sober. Suffer Out Loud announced their quarterly Mental Health Scholarship applications were going to be opening again. I set calendar reminders, alarms leading up to it, I applied, and I got a scholarship to get back into therapy. I am so extremely grateful for that because I could not have afforded to go to therapy at that time without help. It felt like a light in the dark and gave me hope. My therapist, who is incredible, has helped guide me through the pain ever since and never lets me get stuck. For the first six months of sobriety my schedule was going to therapy once a week, making sure I got my businesses work done, and the rest of the time, I caterpillar-ed alone in silence, letting my mind catch up. I think back on that time and remember how much it all hurt. I was like a raw nerve ending. And I’m so proud of that version of me for getting through it, for letting the old me go, and allowing myself the space to figure out who the hell the real me even is now.

I forgave the past version of me for many things, but also for relapsing. I didn’t know what I know now and I thought I needed alcohol to survive back then. I hadn’t reached the point that I felt ready to say no and never again. Which is what I needed to flip the mental switch and actually stay sober. But this time around, the night before my ten-month-sober mark, my body remembered back then and felt buzzing with fear. I looked closely into my bright, clear, alive eyes in the mirror above that same sink where I poured out my last just-opened beer ten months prior, and spoke out loud. “Don’t be scared. I’m not going anywhere this time. I’m not leaving us again.” I watched my pupils dilate like I was in love. I knew in that moment that I could trust me. I could finally trust me.

In less than a week from the time I’m writing this, I’ll hit one year alcohol free. One year of choosing my true self. One year since the day I thought I was going to leave, but instead I chose to live. And in the past -almost- year, I’ve created a life that I actually really want to be here for.

To One Year & Beyond.