Author: Charles Frank

16 Reasons Being Sober Is Worth It

Before you know it, you’re drinking to avoid the fact that you have a drinking problem. Many of these problems enter our lives because of our drinking. It is natural to think that by quitting drinking, these problems will finally go away. So let’s talk about when sobriety gets easier and what you can do to manage the rough patches ahead. But first, we should also reflect on how we got here.

Staying Sober When Life Sucks

1. Your mind may tell you it’s hopeless and that no one will ever trust you again.
2. You will have days when you don’t necessarily make the strongest choices to improve your well-being or strengthen your recovery.
3. People will assume you drink and will be very curious about why you don’t have a drink in your hand when they do.
4. When you’re feeling low, instead of sitting at home in isolation feeling sorry for yourself, get up and head to the local soup kitchen or veteran’s association.

And when I couldn’t seem to get ready in time, or when my purse was a tangle of wadded keys and gum wrappers I felt so bereft. When you’re in early recovery, even good days can be tough. It feels like you’re pulled in 521 directions at once, and there’s the constant draw to fall back into old habits.

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Your mind may tell you’re worthless and that you don’t deserve a better life. People may turn to substances due to boredom or the lack of meaning and purpose in life. Using a substance to cope with daily life may take the edge off temporarily, but it further entrenches a person into patterns of behavior that make it more difficult to escape. If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health or addiction issues, you can check out my resource page for suggestions on how to find help. You’ll reach a point where you accept that there are some difficulties ahead of you, but you’re not afraid of them.

If this is you, counseling may be a helpful way to work through difficult thoughts and painful emotions driving the urge to use substances. For more information, see my article on The Benefits of Counseling. When contemplating sobriety, the voices in your head may be engaged in an endless debate. As described in my article on the Types of Denial in Addiction, our minds can make up many reasons why we don’t have a problem.

Instead of reaching out for help, giving AA a shot, or opening up to friends and family, I tried to Google my way to emotional stability. Building resilience and training the voice inside your head to be less negative is a lifelong process. Hell, it takes time to get just sort of okay at it. One minute you’re cooking dinner, and the next, you’ve lost five minutes to daydreaming about that one time you threw up on your mother-in-law’s new rug.

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I have been known to sniff at the sophomoric crowing of those who extoll the benefits of living clean and sober. As if, like that other killjoy Groucho Marx, I do not want to join any club substandard enough to have me as a member. As you get going, keep a simple chart or use an app that tracks your progress. The saying goes that your worst day in sobriety is better than your best day in addiction. Before I quit drinking, I never really used to care about dividing the bill down the middle with a group. At some point after college, it just didn’t matter if someone had a meal that was four dollars more than mine, or if they ate more edamame, or even if they had one more drink than I did.

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We gotta find new avenues to channel our energy and work out our stuff. There are so many emotional benefits to volunteer work that you could use right now. Let’s also acknowledge that most of us who drink alcoholically are self-absorbed.

You don’t feel defined by your past as strongly. It’s not uncommon to feel like you’re running on a treadmill, getting nowhere, but feeling emotionally and physically exhausted. My past relapses were largely fueled by sobriety’s inability to solve my problems for me.

I’d also like to take this time to emphasize just how important a sense of community is in sobriety, no matter what that looks like. This Ted Talk discusses the value of community in recovery further and is worth having a listen. It’s hard to face that stuff when you’re newly sober and it has hurled a lot of strong, well-intending people back into relapse. But if you know it’s coming, you can plan for it and increase your odds of getting through it. The people in our lives have a limited threshold for bad behavior, even when we’re truly sorry. Eventually, people don’t want to hear our apologies anymore.

Those were the days I’d make it to the gym and think that things would turn out okay after all. I’m a stubborn, recovering know-it-all, which means I don’t like asking for help. This quality has not served me well, particularly in sobriety. Learning to help people without expecting anything in return will humble you and help you see that yes, you are capable of doing good things and making a positive impact on the world. Sobriety can’t vanquish all shameful memories from your brain, but it can teach you how to handle them. Negative emotions are part of the human experience, my friend.

Freedom from continually impending withdrawal means having a significantly greater amount of choice in one’s life. It may feel like you have to choose between chaos and boredom. Right now, these may seem like the only options. Their recovery is none of your business, and vice versa.

We’re stuck in a miserable job and have lost hope that anything can change. If you feel like sobriety sucks, you need more support. You can find the balance in recovery you need.