Day 9
I finished a whole week and weekend sober!
Andddddd the irritability has set in.
As I was driving home last night I was screaming at people in my car to “JUST FUCKING DRIVE! USE YOUR RIGHT FOOT AND PRESS IT DOWN AND FUCKING GO OR GET OUT OF MY WAY!”
When I got home I headed straight downstairs for a workout to burn off some energy. There are many perks to having a home gym, but the one thing I really enjoyed yesterday is being able to let the energy out of my mouth. When needed, I would push through the pain of the workout with some type of loud grunt, like Maria Sharapova. And I swear to you, I could lift harder and longer. Sports psychologist Louise Deeley has an explanation for why tennis players, and myself do this.
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“The timing of when they actually grunt helps them with the rhythm of how they’re hitting and how they’re pacing things. It may be that their perception is that if they grunt, they are hitting it harder. It’s going to give you confidence and a sense of being in control of your game.”
Being in control…
There’s that word again.
I’ve been saying for the last year that anger is an emotion that I am comfortable with, that I’m familiar with it and I know how to handle it. But I’m starting to second guess myself that might not be true. My irritability was making me crave substances to calm down. Instead I released the negative energy out and fueled my body with real food for dinner. It’s not a cure all, but it definitely made those cravings go away.
Every weekday morning before I sit here to write, I do a quick 10ish minutes of yoga. I found an old 30 day challenge from one of the yogi youtubers I follow and started my week off with day 1. Her affirmation for the day is: I am calm, I am focused and I am centered. Now affirmations have never been my thing, but for funsies I went along with it this morning. Things find a way to you when you need them, and after the night I had this seemed to be exactly what I needed.
I attended my first meeting on Friday. It was nice, but not totally sure it’s the right fit for me. I realized ultimately I’m looking to make connections, true meaningful connections with other like minded people that I missed out on when I was drinking. Sure, I was well liked and the life of the party, but none of them knew who I was. Those relationships weren’t genuine, they were me playing this person that everyone liked. And I quite honestly don’t give a fuck if you like me. What I do care about is being happy, being able to express my concerns and fears, having conversations about why we do the things we do. Surface level conversations about our pets and sports just aren’t cutting it for me anymore. And if that still works for you, then by all means do you boo boo. I’ll be over here talking about telomeres and generational trauma.
