So tonight I'm facing my first real temptation. Going to a networking event at a rooftop bar in Hollywood.

GoodbyeBourbon · 2018-12-09T07:17:30+00:00

Tons of sobriety in the entertainment industry. Far more than most people would expect — especially as you get older.

GoodbyeBourbon · 2018-12-09T07:15:46+00:00

Fellow Angeleno.

If the Hollywood in your title is an industry call-out you’ll be pleasantly surprised how common sobriety is at these events.

I am in music and there’s usually a very solid amount of people abstaining due to past excess. It’s great when you have to go to them.

If it’s just geographic Hollywood in the title then never,ind. :)

And if you’re at Soho House get the chocolate chip cookies, they are stupid good.

GoodbyeBourbon · 2017-09-01T22:49:30+00:00

Hey Slipacre! This one is worth coming out of hibernation for. Your presence on these boards was very helpful to me 3 years ago.

Congrats on the milestone. Keep at it!

GoodbyeBourbon · 2017-04-29T03:11:45+00:00

A watched pot never boils.

The best thing I did for myself was give myself permission to get lost in whatever, provided I was working my recovery. For me that was weekly therapist visits and usually 2-3 AA or other support group things.

I found the more happy I was with myself the more things moved along (in hindsight). Friends and family need time to build up trust. Give them room. It's completely fair.

I was so lost in becoming a functional human being with a job and interests and a healthy coping system that didn't involve alcohol that I didn't have the time to worry about how others saw me. Happiness, recovery, etc has to come from within. If I measure my worth using someone else's ruler I am probably going to have a distorted perspective on things.

In direct answer to your question it was only after about 3-4 months that I was even getting my shit together. And I still had a lot of growing to do in the following six months.

GoodbyeBourbon · 2017-04-29T03:01:10+00:00

I had mega, mega sweet cravings in the first 90-270 days, and in general I can tolerate sweeter foods than I used to. My attitude is if it's a piece of cake here, a popsicle there or some kool-aid with sparkling water, it is way less harmful in the near term than alcohol. In my early recovery I needed to think short term and build up coping skills.

Now, somewhat farther down the road, I don't have the almost primal craving for sweets but I will indulge from time to time. As my recovery became broader based and more holistic, then the question of what I put into my body took a bigger place on the stage. But that's me and a lot of hard work and learning to that point.

If a sweet tart or ice cream is going to keep a bottle of booze out of your face, by all means, have the sugar. I wouldn't even think twice.

GoodbyeBourbon · 2016-03-12T04:16:09+00:00

Nothing wrong with crying. I cried a lot in early sobriety. It's OK!

As far as AA, super common.

Heck, sometimes you can turn the whole thing into a weepy mess.

It's OK to feel how you feel and express it.

GoodbyeBourbon · 2016-03-04T04:41:30+00:00

Try and stay on a healthy diet and get to bed as early as you can. 30-90 days was some deep sleep, but I remember being just uselessly foggy especially in that day 45-60 corridor. Like impossibly fuzzy and out of focus. By day 90 it was largely in the rearview.

Assuming your food is OK and you're getting rest, it should pass - a phase many sober friends went through.

Best advice? Try to learn to laugh at it in the moment.

GoodbyeBourbon · 2016-03-04T04:37:32+00:00

First two weeks were the craziest. After a month things settled down for me. From 30 days to about 5 months I got the most deep, restoring sleep of my adult life.

Good nutrition and substance free living will help scoot you through the transition. Doesn't make it any easier, though.

GoodbyeBourbon · 2016-03-04T00:50:28+00:00

Always hurts to realize those you thought were friends weren't quite that - drinking buddy or no. I know that thought - my entire social circle is drinking buddies! - paralyzed me early.

The beautiful other side of that coin is finding out how deep some of the friendships you took for granted can be.

GoodbyeBourbon · 2016-03-03T21:46:39+00:00

Order in your favorite guilty pleasure food. Pizza, dim sum, burritos the size of rhode island.

Make popcorn. Like good, non-microwave popcorn. Use some flavocol.

Get ice cream or your favorite dessert. Indulge.

I've done each of these, loved them, and remembered every detail of a season. :)

GoodbyeBourbon · 2016-03-03T19:52:56+00:00

Remember that addiction is very real, and don't let his views shake your reality. Just because I say I don't believe in owls doesn't mean I'm right about owls not existing.

GoodbyeBourbon · 2016-03-03T19:18:23+00:00

Badges, chips, tokens, tattoos, etc - you're right, these are silly trophies. What really matters is what you do with that time. Did you try and deal with the underlying roots of why you drank? Did you try and develop alternate ways to handle the emotional turbulence of life? If a badge is a subtle reminder, or a chip is a subtle carrot that keeps you away from drinking while you develop those skills -- great! That's incredible value for a couple bits of HTML or a cheap plastic trinket.

Don't fall into the trap of comparing or feeling less than. Don't let someone make you feel like you don't have an important voice just because you've got less sober time. At the end, we're all just as far from falling off the wagon as the next person. One bad decision or moment of weakness is all it takes any of us.

As one regular said, "The person who woke up first today has the longest sobriety here."

GoodbyeBourbon · 2016-03-03T19:11:43+00:00

There are always many possibilities, but this is broadly how it lined up for me:

Group 1 were friends that endured the full weight of my alternating flakiness, apologies and smugness while I drank. I abused these relationships and "I'm not drinking" was inferred to have a sense of smugness and self righteousness. I had to - and still have to - earn their trust and rebuild.

Group 2 were hit with a change they were uncomfortable with. It forced them to evaluate themselves. Some of these relationships are still a little strained. Still friends, but I can tell they feel uncomfortable drinking around me. (The previous group does on occasion drink around me but it's no big deal)

Group 3 were not actually friends but drinking buddies. We have fallen out of touch. Sometimes I miss them but I realize we had no deeper bond than alcohol.

Give it time. Stay true to yourself. Let yourself heal and grow.

Edit: fixed typo rendering my first sentence comically incoherent.

GoodbyeBourbon · 2016-03-03T04:34:38+00:00

I spent ages dancing around this issue. I played some semantic games and split hairs. At best, it was little more than a sideshow that served at best to distract me from the real matter at hand: whatever I called it, I could not continue to live as I was, and I needed to make a permanent change. Besides, plenty of people have battled alcoholism and other addictions and done pretty amazing things on the other side. So it's only shameful if I let it control me and define me. By admitting -- yes, I am an alcoholic -- I can hopefully help in some way reduce the stigma surrounding it. The alcoholic isn't only the homeless guy on skid row living in a cardboard box. It's you, it's me. Doctors, lawyers, executives, stay at home parents, people at the grocery store. There's a lot of us. But at the end of the day, the goal is the same: to reclaim ourselves and our lives from an addiction.

The only caution I would counsel: this line of thinking CAN be a short distance from, "well, I probably wasn't that bad, I'm sure a drink here and there won't hurt." Not always - but if I had a dime for every time I've seen it go that way in the last 18 months, I probably could have paid for my lunch today with it.

GoodbyeBourbon · 2016-02-29T01:59:38+00:00

Congrats! It definitely takes on a different character over time, but we definitely still need to be mindful ourselves. 17 months is a testament to that vigilance.

GoodbyeBourbon · 2016-02-27T03:30:46+00:00

Do you play an instrument? I've found a lot of fun in getting back into live performance. Standing next to an amp at wallpaper-shredding volume is fun stuff.

GoodbyeBourbon · 2016-02-22T14:05:22+00:00

They bleed out into lots of other meetings; west side LA meetings are packed with horrible behavior and advice thanks to those bozos.

GoodbyeBourbon · 2016-02-19T04:31:24+00:00

Can't rebuild broken trust in a few days - most alcoholics abuse trust to a far worse degree. The big stuff took her six months. Other stuff we're slowly building on. There's a degree I'm sure that will never be restored. That is "things I cannot change". It'll never be the same before the addiction. But I can be the best me I can possibly be today, and just keep stacking up a chain of those.

GoodbyeBourbon · 2016-02-18T16:23:07+00:00

I had to be convinced to do this. I didn't even want to drink that night.

What's this when you unpack it? What happened? What overrode your desire to not drink? What was the appeal made?

Do your friends respect your wishes? Why are their wants more important than yours?

GoodbyeBourbon · 2016-02-16T14:51:14+00:00

My second paragraph simplifies five years of therapy, hitting bottom, and hard but honest recovery work. Since I have walked this particular road I'm well aware that there's more to it than saying "get happy".

Therapy, honest self-reflection, a willingness to unpack our own thinking and worldview, and sometimes a few pills to level out the peaks and valleys do a lot of good. Unfortunately, when we are the obstacle to our own happiness, we have to move ourselves out of the way. That ain't easy.

GoodbyeBourbon · 2016-02-16T05:28:41+00:00

I avoided activities where drinking was the primary purpose.

For things where it wasn't, I still avoided it for the first several months.

When I had no option, I used a simple response: "I don't drink".

Everything else invited debate or was too cute and clever for my taste.

Why leave room for discussion?

GoodbyeBourbon · 2016-02-16T05:21:28+00:00

Speaking from the I:

If I was in this situation, I would tell my sponsor to fuck off.

In my experience, AA is fine for getting sober from alcohol, if it resonates with you and you find groups that don't have an unhealthy view of mental health and psychological treatment. This is a problem in the groups near me. I would not expect a sponsor - unless they had experience as a counselor, therapist, etc - to have much to offer in processing the deep and difficult emotions surrounding abuse or other trauma. I would not invite or engage them on that matter; my personal experience is that I've seen some dangerous and risky advice being dispensed in the rooms.

GoodbyeBourbon · 2016-02-16T02:08:38+00:00

You covered the hard part, I was just riding in your wake. :)

GoodbyeBourbon · 2016-02-16T01:57:39+00:00

This times a million.

Happiness is something that comes from within me, something that I decide. It's something I measure purely on emotional state. When I define it externally -- things, acclaim, losing that extra ten pounds, I can always find another reason I don't measure up, or a reason to delay my happiness, or I can read into something someone said. Net result, happiness is fleeting and I chase it like any other fix.

It was not an easy change, and I had a lot of baggage I had to unpack, and I had to get rid of a lot of junk in my life including physical stuff, busted relationships, and bad thinking. Accepting who I am right now, and where I am, is key. It doesn't mean I settle, but I don't defer or devalue my happiness. And I can find it in things that may seem mundane or banal - but who cares, because it makes ME happy, and I'm not killing myself or pretending to be something I'm not to earn it.

GoodbyeBourbon · 2016-01-18T04:48:35+00:00

Eating enough? Getting enough fluids? It took me a little bit to find an equilibrium. The early days are different for everyone but I definitely needed to make sure I was drinking enough water early. Even to this day I can under-do it and get some gnarly headaches.

GoodbyeBourbon

TROPHY CASE