Getting Sober Isn’t The Same As Getting Well

September 17. The clarity is returning bit by bit as the covid virus leaves my body and I continue to stick with the 75 hard challenge journey despite the few restarts I have had along the way.

How do I know this? My energy level is high, my thoughts are flooding my brain like the high waters rising during a hurricane.

I can see it happening and feel the effects of so many concepts floating around in there, but the levy just won’t hold them back.  I guess that’s ok but it contributes to my already ADD like tendencies and encourages me to multi task even though every productivity expert will tell you that there really is no such this as multi tasking.

For all intents and purposes this is a positive thing.

It is great not to be plagued with the heavy brain fog that comes when I abuse my body with prolonged stress and milkshakes for to many months that I care to admit.

The toxic load our bodies are asked to process and carry is like wearing a weighted vest one would use to intensify their workout, but literally all day every day.

Your organs are desperately trying to process the food like substances and restore the PH balance in your body. Sadly in order to do this it has to draw out things like calcium from your bones and teeth in order to neutralize your blood setting you up for much further damage in later life.

I could go on for hours about the effects of processed food and poor nutrition as well as prolonged stress on our bodies but I won’t bore you with all of that today.

Instead I will say that the over two months now that I have been on this new health journey is paying off. I have lost weight, many of my clothes fit better now and of course all of this energy and clarity.

Yay for me and I apologize in advance to all of those who have to listen to me run my mouth throughout the house singing trendy songs and talking to my dogs. You choose, dying the slow painful unhealthy death by milkshake or deal with the energy and constant talking!

I was speaking to a couple of women in the Confident Sober Women Facebook group yesterday who honestly revealed they are struggling with very similar things. They are dealing with the sugar cravings, weight gain, hormonal imbalances and the inability to stay motivated to truly make any changes at all.

My heart aches for them as I know this life. I know this pain so well, its like a cat scratch on your arm that no matter what you do to it just wont heal, and the scab keeps ripping off causing more bleeding and pain.

By the way I did an excellent workshop with another sober woman all about sugar, check it out here. 

And then there’s the added factor that so many of us feel that just because we get sober so much of these things will get better and even go away. Of course many things do, we get so much better.

But newsflash, and I’m sorry if this is the first time you are hearing this, just because you are sober doesn’t mean you are well.  You aren’t as unwell as you were before of course. You might have changed a ton of things about your life and your relationships up to now.

Very often for women what happens is they do a bunch of the early sobriety work clean up the very big and obvious things in their lives, so much so that people are praising and congratulating them, beaming with pride that you have changed so much.

There comes a time when they have to dig in a bit further. Really do the inner work to change everything. To eliminate their negative thinking patterns, to heal their past trauma that hold them back from fully being vulnerable with their partners or putting themselves out there again.

They have to begin to love themselves in a way they have never experienced likely in their whole lives. To rewrite those stories they were told about themselves, that they have on repeat like we used to do with our favorite songs on the boom boxes in our middle school bedrooms.

This isn’t our natural way and it takes guidance, hand holding even, to learn to trust and love yourself in this way. I know because that is exactly what I needed a few years back when the light bulb turned on in my life and illuminated all the cracks and dusty corners that needed tending to in my emotional sobriety journey.

I was annoyed at first, like why am I 4 years sober and feeling this way, or at my 10 year anniversary when I professed I couldn’t believe I was still dealing with this crap.

Thankfully, my life isn’t like that way at all today. I have learned the practical tools and wisdom necessary to move myself out of those places and into true peace on the inside. Easy? Not at all?

But it’s always worth it. And when you are ready, you can have all of that too.

A great place to start is the Confident Sober Facebook group. If you are reading this and are immediately like I need that, I’m willing to go to any lengths, let’s chat about it. Nothing would please me more than seeing the sparkle in your eye, watching you grow into the confident sober woman that lives inside.

Until then, I’m having another cup of coffee.

XO,

Shelby