How Alcohol Dictated My Life - And How I Finally Took It Back.

For a long time, I thought I was living my life.

Looking back, I wasn’t.

Alcohol was living it for me.

It dictated where I went. It dictated who I associated with. It dictated what I did on weekends, what I did after work, and what I considered fun. It even dictated who I became.

I didn’t wake up one morning and decide to hand my life over to alcohol. It happened slowly. Drinking became so normal that I stopped recognizing how abnormal my life had become.

My Life Revolved Around Alcohol

Where I went usually had something to do with drinking.

The people I surrounded myself with were often people who drank like I did—or at least people who didn’t question the way I drank.

And that made things easier.

I didn’t have to look at myself.

I didn’t have to explain myself.

I could tell myself, Everybody does this.

But everybody wasn’t living my life.

Everybody wasn’t dealing with my consequences.

Alcohol had quietly become one of the biggest factors in almost every decision I made.

If alcohol wasn’t available somewhere, I probably wasn’t interested in being there.

If someone didn’t fit into that lifestyle, chances were they weren’t going to be a big part of my life.

That isn’t freedom.

That’s alcohol dictating your life while convincing you that you’re the one making the decisions.

The Crazy Life Became Normal

When you’re living in chaos long enough, chaos starts feeling normal.

Bad decisions.

Broken relationships.

Embarrassing situations.

Regrets.

Waking up wondering what happened.

Saying things I shouldn’t have said.

Doing things I wouldn’t have done sober.

Putting myself in situations that today I can’t believe I accepted as normal.

That was my life.

And somehow I kept going back.

That’s one of the craziest things about alcoholism. The very thing causing so many of your problems becomes the thing you turn to when those problems become too much.

Alcohol creates the chaos.

Then alcohol tells you that you need a drink to deal with the chaos.

And the cycle continues.

Today, My Life Looks Completely Different

Sobriety didn’t just remove alcohol from my life.

It gave me a life.

Today I can decide where I want to go because I actually want to be there.

I can choose the people I surround myself with based on whether they add something positive to my life—not whether they fit into my drinking.

I don’t have to plan around the next drink.

I don’t have to wonder what I said last night.

I don’t have to clean up yesterday’s mess every morning.

My life isn’t perfect today. Sobriety never promised me that.

But my problems today are life problems, not problems I keep creating because I’m drinking.

There’s a huge difference.

I spent years thinking alcohol gave me freedom.

Today I realize sobriety is what freedom actually feels like.

The Agnostic Who Found a Higher Power

There is another part of my recovery that I never expected.

I found God. I found my Higher Power.

For years, I considered myself agnostic.

I wasn’t necessarily trying to convince everyone else there wasn’t a God. I just didn’t know what I believed. I questioned it. I doubted it. And when I came into recovery, the spiritual side wasn’t something that came naturally to me.

But nobody needed me to have everything figured out.

I didn’t have to understand God.

I didn’t have to suddenly become religious.

I just had to become willing to believe that maybe there was something greater than me.

That willingness grew.

Slowly, my relationship with my Higher Power became real to me.

Today, I believe in God.

I don’t claim to understand everything. I don’t have all the answers. I still have questions.

But today I have faith where I once had doubt.

And here’s something I never would have understood while I was drinking:

I don’t need to understand my Higher Power completely to know that my Higher Power is working in my life.

I can see it in the person I’ve become.

I can see it in the people who were put in my path.

I can see it in the opportunities I’ve been given to help another alcoholic.

And I can see it every morning I wake up sober.

This Is Why I Talk About Normalizing Sobriety

For years, drinking was normalized in my life.

It was everywhere.

Celebrations. Weekends. Vacations. Stress. Bad days. Good days.

There was always a reason to drink.

That’s part of why Normalize Sobriety means so much to me today.

The world spent years teaching me that drinking was normal.

Today I want people to see that not drinking can be normal too.

Recovery can be normal.

Going to meetings can be normal.

Asking for help can be normal.

Talking about alcoholism can be normal.

Believing in something greater than yourself can be normal.

And being proud of your sobriety should absolutely be normal.

I lived the crazy life.

I lived the chaos.

I let alcohol dictate where I went, who I associated with, what I did and, eventually, who I was.

I don’t live that way anymore.

Today I have choices.

Today I have clarity.

Today I have a Higher Power.

Today I have purpose.

And most importantly—

Today alcohol doesn’t dictate my life.

I finally get to live it.

Normalize Sobriety

The world normalized drinking. Now it’s time to normalize sobriety.

Keep it Clean. Keep it Simple.

NormalizeSobriety.net