New Traditions

I think one of the more challenging things in early recovery is trying to figure out what to do. In my case, everything I ever did had alcohol involved with it. When I wasn't doing anything social, I still had alcohol involved with it. When I stopped drinking, I truly felt lost. I literally didn't know what to do with myself. I suddenly longed for every social situation I bailed on prior to quitting. All the parties, all the bar hopping, etc. My brain couldn't visualize doing anything fun without alcohol. 

Part of the difficulty is the relationships I had. I had quite the reputation with most of my friends. That's all they knew of me -- my ability to party and an epic tolerance for alcohol. The invitations were still coming my way now and again to attend events. Instead of not going because I knew I would probably get a DUI trying to get home, I wasn't going because I was trying not to drink. That made my addict brain really upset. Suddenly, I wanted to go to everything. Right now. On the flip side, there were healthier relationships that had almost ceased to exist because I stopped paying attention to them. These would have been the relationships to keep around and would have been a better support when getting sober, but I had made the same mistake that many addicts do -- I fed the relationships that met my immediate social and alcohol needs. 

Fear not, for those of you in early recovery, the relationships will fall where they may. Some folks I found were gone the minute I got sober. Some folks thought addiction issues were just BS and couldn't respect what I was trying to do. Some folks were just down right awesome and stood by me. It's not the world's easiest adjustment. There were friends I really wanted to stick around but no matter how hard I tried, the relationships didn't work. There are some relationships that I thought would never last that turned out to be the greatest supports I have ever known. 

For the few years before I got sober, I used to go to the State Fair with a friend. We drank a lot together when we worked together. Even when I left the job, we were both in unhappy marriages and we were in a great position to drink our woes away. I did have a really good time and I was always really excited to go and we had built a tradition for several years. Six years ago at this time, I was about a week out of the hospital after an epic relapse requiring a 6 day detox. I remember sitting at home thinking that the fair was coming up and there was no way that I was going to be able to go anymore. Trust me, the pity party was in full force.

One day I finally came up with the idea of bringing my nephew to fair. This was going to be a totally different experience. Normally, it would have been - get there at 3:00, start drinking, visit 2-3 areas, eat, drink some more, visit something else and then have a few for the road. This visit was going to be getting up at 6:30am, catching the bus, hitting every single thing that we can manage, eating, laughing, watching people, more walking, riding rides, eating, laughing some more and spoiling this little one ROTTEN. 

One thing I had learned in DBT was "building a life worth living". Part of the process was finding new traditions, new hobbies and new things to do. As the years have passed, this time of year is just my favorite. At the beginning of the month, I get to celebrate my "other birthday" which has formed a totally cool new tradition with my family and my recovery support crew. Then, the focus turns to the state fair. My nephew and I talk about it all year around. Now my niece and I are going to start our own tradition this year as well. There is no greater pleasure for me than to see the state fair through the eyes of these kids. It's a full day of "whatever you want to do." We play. We laugh and talk 120 pictures of smiles and joy. If that isn't "a life worth living", I don't know what is.

It's taken me some time for me to develop new traditions. I have sought new traditions through volunteer work, through AA meetings, through reaching out to friends and trying to recreate activities I liked to do without alcohol. It's taken the effort of pushing through times of anxiety. It has taken me time to gain the confidence to be ok with what I like to do now. I had to take some chances. Some of them worked out, some of them didn't. Whether a person is in recovery or not, life changes over time and we all need to keep a degree of flexibility to adapt as life moves forward. When I was using, I wanted everything to stay the same. I didn't like change. I didn't like when other people's lives changed. Recovery finally got me to a point of flexibility. It's much nicer here.

I look forward to building more traditions in my life. 

​Julie