Everything we wish someone would’ve told us in the first 30 days of sobriety
The first 30 days are some of the hardest on the recovery journey. In this episode – the first of a two part series – we talk with John, Kris, and Ashley about early sobriety. Everything we wish someone would’ve told us as we headed into the first 30 days of getting sober.
We talk a lot about the work of sobriety here on Through the Glass. But before anyone gets to the point of doing that emotional work, they’ve got to get through the early days – the days when withdrawals are wearing them down, cravings are constant and brutal, and it seems like you think about drinking – or not drinking – about once every minute.
It’s hard, but it’s not impossible.
Listen as we share what worked for us, and what didn’t. We talk about withdrawals – the physical misery that accompanies a decision to quit drinking, and the emotional struggles as well. Steve and Julie talk about fearing just leaving the house, wondering how they’d find the strength to drive past the liquor store instead of stopping. Kris talks about the importance of sleep, and needing more than she expected. Everyone agrees that there is a lot of crying that often happens in the early days, and that crying is where the healing begins, no matter how uncomfortable it is.
Julie and Steve talk about deciding to tell others in your life or not. Julie didn’t tell anyone, Steve told everyone. They discuss the pros and cons of both options and how they affected their sobriety early on. Ashley shares about her worries that life wouldn’t be fun anymore, when alcohol is everywhere and permeates every part of life, especially for the younger crowd. Julie talks about wondering who she is at all without alcohol, and Steve says it felt like losing his best friend.
Everyone agrees that finding support in a recovery community was the most important part of getting through the early days of recovery – and continues to be the most important part of their recovery paths. As John says, “It’s really hard to be facing that kind of eternity without someone there.”
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Transcript:
Julie: So we are here tonight with John, Kris, and Ashley. I’m gonna go ahead and let you guys introduce yourselves. John, do you want to go first?
John: Sure. I’m John. I’m from Portland, Oregon, and I have 362 days sober.
Julie: So close to a year!
John: It’ll be a year Thursday night.
Kris: Hi, I’m Kris, from San Diego, California. And I have 101 days sober, and for a living I am a dog walker and a pet sitter. So that’s just a little bit about me.
Julie: Awesome! Thank you, and Ashley?
Ashley: I am Ashley in real life. (laughs) I’m from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and I have 163 days sober. And thanks for having me.
Julie: Awesome, thanks for being here.
Steve: Thank you guys
Julie: We talk a lot about the work of sobriety here on Through the Glass. But before anyone gets to the point of doing that emotional work, they’ve got to get through the early days – the days when withdrawals are wearing them down, cravings are constant and brutal, and it seems like you think about drinking – or not drinking – about once every minute. So we thought it might be good to get together and talk about the first 30 days – often the hardest days of recovery. What worked for you? What didn’t? What do you wish someone would’ve told you?
John: So I think the first thing that comes to mind is that there’s two “first 30 days”. There’s the very first 30 I ever tried, and the first 30 of this current run. Because for the first 30 of this current run, I had considerably more experience about what it all means, and I think that’s a separate topic. But the first 30 in general were very different. I wonder where I should start, but maybe I’ll start with the first 30 days. So just going from somebody who had never thought about quitting drinking to being considering one day of sobriety. And that was physically a lot more difficult for me, and there were just some big basic things that I knew from nothing at that point. Part of it was just… honestly, one of the biggest things was going to bed early. Physically, I was hurting. I was not feeling well. I was trying to go to work and it was not a pretty picture, and going to bed early, just keeping sort of what food I could down, really the basics was about all I could manage. And at that time I never got 30 consecutive days sober, but in the early phase it was really proving to myself that I could physically survive for 24, 48, however many hours without alcohol was mind blowing. And once I learned that for myself, then I coul think about more, but I just had to get physically through it for awhile. I didn’t have the withdrawal shakes and that kind of stuff, but physically just felt wretched.
Steve: Yeah, my withdrawals were just nasty. I had the shakes, the night sweats, the foggy mind, the foggy brain. The day felt like it dragged on forever. And squaring thoughts, putting a complete sentence together felt like a chore. It was hard to do. I remember the first week was absolutely brutal for me. Physically, sleeping, thoughts, even the second week. The second week dragged on big time. The first two weeks just nasty physical, headaches, shakes, sweats. I won’t get into detail, but it was ugly. It was really ugly. I still managed to make it to work every day. I can’t say that I was very successful at doing much. I made it there. There was a lot of fear for me because I drank when I drove. That was one of the things that I did. Drinking in my truck was what I did, for the most part. I drank at home, but not to the extent that I did when I was driving. My truck was my home, it was where I drank the bulk. I was alone, it was easy, nobody could tell me I was drinking too much. It was my safe, alone place, isolated from everyone. So driving for me, even though I didn’t have any money, I didn’t have anything. I was scared to drive anywhere, because even if I didn’t have any money, I was scared I was going to ask somebody, I didn’t know how desperate I was going to be to drink. Because I’ve only ever tried to quit once, this is my first time. So it’s 569 days today and you just kind of have to hang on for dear life. I went to meetings almost every day. But physically hanging on for dear life, let alone just mentally hanging on for dear life. Those first 30 days really… if you can hang on and get through them and have a community to help you through it, at least somebody to talk to and hang on to, start crying because I think when you start crying, everything starts to get a little bit better. Even though it sucks. I know when I started letting it out, regardless of the physical pain, the mental pain got a little bit easier.
Julie: I think for me, the mental pain was still… it took more than a month for that to start to feel like it was healing. The first 30 days was basically just a death grip on sobriety. That’s all it was. Like, being afraid to drive… I didn’t really drink and drive, but I was afraid to have to run into town and run errands because even going to the grocery store you know you’re going to be faced with the liquor aisle. Or even just driving by the liquor store in our little town that I live in, there were days that it took everything I had to drive by or to walk by and not stop. That was hard. The first 30 days are just a different world. I wasn’t ready to even start diving into the mental stuff yet, the emotional stuff. I just needed to get through a day. The first week, my husband was still out of town, I was still homeschooling my kids, everything was a fog, I didn’t really know what I was doing or saying. They somehow made it through most of their lessons, but I don’t really remember any of it. It was all just a fog. A very grumpy, irritable fog.
Steve: Yes
Ashley: Yeah, I know the grumpy.
Julie: And I wasn’t in a place where I was ready to tell anybody that I was quitting. Had I just been like “Hey, I’ve decided to quit drinking. I’m probably gonna be a little bit grumpy.” My kids are teenagers. That wouldn’t have been anything they couldn’t understand. But I didn’t say anything, I just tried to pretend everything was fine, which I think was to my detriment, really. It probably would’ve been easier for everybody if I’d have just said, “This is what I’m going through.” But I didn’t tell anybody right off, so I think it actually made it harder on me.
Steve: Kinda like what I did. I went all out at the beginning. Day 3, I told my family. I called them up, Day 3, Day 2, it was one of those two days. I called them up and I told Mom, Dad, and my sister, “I have an alcohol problem, I have a drinking problem. I’m gonna need help. I don’t know what that looks like, but I’m gonna need your support.” And then I had my wife’s family at the time come over for supper and told them in person. So right off the bat, I said, “I have a problem. I need help. I’m getting help. I need your support. I don’t know what that is gonna look like, but I’m trying.”
Kris: That’s really brave. I definitely didn’t tell people. (laughs) I agree so much with John that… I have had many, many trying to stop drinking. There were probably only four time where I lasted 30 days including this time, and I feel like this time was way easier than before, but I had no idea how much sleep I was going to need. I understood why I needed to sleep a lot while I was drinking, because I was always staying up really late, so I was sleeping and taking naps. But now I’m not staying up late drinking, and I’m still needing to take naps. Like I said, I’m a dog walker, so I have to wake up early, do all my dog walks, I’m home usually by 1:00, and then just hit the couch and sleep for 3 or 4 hours. And then try to get to bed early. Sleeping was a little more difficult. I was surprised at how hard it was for me to sleep. It was hard for me to fall asleep, it was hard for me to stay asleep, which is another thing I thought once I stopped drinking… I don’t know, I was very surprised about that. It’s so weird, I’m so glad you’re doing this at 101 days because I hardly can almost not remember my first 30 days. Maybe it’s like childbirth, I forgot because I don’t want to do it again! (laughter)
Ashley: It was just a blur. Just a blur.
Kris: Yeah, yeah, I definitely remember the sleep was a big deal. And crying. Crying all the time. And not always knowing why. I am an emotional person anyway, but I definitely was crying a lot.
Ashley: Yeah, I had that too. I guess I am emotional. I don’t like to say I am, but I guess I am. (laughs) But I had that too, the crying and just felt like my life was over, and I was gonna be left out of everything, and I had such a veil over drinking like it was something amazing. And, you’ve got to understand I’m coming from being addicted to drugs, another substance, and having to go to outpatient rehab for this and now having a problem with drinking. Which, John, I didn’t withdraw off of this either. I felt sh***y but I didn’t withdraw off of it, but I withdrew off of drugs bad. And still I would say that quitting alcohol was harder, just because it’s everywhere. It’s thrown in your face, and there’s bars everywhere and I’m younger. I’m 33, and that’s what people do for fun. You go out and drink. And when people find out you don’t drink they’re like, “Oh.” They kind of give you that look like, “What’s wrong with you?” But I think I learned in the first 30 days that it’s just okay. Everything’s okay. I was so dramatic about it. “How am I gonna live without alcohol? This isn’t fair.” But it is, it’s just gonna be okay. And the community was probably the biggest step in the right direction that I’ve ever made. Because before, I mean yeah quit something, but I didn’t have support or anything, I didn’t it by myself, and I don’t think ever fully healed that emotional trauma in the first place. And just having other people to talk to definitely helped that. I’m grateful for that.
John: I think if you compare my very first 30 days where I didn’t know what I was doing and I wasn’t talking to anyone about it. I didn’t even talk to my wife about it, and we drink together all the time. And she was like, “Everything okay? You’re not drinking?” And so one night she doesn’t drink with me because she’s trying to figure out when I’m gonna have a drink. This sort of bizarre world. And I was just trying to do it online with app support stuff, as opposed to this latest cycle where, part way in, what’s gotta change? I’ve got to go to a meeting. And I looked back… I did prepare for this meeting, I looked back at some of my old [blog] posts… and you can see all of a sudden from just this sort of miserable wailing to “I don’t like it, I don’t feel good, I’m unhappy” and I’m complaining a lot. But there’s still a little more direction to it. There was something to say. I’m not an emotional person. I think I’ve cried maybe once in this past year getting through this. But having a place to go and be like, “Oh. It’s okay to be an alcoholic. It’s okay to be one of those people. And I’ll make it. I can kinda do it.” That let me get… I think I went to my first meeting like Day 10 of this run. And that let me get these 10-30 it was vastly improved relief of “Oh God, there’s a plan.” And it’s not my plan, which is good, because my plans clearly have no worked out. But there’s a plan that someone else can help me with. And once I got to that point, I thought, “I’m fine. We’re gonna kind of be okay in some fashion.”
Ashley: Yeah.
Julie: I think that’s the big thing is just, you are gonna be okay. Life is going to be good. Because on Day 5 or 10, or Day 14, it’s really hard to believe life is actually going to feel good again. Or maybe for the first time. Again, with going to the meetings was the big difference for me this time around. Because I had done 30 days a few times before. And for me it was just seeing so many happy people that convinced me that it was worth at least holding on and trying. I know a lot of people too, like, “Who am I, even, without drinking? I’m not confident, I’m not funny, I’m not outgoing, I’m not any of these things without alcohol in my system. What does that even look like? Am I even going to like that person, do I even want to be that person?” And that just comes with time. That doesn’t even come in the first 30 days, I’m just figuring that out now at a year. But those are some big fears when you’re first starting out, like what is that even going to look like? And that’s what stopped me from continuing on sometimes. I would quit for 4 or 5 days, maybe a week, and I would have so many different fears surrounding staying quit that I would just be like, “Oh, never mind, I don’t need to do this right now.” And just holding on and getting through all those fears was really important.
Steve: It’s kind of like losing your best friend, right? That’s what it was for me, it was the one thing you took with you everywhere. It went wherever you went. You went to a social event, and I had lots of drinks. I showed up well lubed, and you take that part away, and it’s like now what do I do? I guess I’m not going to this event. I basically, the first 30 days I did almost nothing. I didn’t really go anywhere, didn’t really do anything. Probably the best thing I did was just do nothing. Go to work, come home, do the bare minimum, and just not go outside of the box. And the box was really small. And I went to a whole bunch of meetings. I went to a bunch, I went to like four meetings a week. That was… it’s kinda like what Julie said, you saw smiles. Smiles and laughter. It just felt like something you wished you could have. It felt like it was so far away. Even if you felt like junk, physically and mentally, when you sat down at a meeting and you saw a bunch of people, regardless of how many days they were. I was Day 4, Day 5, Day 6 I remember I downloaded the counter because I couldn’t count how many days I was sober. I was like, “How many days am I?” I quit on a Sunday night, it’s Saturday, I’m like, “How many days is that?” Trying to count on my hand. I’m like, “No, I’m just gonna download an app on my phone and then put the date in and have it tell me.” So that’s what I did.
Ashley: I’m glad you brought that up though, because I think that the first… my couple first 30 days I guess, I had difficulty counting my days because every time I had to reset or something, I felt like crap about myself. And you told me, Mr. Steve, that each reset is a lesson. And for anyone out there that is dealing with picking up again, and struggling, I think it was just meant to be for me to have those resets, because I feel like I grew so much with them, I really did. Being able to share my experience with it, knowing what works for me and what doesn’t, and I think that definitely helped. But don’t worry about the numbers. Just try to get through it one day at a time. Because I feel like sometimes the numbers and the count kinda messes you up and discourages you sometimes. And that definitely messed with me the first 30 days. Until I broke it and got over it and I was like “It’s fine.” You just gotta keep pushing forward.
Kris: Yeah, that “one day at a time” sounds really cliché because we hear it so much, but if you look any further than today, it totally messes with your heard. I would just think, “I don’t know if I can do this forever.” And then you start thinking about all the upcoming things that are going to happen in life. For me it was always vacations. I would be able to keep not drinking, and then I’d go to some sunny beautiful place, and then of course I’m going to want to have drinks. I’m laying out by a pool or by the beach and you have to keep saying to yourself, “Well, I’m not on the beach right now. Today I’m just living my life, and I don’t have to think about that vacation.” I still haven’t had a vacation. So I still actually have not had very many social things come up. I’ve done mostly things with my husband and I work a lot. So there’s so many things I haven’t experienced yet.
But I did do something different this time, because I knew I had to do something different this time. I’ve done AA like three times, and I really did it. I mean I’ve gone to hundreds of meetings, I’ve had three sponsors, and they were great and they were helpful and I learned a lot. And I just for some reason knew I was not going to walk into those doors again. So I had to do something different. And that’s when I decided to get a sober coach. Which is kind of like a paid sponsor. (laughs) But it was very, very helpful for me and I know that I can call a sponsor at any time, but once you pay for someone you feel like, “I really can. I paid for this, I paid for this service.” So that was really good, and I also got on the I Am Sober app. And that’s the counter, but it was so much more, I found. I found community and Zoom meetings, and so, so much more. And I definitely feel like, I know I’m the person here with the least amount of sobriety, but I feel such a difference this time than I did in the other times when I’ve tried this before.
John: I was thinking about… Ashley, you were talking about the resets. For me, I’ve done a somewhat longer stretch 5 or 6 months back, before this run started. And then the times were shorter, and shorter, and there was this increasing desperation of like, my chance was slipping away. Not just beating myself up, but “Oh God, you’re not gonna get another crack at it.” And I think the day counting thing was a mixed bag. There’s a part of it which helps me because I’m kind of prideful and competitive, and I don’t like resetting. But there were definitely times where it was just beating me down. There were times I thought, “Forget it. I’m never gonna get this done. Just forget it.” And I think there are a lot of positive things about meetings that are really good about it, there’s a little bit of not wanting to let people down by coming back and resetting, too. And I know we all want to be welcoming, and it’s great to come back, we’re here for you any time. We’ve had people show up who don’t have 5 minutes under their belt, it’s pretty clear. But that’s not how I reacted, and that was a little bit of actual strength for me. It was like, okay. One I can be here any way I want, and Two, I don’t want to come back next week last week and be like, “No”. So there’s a little bit of this… no matter how big of a chunk I bit off now, one day at a time… well, the next meeting is… if I can make it to the next meeting, tomorrow or in two days, I can make it that far. C’mon, I can do that. And then it’s just so much more manageable. It’s less desperate. I think that was the thing. On your own, man, it’s hard, it’s really hard to be facing that kind of eternity without someone there.
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