Episode 4- What I've learned about myself after the first 90 days of sobriety.

In honor of my 90-day sober milestone this week, I wanted to dedicate episode 4 to all the things I have realized in these 90 days!! I share my relationship with alcohol and why I decided to quit, I also share all the amazing things I have learned. When this episode comes out it will be about 113 days! 

Links

Book recommendation-

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times. Author Pema Chodron  https://a.co/d/5M2wxxf

FOLLOW ME: 

https://www.instagram.com/fluidity_hannahmae/

https://www.instagram.com/hannah_mae_snyder/

Youtube 

https://www.youtube.com/@TheFluidityPodcast

Transcript

0:00

Hello friends, and welcome back to the fluidity podcast. My name is Hannah, your host, and this is episode number four. I wanted to dedicate this episode to my 90 days of sobriety. That was on Sunday was I hit my 90 days. And so I decided I want the way I wanted to celebrate was to dedicate this episode to, what I've learned in the 90 days, how I feel my life changed, just really the realizations I've had in the short time that I chose to go sober now. I. Committed to one year of sobriety, my hope is to make that a lifelong journey to quit alcohol for the rest of my life, but putting forever on something felt very scary. So you know, I just said, that's my intention, but why not just put a year on it? So it feels a little bit less big. And. This podcast is not to shame anyone that drinks. It's not to tell you that you should quit drinking. It's none of that. This is just me talking about my experiences and really my relationship with alcohol and how much I was distracting myself we go through our days, our life, not really thinking that we're distracting ourself, but it's We are, or at least that was my experience. I also wanted to say, I was lucky enough to be able to quit on my own. Some situations are not like that. So if you do feel that this really triggers you and, That you feel you can't quit alone. There are many places to go to get help. Not everyone can do it alone I know that and I'm just really grateful that I was able to and I caught it early enough to where I could quit, so without further ado, let's get into the podcast. So you guys know the theme now I always start the podcast with a quote today's quotes. Actually, I have two because I couldn't help myself. I am reading When Things Fall Apart by Pema Trojan and it's amazing. If you need a book recommendation, this is it. I started reading this a couple of days, like last week and I started reading it right after I decided to make this podcast about my 90 days sober. And funny enough, fit very well into this podcast and it was perfect timing and that is not a coincidence. So the first quote that really struck me in the book was, if we're willing to give up hope that insecurity and pain can be. exterminated, then we have the courage to relax with the groundlessness of our situation. Now, in this chapter that quote is in, she talks about how alcohol, drugs, really anything that distract us from our pain and insecurities, We really use those as babysitters to escape and to not feel that deep rooted pain and insecurity. And the quote is really saying, what's wrong with feeling it? We get so scared of feeling these things. They are our biggest teachers. And the more we push it away, the more it screams at us and the harder it gets to drown it out. And Um, I think we're told that we're supposed to always be happy and life's always supposed to be perfect. And if it's not, there's something wrong. And in this book, she really helps you realize that, that's life and to really enjoy all parts of it, the joy and the distress and to really meet those deep parts of your soul. And the more you look at those deep parts, the easier it gets. The more peace you feel with it. And that's how we get out of suffering is really making friends with the pain, the insecurities, not to say that we're trying to make them go away. Cause honestly, I don't think that they ever do go away, but we get so good at having compassion for it and sitting with it instead of pushing it away and using things like drugs, alcohol to make us not feel because. All those end up doing is making us feel even worse and then it just becomes a cycle. The other quote from the book or from this chapter that really stuck with me was, the real thing we renounce is the tenacious hope that we could be saved from being who we are. That really struck home for me. Feeling that. We want to escape who we are. I feel was really why I drank was to not be me to be somebody else and What I realized in These 90 days even a little before that when I slowed my drinking was I was trying to Quiet who I was to be someone I thought I was supposed to be So with that being said love the quotes love the book now. Before I talk about some of the things I've realized in these 90 days, cutting out alcohol, weed, I do want to give you guys a backstory on my drinking some drug use and you know how I got to deciding to give up alcohol and really the decisions behind that and Yeah, so we're gonna go all the way back to the beginning when I was about 16 I'd say 15 16 I was about 15 or 16. I already told you guys that Hopefully you listen to my other episodes. If not, go listen to them I You know, I started drinking because I wanted to fit in. That was right around 16. Everyone was doing it. It was high school. It was a cool thing to do. And then I started to realize that it took a lot of the pressure off. It took a lot of. Those little voices in my head that I didn't like or those feelings of insecurity or the feelings of Loneliness that it really shut that out and it was like wow I Cannot have this voice in my head that tells me all the things I'm doing wrong. I'm not comparing myself As much and the anxiety is way less when I drank or so I thought it was I, started to realize that again, it shut off a lot of my emotions. Honestly, it was me numbing myself, distracting myself, and it made being in the present moment easier because I didn't have to deal with all the insecurities and all the things I was scared of shut all that out. It wasn't curing it. It was just shoving it. Deep down and compacting everything all the new stuff. I was never dealing with anything I was I remember in school people were like you have no emotions. That's so awesome you never get upset. You never get mad. You are always, you know in a good mood I always wanted everyone to be my friends. I, never showed emotion. And getting praised for not having emotion, hearing my friends talk about other people and how, she's crazy, she's annoying, she's all these things. And realizing, oh, emotions. People don't like emotions. People like the fun girl who never talks about her problems or never has problems and so right off the bat drinking was a way for me to not feel emotions, and I thought I had none Because my subconscious was so good at Pushing down the emotions making me think that I didn't have them, but really they were just in the face Background and I was just doing everything physically possible to drown them out, and I got really good at it. Moving on. I was prescribed Adderall adder, very young age, and, from like young, like elementary school. I hated it. I remember I was, I felt like a zombie. And I then got to middle school and got to an age where I knew what I was taking and I remember saying I don't like the way I feel. I didn't sleep. I didn't eat. I felt like I didn't know what a crackhead was at the time, but looking back on it, that's how I felt. And then I got to high school. I tried taking it again because that's when Adderall started to come back up. I remember my grades weren't the best and my attention wasn't the best again. I'm not sure who Asked me or put the idea in my head, but still. Maybe it was me. I was like, maybe I should try taking my Adderall again because it's hard for me to focus. So I started taking it towards the end of high school. Started to really like it. I took it to college. I became very addicted to Adderall. Very addicted. I would take it multiple times a day. I felt that it was my whole personality that it made me like feel like superwoman and that I was the coolest person out there, but it also made me want to drink 10 times more. Because my anxiety was so high when I was taking the Adderall, when I'd come down, I'd have to drink or else I would be in so much agony. And so much, I would have so much anxiety and all the emotions would just come flooding through. So I drank to drown that out and then I smoked Cigarettes, too in college. I then realized I got to a breaking point with Adderall and drinking at 21, 22, 21 or 22. And I remember I was like, I, there's no way I can fucking do this anymore. There's no way. My whole life revolved around Adderall all day long. All I was looking forward to was drinking at the end of the day. And I would drink like three bottles of wine. And I then stay up till. 2 a. m. Smoking cigarettes and I felt empty. I felt alone. I felt like I had no purpose. I felt, looking back on those feelings, I, It just makes me sad, honestly. All I was doing was trying to run away from the feelings, but in the end, it made all the feelings that much harder to feel. So I decided to stop taking Adderall. So I, I stopped taking Adderall. I decided not to drink on weekdays and, I thought just drinking, I thought I could just drink on weekends and it'd be fine and I could do that. And, so then I fast forward to about two years after that, I was in a better place. I wasn't drinking every night. I wasn't hung over every day. But I was still when I drank on the weekend. Or when I had like more than two days off at a time, I would go on a bender and I would drink and I would end up taking Adderall on the weekends just to drink. And then I got into my fitness career and that really saved me because I loved fitness more than I loved getting fucked up. And it really was just me switching my distraction to fitness and working out. Took it away from the alcohol and Adderall. Once I got to 24, I had no problem with Adderall. I really cured myself of that. It was then more the drinking. And again, I would go out on the weekends. I would get completely blackout. And I truly thought the only way to have fun, the only way to let go, was to get so drunk I didn't remember anything. I realized that I only liked myself when I was drinking. I only truly felt calm and able to be with myself when I was drinking. And that became a problem because I was starting on my spiritual path and honestly, for the first two years of getting into spirituality and self development, I knew that this was in my closet. Something that I didn't want to look at because I didn't want to. Cause I knew I had to give up drinking. I knew it because it was something that I was holding onto and I was attaching to and I knew that it was, Honestly, taken away from all my values, but I was so attached to this as my identity that I thought I could never have fun again if I didn't drink and I thought that people wouldn't like me. Consciously I know that's not true or I hoped it wasn't, but deep down I really believe that and it's still something I'm working on. But yeah, having something holding that over my head or feeling like I, I then wouldn't, I wouldn't go out. Because I didn't want to drink and I thought if I went out, I had to drink. I thought that if I went around people that were drinking, I had to drink. And if I didn't, I would look boring and I wouldn't have fun and all these other things. Then, about a year ago, I felt like I was in a constant battle with wanting to Chase what I was interested in, which is spirituality, self development and really getting to know who I was and really facing what I want to be in life. And I really valued my health, my wellness, my relationship to myself, to other people, to nature and drinking really took away from all of that. It made it very hard to stick to my values I really wanted to love myself and go on this journey of self development. And I felt that there was that big monster in the closet that I wasn't looking at. So I was talking to my therapist and there's this wedding coming up. It was my best friend's wedding and at this point, I was really not drinking because it took away from all my values, but it was still like that. It was still deep down brewing of every time I went out, I would get anxiety because I was like, am I going to drink? Am I not going to drink? It was like that back and forth because I knew deep down, I didn't want to, but on some level It just felt like something I was holding on to maybe I can be spiritual and You don't not have to look at this monster of why I drink or give it up I was like feeling like I was giving something up. And my therapist has asked me What would happen if you didn't drink like what do you think you're missing out on and that question right there? You're right. And that is when I realized all the reasons why I drink and they are not valid and they don't add to my life. And so then I decided it wasn't actually on that day. It was a couple of days later. I just decided I wasn't going to drink at the wedding. And then once I decided that, I'm like if I can do that, then why would I ever drink again? And so sometimes I get excited. I just come in. I'm like my whole life. I'm never drinking again. But then I was like, Hannah, if you're really serious about this, let's just Go baby steps at a time. Let's try it. Let's do a year and and go from there. Also another side of this is I have a family member who has been I had problems with drinking. It's been years now and it's really been eating at me. I would get so angry and I would get so resentful and I was like, why am I feeling like this? I feel so attached to this and it was, Just, oh wait, I was just very angry about the situation. And then that made me realize that I was so angry is because I was so angry at this person because I wasn't looking at myself and the parts of me that also had problems with drinking and I wanted her to quit so bad, but really I can't change other people. I, that's not my job. The only person I can change and look at and improve is myself that was the moment I realized that I had to change, and I really wanted to do it for myself, but I was getting angry at her because I was denying the fact that I had a problem. And here we are Day 90 and honestly, it feels way longer than 90 days And in a good way, because I have learned so much in a short amount of time about myself, about the world, about everything that I cannot wait for the next year to come. And How much I'm gonna gain from this and you know in the beginning I was scared that I was giving something away or that I was losing something but I'm gaining so much that I didn't know I Would and if you would have asked me a couple years ago that I would quit drinking. I Wouldn't believe you like there was that was never my radar. I remember I would judge people who didn't drink I'm like, do they not like having fun like they're uptight and I think those voices and that judgment was Me just fearful That was just me that was just fear talking because I knew I wanted to quit drinking But I was scared of what people would think of me if I quit or again I thought that it was taking something I would be taking something away from my life and I would be missing out on something in Life when really you gain so much more. At least that's been my experience in the 90 days. So without further ado Here are some of the things that I noticed in the 90 days in these first 90 days going sober And this is sober from alcohol, from weed, from literally everything. I do drink tea, so I got some caffeine in there. But, I do want to touch on something. Now, I decided no alcohol. I haven't decided on weed. Yet. These 90 days though, I haven't smoked nothing. Nothing at all. But, weed is in a gray area for me. I decided really to cut it out though. At least, Right now till I figure out why I'm distracting myself with these things because I didn't want to substitute Weed for alcohol. That's just not gonna do any good. So I believe I will continue not smoking It is hard in this day and age But I am learning so much that I really feel called to it And again, this is not me saying to stop smoking or to do anything. Just my experience So yeah, and also when I think about you know Me hesitating with giving up smoking when I think why would I smoke and the only thing I could think of is to have fun to Feel less of my emotions to feel less anxious or scared or feel fearful I'm just realizing now that's the same thing that I did with alcohol So I may have just realized that I am NOT gonna smoke either. So that just happened now friends Okay, so the things I've noticed in these first 90 days of sobriety, first on my list is I put confidence and Intuition. Now, let me explain. The amount of confidence I have gained in these 90 days are more than I ever had with drinking. I have more confidence to go after what I want, to This podcast, no way you would have caught me talking to a camera and putting it online about the things I'm talking about. Never. I just have more confidence in me and not that those insecurities and pains really, went away. It made me more confident to feel them and in a space where I can have more compassion for myself and just my body feels better so I'm able to take on those scary emotions and move past them. So yeah, confidence with feeling my emotions and getting quiet enough to hearing them is a big one. And, really made me realize how powerful we are and how much control we have of our life. When we stop distracting ourself from the things we think we're scared of and stop distracting ourselves from who we are. We have so much power in our life. We have, I had no idea. I had no idea how much confidence I would gain from not drinking. Now, there's still a lot of work to do, my friends. I haven't even got to the part where I date sober because I've never dated sober. I will make a podcast on that because I've yet to do it because I've been really focusing on me. Sorry, this is a side note. I do want to make a podcast on that because the one thing I'm lacking some confidence in is the dating realm. But we will get to that. And the second part of this was how intuitive we are. I always felt very intuitive, but almost there was something blocking it. Can you guess what it was? It was the lying to myself, the not taking the time to listen, because that's what drinking does. It shuts off your connection to you. And when you do that, you can't hear you and your intuition. So these 90 days, I really noticed how in tune I am with, The environment to source to my higher self and Like just little things I've noticed and it grows more and more every day the more I listen to it because it's so subtle It's so subtle that we tone it out. And the more that you listen the stronger it gets when I was drinking I was so up and down with everything. I didn't know, I couldn't hear it. I, maybe I did, it was there, but I couldn't tell the difference between my intuition and my thoughts. I have been able to get way more connected to my meditation practice. When I was drinking, I would meditate. I thought I was, but I really was not. Not. I wasn't taking advantage of the time I had for myself. I was always like doing it to check a box. I wasn't doing it to actually listen because I didn't want to hear because I knew what I was gonna say, which was Stop. stop feeling the void. I knew that I had to listen and had to feel these emotions, but I didn't want to. That's why I drank numbed them. So I was really not being honest with myself. And once I quit that out and became honest with where I was at, I was able to hear more of those It's really amazing when you let go and listen to our intuition and not the small self ego who doesn't know what's the best thing for us. So yeah. I gained confidence and I gained more connection to my intuition. I'm really excited and I just feel like a deeper connection to me that I've never felt before. Next is the next thing I noticed is how much I don't know about myself. I was turning my back on my values. Myself, I was doing things that I, if I'm honest, really didn't care about. It was to be liked and to fit in. And when I stopped drinking, I realized how much I have no idea who I am. Again, if you listen to my other podcasts, you'll know. I really didn't know the hobbies I liked without drinking. I didn't know what I really enjoyed. I didn't know. Which way was up? I was so lost because I was distracting myself for so long and Another reason why I it took me so long to quit drinking was because I was scared of Not having the one thing I knew about myself Which was I had fun when I went out drinking and people liked me when I was drinking and that was how you had fun Like letting go of that. I was like, who am I? What do I like to do? What? I have no idea what I like to do because everything I do that's so called fun or my hobbies involve drinking and unless it was the gym, but so yeah, first it was a little unsettling feeling like you don't know yourself and that you were almost living a lie and then I let it set in I then realized what an amazing opportunity this is to get to know myself and learn about myself and how amazing is that to have the time and have the space to really understand yourself and that is what I've been wanting to do ever since I started my spiritual practice was to understand myself and the one thing that was holding me back was drinking. I noticed as well that I used drinking to drown out my authenticity. I was doing a lot of things that I wouldn't do sober and what kind of life is that to live? Talking to people that I usually wouldn't talk to, or saying things I wouldn't say sober. And I I'm just so grateful that I have this opportunity now to really be honest with myself and find who I am and not sacrifice my authenticity for a quick dopamine rush and feeling like I have no problems for a night, and yes, it's scary to feel like you don't know who you are. But. I'd rather be on the journey to find myself than be on a journey to unknow myself and Get myself even more confused of who I am what I like and what my true values are and live by those The next thing on my list is I realized what relationships people places add to my life and Which do not And the ones that are not, and the ones that do not, how fast they fall away. Realizing, this kind of ties into the last point. The people that add to your life and the people that take away from it. And also, what people actually, truly, are your friend. When you quit drinking, you stop going out, a lot of the friends that are not truly, Your friend will fall away and I realized that a lot of my friends were friends Because I was drinking the only time we hung out or did anything was to go get drinks was to Do something that involved drinking or so it was never deep connections that I had with people because That's all it revolved around. It was just another person who'll get drinks with and That was a very sad realization because I I felt very alone And I still do sometimes but I learned to embrace that and you know at the day All we have is ourself If I can build my relationship with myself first strong, I know that those other connections are going to come as well, Realizing the people that Add to your energy and take away from it, when you're drinking you don't notice that because you're unconnected to everything at least I was and You know now being sober when I'm you know, talking to someone you can really feel if someone's for you If someone really wants to be there and is giving you the same energy You're giving back and the people that are you know, not really there for you And our time is precious, and I don't want to spend time with someone who doesn't want to spend time with me, or truly doesn't value my time or our connection, and Yes, it's a lonely road at first, but then I, but I believe that letting the relationships that didn't align with you or didn't bring your energy up, letting those fall away so that the real connections and the real friendships can come in. And that freaking takes time. This also touches in my romantic relationships. I realized that all my boyfriends in the past, I dated or I met, I dated or met or started dating them when I was drinking. I, most of our relationship was me drinking. Not a lot of it was me sober. And that has, it's, there are some other issues related to that, but I realized I never had a deep connection with a boyfriend. relationship really because I, because they didn't know me, I didn't know me. So to come in grips with that was hard. But once I have realized that I know that there's a lot of work to do in that area, but I'm excited to have more authentic relationships and ones that are not That are going to lift me up and not take from me. Next on the list was less caring about what people think of me and setting boundaries. So I realized I care less about what people think of me now without drinking. When I was drinking, that's all I thought about. That's all I cared about was what people thought of me. And it's funny, you would think that drinking would make that go away, but it, I lied to myself and said that it did, but looking back with a clear mind, it didn't, it made it 10 times worse. That's all I thought about. And now not drinking, I. really do care less about what people think of me. I care more about what I think of me and that's a work in progress. But that goes back to the confidence. I have more confidence and I don't have to make everyone like me and I'm able to just feel more connected to me. And I think that's why I don't care what people, I don't care as much about what people think of me. And the other part of this was setting boundaries, so when I was drinking a lot, I would hang out with everyone and anybody, even if I felt that they made me feel bad, or that they weren't someone I wanted to spend time with, They treated me a certain way and I just let it go right under the rug. I just pretend like I didn't care. And I was really going against, I was really going against me and how precious my energy is and now setting boundaries with people that don't respect me or my time or our relationship, setting those boundaries. Have become easier and I've been so much happier not feeling like I have to please everybody. Not feeling like I have to do things because if I don't, that person will judge me or think I'm a bitch or I'm mean. I cannot control other people's emotions. I know I'm doing it out of the love for me and them. I'm not doing it out of hate. And if they think it's. Coming from that then that's on them, and I can't take on trying to control or Please everybody and I think that was drinking. I was trying to always Please everyone and not myself the next one is Learn what I actually enjoy doing so I have really discovered what I am actually enjoy doing and they are the little things that bring me joy Before I can never tell you anything. I like to do that didn't involve drinking now. I have Multiple things and they might not be huge things and they may not be cool to anybody else But that doesn't that's not the point. They're what I like, you know For example, I love going to the farmer's market. I love fresh fruits and vegetables. I love I love cooking. I love being in the kitchen. I love reading. I love tea. I love new coffee shops. I love exploring new cities. I love talking to new people. I love traveling and I love to learn more about myself and more about the universe and why we're here. More about energy and all these things that I thought. Were woo. I really do enjoy that am Just pushing myself out of my comfort zone like starting this podcast Last thing I will say is I was really taking a backseat to my life. I was too scared to let things go, to let the new things in. And that thing that I had to let go was drugs and alcohol because it was holding me back from everything that I wanted to be. And yeah, just these 90 days have showed me how much I'm capable of. And I'm so excited to learn more about myself and keep pushing myself and just honestly heal. And live life more fully embrace all those emotions, all the emotions of the rainbow. So I just want to end on One thing, I am not saying that drinking is bad, drinking is bad for me. And in my experience, it took away from my life and it didn't add anything to it. And I have too much awareness now to sit there and say that it didn't, and to sit there and continue to do something when I knew it was literally only taking things away from me and that might not be your story, all power to you. It's not me telling you that you're doing something wrong. You know you best but I will invite you if you do feel like any of this resonated with you and made you a little bit uncomfortable. To ask yourself why and I love you all and I appreciate you all listening to this episode number four, baby.. If you enjoyed this, please like, subscribe. I will put everything you need to know in the show notes. I will link the book I was talking about and I will see y'all episode five next week. I believe Tuesday is going to be the day that I release my episodes. I like Tuesday. So today's actually Tuesday. Anyway, peace out, friends.