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When I was heavily consumed with drinking, my alcoholism was a shameful secret — the kind of sobriety shame that keeps you from asking for help. I would hide the amount I was drinking, even from my husband, and no one knew just how much I was hitting the bottle each night. It was a huge problem that I knew I needed help with, but I didn’t know where to turn for help. Also, I was functioning fairly well (or so I thought) and taking care of things daily with myself, family, and household, so it was a problem I felt didn’t need to be immediately addressed.
When I got sober, I found that I still harbored a lot of shame and anxiety over my previous drinking habits. Random thoughts would send me spiraling down a deep pit of shame, thinking back on all the times I was so out of control with my drinking.
I also found that shame and anxiety would make its way into my head in early sobriety. Thinking of situations where people might ask me why I no longer drink, or what caused me to stop drinking made me feel shameful. Why couldn’t I control my drinking like normal people? Why couldn’t I simply enjoy a glass of wine without reaching for another, and another? Why couldn’t I just simply not drink because I didn’t feel like it? This shame early on affected what and how I shared with people about my sobriety.
Fearful of what people might say, and what they might think of me led me to just simply say “I don’t drink” or”I don’t drink anymore.” Rarely if ever, did the conversation come up about why I no longer drink.
At the end of the day, what other people think does not matter. Dealing with your own feelings of your previous drinking habits is what matters most. I find that my dependence on alcohol had a lot to do with being an introvert pushed into social situations, and not knowing how to effectively deal with these situations.
I mistook my introverted personality as a defect (it’s not!) and did things as I grew up to “prove” to myself and others that I was actually pretty cool. Alcohol only temporarily made me brave, but it also made me do a lot of silly things that I would not have done had I remained sober. It became an unhealthy crutch that I used to deal with life.
Sobriety should never be a source of shame. Every day sober is a test of strength and mental resolve. It is a
