Hello my friends!
Welcome to another week of Growing Pains: Sober Girls Edition :)
If you’d like to read this on the website or you can listen, too: Sober Girls - The Grinches Heart vs My Brain
First of all, I hope everyone has been having a wonderful week! It has been very rainy here in New York (our wonderful host calls this “Lab Weather” I call it - please for the love of God where did the sun go weather) and it has been causing me to be a bit blue lately. However, the sun has come out again, as it always does, and I’m grateful for those rainy days that make me so grateful for the sunny days.
Anyway, I’m going to go out on a limb today and try to explain something that, because I’m an alcoholic, I naturally think I’m the only person in the world who experiences this.
When I get overwhelmed by emotion I quite often say that my “head feels full.” Now, you must know that my head feels full is about the only thing a 23 year old alcoholic with little understanding of her own emotions, can conjure up for when I feel like there’s so much going on in my head that it’s literally packed to the brim.
So, my head feels full is how I was feeling this morning and the only thing that soothed me was choir Christmas music. Which that is a whole other conversation because winter solstice? Christ being born? Roman Catholic coincidence? I think not. But, it reminds me of being super young when everything was so simple and I was an angel in our churches Christmas Eve performance and Santa was coming and I had no idea what alcoholism was.
Today, my head feels full means I am overwhelmed by sadness, frustration, self criticism - I am not enough, I’m not doing enough, I’m doing everything wrong, I’m not seeing the other persons perspective, I’m not practicing these principles in all of my affairs, I’m not being understood, my voice isn’t being heard, I could be doing better, I should be doing better, I’m not supposed to feel this way.
And so on, and so on. And it gets to the point that the thoughts are so intense and coming so fast, that I truly feel like my brain has expanded to the edges of my skull and it can’t expand any farther (Kinda like when the Grinches heart grew three sizes that day, but not as cute, whimsical and positive).
With all of that said, I had a friend remind me that I am sober today and that is enough. I feel like a I write that here a lot, but for myself, I need that reminder. I need to be reminded that when my head is full, when everything is so intense, when I’m dealing with the most my little sober brain can handle, I am waking up and going to sleep sober. And if that’s all I achieved today, that’s a pretty fucking good day. Now, that doesn’t mean go out and do bad things other than drinking, but I don’t have to be so hard on myself if every day doesn’t look great.
The rest will fall into place. It always does. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. I can’t move on past Steps 1, 2 & 3 until I have a genuine and firm understanding of my Higher Power. All 12 steps are not meant to be practiced in all of our affairs, maybe it's just Step 1, maybe it’s Steps 3 & 11. But it doesn’t have to be all of them all of the time.
At the end of the day, I am doing the most I can and that is okay. At the end of the days you guys are doing the most you can and that is okay. We are all just trying to be better than we were yesterday and if the best we can do for a day or two is not drink, put our shoes on and go outside, I think we’re doing alright.
Overall, I hope anyone who needed it today, remembers that making it through the day sober is 100% enough. You are enough. And I hope someone (anyone) out there knows exactly what I mean when I say “my head feels full” and that together, we can combat the fullness by staying sober 24 hours at a time :)
With so much love always,
Jane
You are enough. You are beautiful, strong, courageous, intelligent and your heart is good. Lately, I feel like our roles are reversed. You have begun to teach me new things, you have begun to give me life lessons. I’m hoping to grow from things I’m learning from you. I love you Jane.
Always always here for anyone who needs! Thank you for reading!!