Finding Gratitude for Sobriety

Feeling stressed used to make me crave a drink, but now it’s a reason to celebrate sobriety.

When I first quit drinking, I had my fair share of trouble with stress management.

I was already an incredibly tense person, working a high-stress job, with few hobbies to help me unwind. For years, my only real form of relaxation had been to work my way through a six-pack. (Or two!)

When I took away that crutch, my stress levels skyrocketed. Not only did I feel more tense all day long, but every little thing that went wrong would send me into a stress-filled spiral. I couldn’t resist making mountains out of molehills.

That constant stress produced intense cravings for alcohol. I still associated beer with relaxation, and I hadn’t yet found any healthier stress-reduction techniques to replace it.

Every time that something went wrong — even the least consequential things on Earth — I’d think: “God, I really need a beer.”

A bad day at work? “I need a beer.”

Stuck in traffic on the way home? “I need a beer.”

Paper cut? “Beer.”

I had spent the past decade wiring my brain to this one response to stress, and it ended up taking me months to even begin to reverse my thinking.

These days stress levels are high across the entire globe. So many of us are stuck at home, having difficulties with work, and socially isolated.

My own hours have been cut, and I went from typically working with others in person to now doing all of my meetings over Zoom. It’s been over a month since I’ve last seen a friend in person, and my weekly grocery store trips are the height of my social interaction. So, it’s safe to count myself among the stressed.

If this had happened three years ago, when I had just quit drinking, I know that I’d be craving beer more than ever. I worry that I would have even ended up using it as an excuse to relapse.

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