The first time I quit drinking and why it didn’t work— WHAT I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY

Becoming a new mom was by far the hardest transition I ever made so far in my life. Motherhood in America is just very different. It is so incredibly isolating which makes the hormonal changes, sleepless nights, and identity crisis seem even harder to bear. I loved my baby more than anything in the world, and I wanted to be her mother but I didn’t know how and I also didn’t really understand what was happening in my body. I was scared all the time (still am). I could call my sister but she doesn’t have kids so while I am grateful that she would listen, I know deep down she didn’t get it. I do have my own mother too who of course understands the hardships and loneliness of motherhood but who also was dealing with her own stuff. Her generation is much different than my own, and that seems to have impacted our relationship. That is a different story for a different day. You may ask where the father was in all of this. He was there but wasn’t. This transition was hard for him too and he just wasn’t equipped to support me in my postpartum. It still breaks my heart to this day but I also heal every day as well.

With very little support, I was not sure what to do. I tried therapy but other than that it was me taking care of the baby and trying to get through graduate school — and this was all after my daughter had to have emergency open heart surgery, a diagnosis and event that I still struggle with every day. Being a mother of a medically complex baby is truly terrifying, so the fear that was there when I became a new mother only exacerbated and became unbearable when true danger reared its ugly head. I didn’t know how to cope and no amount of therapy worked. I was drowning and I couldn’t shut off the intrusive thoughts and images. The hypervigilance and anxiety became almost unmanageable. So at the end of the day when the baby finally slept and no one asked anything of me, I drank wine.

I drank wine to survive and I felt so ashamed of that.

Drinking gave me the solace I craved that I couldn’t get on my own. Not for lack of trying though. I tried therapists and antidepressants and working out, diet changes — and don’t even get me started on praying. To be in my darkest hour and pray only to be met with silence was a new rock bottom for me.

I drank because it calmed my body in such a way that I so desperately needed. I would drink and then drink another glass to make sure I kept the silence, and before I knew it I would have drank more than I ever intended.

I would wake up feeling terrible and yes, motherhood was 1000 times harder. That’s the thing about alcohol. It helps for about 20 minutes and then come the consequences. The hangover, the raging anxiety the next day. Not to mention the shame that comes with it.

I don’t think anything terrible happened. I think I was just sick of my cycle. I watched an Instagram video that convinced me I was going to quit for 90 days.

I ended up quitting for 150 days. I went to therapy, meditated, and worked out. I felt better — because yeah, of course I did. Life is just easier without the hangover and crippling anxiety, and not having to worry about drinking frees up a lot of headspace, not to mention the energy you save not hating yourself. I felt very flat and empty though, but I assumed that was just sleep deprivation. Nothing made me laugh or even smile. Music was just noise. Nature wasn’t beautiful to me — it was just there. I was just there. It was kind of sad but I didn’t really care either. It wasn’t hard to not drink. I thought maybe this is just life now.

I figured after 150 days of sobriety I was cured of the binge drinking. So I decided to have some wine while I cooked dinner. A spark of electricity shot through me. I got a bit more energy, the music made me want to dance again. I FELT ALIVE. I was so excited. If only I could feel this good all the time. So I had another glass. And another.

I woke up with my first headache and raging anxiety in 150 days and I felt so defeated. The cycle continued and I was shattered. Why didn’t my sobriety work? Why did nothing change at all? My self-loathing was at an all time high.

I just wanted the cycle to end. Why the fuck can’t I have just one glass of wine like an adult?

Later, I would realize that while sobriety is beneficial, you can only heal so much if you aren’t nourishing yourself correctly.

I might have been sober but I was white-knuckling my way through sobriety just like I white-knuckle my way through everything else. It wasn’t enough that I was sober. I needed to start nourishing myself physically. Not just hydrating, but with foods — most importantly minerals. I wasn’t feeding my body the nutrients it needed in order to start producing the dopamine I so desperately needed. I wasn’t nourished enough to naturally feel that spark of electricity that hit me after that first glass of wine after 150 days of sobriety.

When I was sober I was undernourished and still severely stressed. My daughter had doctor appointments and procedures during that time. Yes, I was sober getting through them, but I white-knuckled my way through — overtired, overwhelmed, terrified — all while being undernourished. My hair was falling out, I weighed 90 pounds, and it wasn’t until I heard my sister-in-law say behind my back “wow, Brittany lost a lot of weight” that I realized maybe something was wrong. My teeth looked weird, my gums were bleeding, I had bald spots, my nails were brittle — but hey, at least I was sober. My body was just trying to keep me alive and pulling minerals from wherever it could. I just didn’t know that. I thought it was just the stress of motherhood, and the fear of losing my daughter.

Being sober was easy. Learning to cope with stress and fear is not. The reality of my life is that my daughter has a congenital heart defect and that scares me to death. My brain and nervous system are doing what they are designed to do — prepare me and protect me — but my wires got crossed along the way. My life and my body became a prison that sometimes I wanted to escape.

No amount of talk therapy was going to help me and it didn’t. In fact, talking about it started to just re-traumatize me. It made the fear much louder. So I have been on the search ever since to truly heal.

That is why I do the work that I do. The mind is not separate from the rest of the body. There is a way to break the cycle and it starts with nourishment.

XOXO,

Brittany

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For more about this topic you can read “When Talk Therapy Isn’t Enough” Here