Sobriety

I have been sober for at least a month, maybe two, three actually now almost four. This post has taken a while. I really should have paid attention to the date on which I decided I was giving up alcohol. That feels like the traditional approach. I guess I'm not really one for traditional approaches but it might be nice to know. I think it was somewhere in early January. Only, last year I talked about how drinking less and less was impacting me.

I must also consider sobriety as a part of this end to dating. I don't drink that much any longer. Partly, this was because I got an Apple Watch and could see in real time the impact alcohol had on my heart rate. Partly, I've lost the tolerance you build through regular drinking. My friend group has changed and inflation happened. I don't really have as many people to drink with! Partly, I just stopped wanting it as much. I love the fuzzy edged feeling of two glasses of wine. I love even more the fuzzy edged feeling of kissing someone after two glasses of wine. The research on alcohol and its incredible damage is pretty conclusive and although I love many of the things about drinking and its social easing etc, I'm not into the long term effects. I don't know yet whether this is going to be a larger thing for me going forward but sober dating is harder. I just don't like it. I've done it a lot but there's something about it I'm not into. Alcohol knocks the edge off. I don't love that I want my edges knocked off, but I do. These days I don't need it as much but there are times.

Somewhere between my post in February 2025 and today I decided to stop drinking (but start dating again, lol). The numbers on my Apple Watch have improved. My heart rate is lower and more stable. My heart rate variation is a little better. My sleep is improving, little by little. My skin feels somehow better in an indescribable way that could admittedly be I've added retinol to my skin care routine at the same time I've given up alcohol. It's nice to deadlift on a Friday without being lightly dusty. I feel weird in bars, strangely guilty. At my local I worry about how their wine sales are going. I still go to bars and hang with my friends because I'm there for the talking. If any of them are bothered by me not drinking they've not said. I can't imagine they would be. It is probably only me who's bothered. And I'm only bothered by the fact that now I'm trying this out, the way our world revolves around alcohol, seems suddenly, incredibly stark. It's everywhere. It's so casual. I'm not the first to think this.

And yes, I have started dating again. And actually dating sober is going ok too. Almost everyone is chill about it. There are increasing numbers of sober people around, even if many of them are California Sober. And it is mostly good to feel present and accounted for with all my edges. Ah the edges. Due to some changes in my work life I have recently been obsessed with my likability which is to say: nothing new here. I would surgically remove these thoughts if I could. They are a drag on any kind of movement and are only minimally useful. I am likeable and I am also not everyone's cup of tea. I don't like everyone. These things can all exist together, I know that. The neurodivergent urge to be examining what is wrong with me at any one moment. Or is that the trauma urge? Or is it who I am. Where's a Venn diagram when you need one. In any case, it is interesting to live without the specific drug that made me feel more comfortable around humans and less self aware minute to excruciating minute of all the ways I'm a bit of an alien. Is there more second guessing? Is there more acceptance? It's too soon to tell but there's something there. Something is moving around, under the surface.

I did fall off a horse not long after becoming sober and the adrenaline rush felt remarkably large. I think after a while of not having any edges taken off by alcohol my body rushing to respond to an incident felt different in a way I can't quite articulate. Bigger at least. Bigger than any other adrenaline rush of recent memory. I was very aware of what was happening the whole time, even if it was also so fast my brain couldn't track the fall. I was on the horse. I was on the ground. I was on my back. Every moment by itself, manageable. The inner-pep-talk-machine going hell-for-leather. I guess if you move to an even keel generally, no numbing, no uppers, the internal systems get louder perhaps. I don't know. I'm not sure if other newly sober people have experienced this. In any case, funny to think you can experience new things like this by giving up alcohol. It's not like I was ever a huge drinker. I started late at 23. I've even been sober before, once for about three years, for my mental health. I did scare myself during a covid lockdown when I drank a lot to ease my anxiety because there was nothing else. I have, however, been a regular, social drinker for the last decade, at least. So it is a noticeable change.

During this period of sobriety there have been several times, I really, really wanted a drink. I have noticed each time as soon as I give myself permission to stop being sober, to have a single drink, I immediately no longer want it. The urge disappears. I think of my sleep. I think of my heart rate. I think of all the money I drank. The urge goes away. I come back to myself again. So the out is there if I need it. I don't want it, turns out. So much of the drinking I did was simply because I did it. Because it was there. Because I was there. Because we were doing it together. I also think so much of the drinking was about managing symptoms I now have more ease with. I drank to deal with the social anxiety, the neurodivergence, the difference. These days I avoid large numbers of people. I stayed home from Cuba Dupa and although I'm really so glad it exists I'm also so glad I don't have to go and have strangers touch me. I love strangers. I love people. Preferably, at a distance and not in any significantly large number. Not even really in any large number. Drinking made it possible to handle all of the things I don't want to handle. And for the longest time I thought I had to do all of these things.

There are so many things I think I have to do. So many of them are so entirely optional. The more I consider my (possible, undiagnosed, but obvious) autism the more I plan for my own sensory enjoyment or pleasure the easier things get. And I really do think sobriety is connected to this. It is better and easier to exist in my body when I'm aware of its oversensitivities. And even more so when I address them instead of numbing them. I can only take loud environments for so long. Last year I had to leave an Earth Tongue gig because their wall of sound was too wall of sound. I was teetering on the edge, feeling rude, wondering if my girlfriend would be unhappy to leave early. Then someone ran through the crowd, ran into me and pushed me down some of the steps in Meow Nui. In stopping myself from falling over my body flooded with pain. Suddenly there were too many inputs. We left. We were actually both relieved so I probably should have asked as soon as I felt it. I had to leave a restaurant recently because it smelled awful. If too many people touch me without my consent I get weird. Etc. I think back to a decade ago and I was not even aware of trauma as a thing for me. I was not even aware really of what autism was, in detail. I did drink a hell of a lot. I was also at times incredibly miserable. I've had a hard few years in several ways. Would I say I was miserable in any of them? Not really. Various things have come up and hurt me but then also I've processed them and moved on. A decade ago I had a big festering knot of my unaddressed self sitting around in there getting in the way of everything. These days there's no knot. I'm not sure you ever have the full picture of your self. I at least have an outline, some suggestions, more than I've ever had before.

I don't really socialise in groups these days either. I'm a one-on-one person and perhaps always have been. Sitting in a group my brain tries to do the math on all the social interactions happening and it is, and always has been, too much. I think alcohol really helped with that particular experience. I didn't have to be hypervigilant when on a buzz, for better or worse. Last night I went to my favourite bar. A bar I am at regularly and this time it seemed like half the known universe was there. There was an array of friends, exes, tinder matches, writers, ex-friends and acquaintances, some from 30 years ago. I really do think I knew over half the pub patrons. I wasn't hanging out with any of them so I didn't have to feel anything or worry about the relationships. I could focus on the people I was with. This is learned behaviour for me. Exposure therapy some might say. A reality of living in Wellington. And also something I have worked hard at. An ex I don't particularly want to see walked in through the door and I turned and looked right into her face. It was no big deal. It was very pleasing to me. I'm not seeking to be unfeeling or unaffected by the world. I do want to be able to maintain equilibrium as often as I can. The more I an even keeled the more I can handle the moments where things get out of whack. Being on an even footing also allows me to keep going through say times of imminent nuclear war where civilians are being bombed on the regular due to the petty grievances of imperial powers. I don't want to be numb to the injustices of the world. I want to remain convinced the actions we take can change things, even if everything feels so small and difficult.

Sobriety is the anti-numbness for me. It is learning to be aware more regularly of everything, to not disappear into fuzziness. It does mean that there's an opposite effect of bringing the self out of pleasurable sensory overwhelm. Even though alcohol numbs some senses it increases others for me. A kiss or someone's touch when I'm drinking feels ten times louder than it has any right to. The "brain" turns off with alcohol and for me, touch ramps up. So in a way I'm sacrificing some of the things I love most for sobriety. Do I really love it? What is love! Is sensory overwhelm another type of numbing? Pleasure is still around, of course. There are many ways to be pleasurably overwhelmed in a sensory fashion. But! I haven't made out with anyone new in ages. Making out with new people used to be one of my top life experiences. I wanted to do it regularly. I also used to have a number of people I dated purely to drink and make out with. How things change! Asking to make out without a drink onboard feels like a much more intense thing. I am still very much into sensory overwhelm. These days it's way more likely to be a lot of deadlifts, or lying on the couch under a blanket. Both of these things hit in different ways and give me what I'm looking for. But also, I mean, if you're cute and want to make out, let me know. I'm often the one asking to make out and sometimes a non-bino would like to be asked, you know? And having a cute person sit in your lap so you can make out is still one of the best things we've invented as humans. Imagine the person who came up with kissing. No maybe don't imagine that. But still. Gold medal to them.

Just this week I've talked to several people about how movie endings are often in the wrong place. Project Hail Mary for one. Just should have ended a bit earlier. When he makes the decision. You know. You know the one. In writing this little post I'm like where's the ending? What's happening? Where's my decision? With poems I feel it. I'm still working on my senses for endings of silly little blog posts (complimentary). So this is the ending. A silly little paragraph (complimentary) for a silly little blog post (still, complimentary). Anyway, I hope you get to make out with someone cute today if that's what you're into.