It’s Okay to Miss Alcohol
Listen to the full episode in your podcasting app: Apple Spotify other apps
It's okay if you're missing alcohol in sobriety or if you've started romanticizing alcohol. A grieving process comes with changing your relationship alcohol, but we get confused with it. We think we’re grieving our drinking, but we’re grieving what we hoped our drinking could be someday, not our real drinking.
Understanding that difference is important.
Why we romanticize alcohol
When we're very young, we start developing expectations about the world around us. Our brains sort information to understand our family's values and society's norms. These rules continue to create a vision of an ideal life.
Think on what your younger self thought your ideal life was later today. How much of that ideal life have you achieved? Were you able to let any of it go?
Just because our brains form this idea of an ideal life when we’re young doesn’t mean it’s actually the ideal life. We believe this is the perfect life and have given importance and meaning to these things for a long time.
Why we have to grieve alcohol
Nonfinite grief happens when we lose things that we never had. It also occurs when our ideal future is no longer possible. Additionally, it happens when life doesn't meet our expectations.
Alcohol is likely important in your ideal life because we are obsessed with it and it becomes the most important thing. When you quit drinking, you have to grieve the life you thought you would have with alcohol.
Grieving it is normal. Not drinking impacts most areas of our lives. We feel our otherness in our friendships, work, our hobbies, our vacations, and in dating and relationships. You will probably have to grieve alcohol multiple times throughout your sobriety and that’s okay.
The science: alcohol and our memory
An extra factor here that we have to remember. We struggle to see reality regarding our drinking. We make excuses and negotiate alcohol back into our lives.
Despite what your hangover brain might be telling you, we don’t do this because we’re stupid losers with no self-control. We do it because the brain wires us to perceive our past in a positive way, preventing us from feeling like our life sucks.
Even worse, heavy drinking makes negative drinking memories fade faster than normal!
Listen to episode 176 to learn more about grieving your drinking:
Watch a clip here:
Cite this article:
Tietz, G. Episode 176: It’s Okay to Miss Alcohol. Sober Powered. 2023
