Post
Mi
Mitchel
284d ago

Celebrating Sobriety, Celebrating Betterment

As of August 10th, 2024 I’m 1 year and 9 months sober. While sobriety wasn’t intended, it was surviving a covert narcissist that used alcohol as a means to continuously assault me that inspired the journey. Among other things, getting my shit together was all I cared to do after experiencing the hell I endured.


Now almost 2 years later I’m alive and thriving. I’m navigating life with a sense of direction and everything I do comes from a place of love. I’m slowing down, giving myself time to process things, I’m trusting my intuition more and fearlessly pursuing my passions.


June 30th, 2024 I met someone at a concert. Instantly, we hit it off and started going on dates. It was followed by frequent texting, regular dates, breathtaking sex, conversations about the future and sharing bits of our pasts. Everything seemed well, until it didn’t. Even with me creating safe spaces to have open discussions about concerns, it resulted in me having to disassociate because my intuition and body started to warn me something was wrong.


For full context please refer to my previous, recent post (Listen To Your Body)


I trust in my decision more than anything to separate from whatever doesn’t positively serve me, however because I wanted to give myself closure, I caved and responded to the texts my now former romantic interest sent. I understand that closure might not be achievable in every conflict but possible, I’d like to give it to myself and whoever else.


Before reaching responding to the texts, I gave myself time to mentally and emotionally prepare. I wrote down questions like, “Why am I reconnecting?”, “What do I want to say?”, “What am I expecting to gain out of this interaction?”, etc. Once I gathered myself, I responded communicating my grievances and asked to arrange time for us to speak.


After scheduling everything, I went on to enjoy celebrating 21 months sobriety. It started with me waking up feeling refreshed. I spent 15 minutes cleaning my room, I showered, cooked myself breakfast and caught up on current events. Then I worked through my self care routine. I checked in with friends, gifted a stranger a handmade care package, played in the park, brought some protection charms I plan to give loved ones, and spent the evening relaxing at home.


This evening at 18:00, August 11th, he’s coming over to speak. I’ve already prepared and decided that I’m going to go no contact for good, but I want to give him a protection charm to wish him well. After everything, I don’t think that we’d be a great fit for one another and the conflict of interests would create unhealthy tension. Recognising this, I’d rather us work on ourselves/priorities until we find someone’s whose desires are in alignment with our longterm goals.


Initially acknowledging this hurt, but I’ve taken all the time to reflect so now I’m able to have this conversation from a levelheaded perspective. Even though everything was short lived, I appreciate getting to experience what I imagine healthy conflict in a relationship would look like. It gives me hope, and I’m glad I had this learning opportunity. My heart will hurt every now and then reflecting but it’s for the best.

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