new year. not new you.
let's start 2024 not thinking something is wrong with us!
Do you remember those New Year, New You campaigns that used to pop up around the holidays? Not sure exactly which year because they’re all starting to blend into each other—don’t get old, kids—but you know, the ones that openly suggested that something was wrong with us the year before? So much that we needed to be “new” in the coming year. That used to totally stress me out and by the third week of January when I wasn’t this entirely different person I felt like a failure, which would result in returning to old habits of bottom-shelf vodka, dive bars and dudes who paid their rent with their parents’ credit cards.
God.
While I do like the idea of a clean slate, I’d hate to devalue the growth and work from the previous year because as humans, if nothing else, we are growing and learning from something; good or painful. My fortune cookie this New Year’s Eve though, nailed it perfectly and read: “The difficulty is not coming up with new ideas, but to undo the old ones.”
It was probably not intended for the new year mind but felt like the most fitting message despite the Peloton commercials I saw too many times at my mom’s house on Long Island that promised a cutting-edge and “cool” 2024 if we buy one of their products. (I think American advertising makes me cranky. Sorry.)
As I walk into 2024 with one year of sobriety completed, I do admit to feeling less shot out of a canon than I had the previous years of holiday overindulgence. This year, my liver isn’t throbbing, and I don’t have bile and acid reflux playing elevator in my throat. So that’s always exciting.
But still. I’m already tired. Drained, I could even say.
Anyone else?
I mean, it is winter, there’s the post-holiday withdrawal, which for some was either bright and joyful or passive-aggressively toxic visiting families of origin and/or in-laws. Or it was a festive mix of both holiday cheer layered over the dysfunction. There’s also the feeling of helplessness about pretty much everything happening right now. We have our phones, these mini energy vacuums loaded with addictive apps designed to steal our attention souls?, and oh God, it’s an American election year.
{deep breaths}
The difficulty is not coming up with new ideas, but to undo the old ones.
Rereading the fortune as I sipped my oolong tea, I wondered what old ideas could I undo before even daring to think of new ideas. It feels like a mental spring cleaning of sorts, which I love. And then I thought of it! To be honest, it didn’t take that long as it’s been something I’ve been grappling with for many months now but not wanting to let go of quite yet.
To back up a bit: A suggestion for the first year of getting sober is to actually not make any big changes to keep sobriety the priority (unless of course you are in a dangerous situation). I took the recommendation seriously and didn’t take on any kind of fitness challenge or diet to augment what felt like a lifestyle disruption, since my motivation to stop drinking wasn’t to get “bikini ready” (gross) or anything exterior. Instead, I focused on nourishing myself with long walks, Yoga with Adriene, 80’s and 90’s movie nights (Innerspace and Just One of the Guys being so so comforting) and reading Quit Lit while loosening the grip on my perfection from food to writing.
While I was mindful not to replace one addiction with another, I needed something as I began the arduous task of rewiring my reward system. After over twenty years, I had completely fucked up the reward pathways in my brain and had forgotten how to look forward to upcoming events like concerts and the fucking weekend without the promise of alcohol. Something I could easily do as a teenager was all of a sudden intimidating and I had to enter my social life with the training wheels screwed back on. And without the fuzzy feel good flows of alcohol, you feel everything, which in the beginning made me feel hyper-exposed and sensitive like I was living life with my insides out.
So, I turned to sugar to comfort me through my year of “firsts” like first birthday sober since 2000, first Thanksgiving also since 2000 (this one was tough), first ever Fête de la Musique sober and so on… I needed dessert to get through it all. I laugh thinking about my former drinking self who turned dessert down and feeling sanctimonious in my belief that I didn’t have a “sweet tooth.” Yeah fucking right. That theory, of course, shattered in my face like confetti the first week of sobriety when I practically knocked my own child down to get into the snack cabinet before him.
We all know that sugar is “bad for us” but for me, it was better than drinking. And I still stand by this point but my reliance on the stuff was outsizing me. I didn’t know how not to stick my spoon into the hazelnut spread after dinner (it’s organic from Italy! I’d rationalize) or how to decline a pawned-off slice of cake when I picked my son up from a birthday party (It would be rude to say no?). Since I’m no longer trying to trick my body out of a hangover (water, aspirin, bacon, Pedialyte…all lies), I notice when it talks to me more than I’ve ever had. And while my liver is proud of me, the rest of me feels worn out with all eyes looking at the sugar demon that grew some major muscles in 2023.
If I’ve been wondering why I’ve been lethargic I don’t need to look much further than my need to “have something sweet” at the end of every meal, which then results in a strong urge to take a nap because sugar makes us sleepy. The crash-and-burn effect is real as our blood sugar levels spike and drop at a rate that feels chaotic to our bodies. What’s more is that overconsumption has our bodies relying on it as an energy source instead of using fat for fuel. Not to mention it’s insanely addictive. Ever try to have just one cookie? Vegan, gluten-free, organic, who cares, it’s impossible to have just one.
So, this is where I am: undoing the old idea that I could replace alcohol with sugar. Sugar has its place in sobriety though, especially in the first 90 days, so I’m going into this with absolutely no regrets. And I’m not being cute when I say that ice cream is necessary for some in the first year. When I was a kid, I remember my dad’s early- recovery crush was Mint Milano cookies that he kept cool in the fridge. I also used to go to Upper West Side AA meetings with him when I was a teenager. It’s interesting looking back….
Anyway! Sidetracking here…
Out of the two, it’ll be interesting to see which will be more of a challenge for me as the dependencies have similar emotional components. I almost picked coffee as this year’s target but why in the hell would I do that?
Well, maybe next year.
Happy new year, all.
Stay warm, stay rested, stay nourished. Dare I say, stay sane?
LCM
