11 things I've learned in one year of being sober.

Some are good. Some are bad. Some are definitely surprising. But all are necessary.

Today, I am one year sober. I haven’t had a drop of alcohol in 366 days. (2024 is a leap year, remember.) If you would have told me two years ago that I could go a year without drinking, I would have thought it was impossible. And in fact, two years ago it would have been.

But here I am. I’ve done it. But I’m not looking for applause. It actually feels a little anti-climactic if I’m being honest. And that’s another thing I would have never expected. Old Jon would have thought this would have been a much bigger deal than I feel like it is. But old Jon would have also been looking for an excuse to drink, and not drinking for year would have been an excuse to drink. Go figure.

All this week, my posts will focus on sobriety. And today’s is about some of the things I’ve learned over the last year. By no means is this list exhaustive. It can’t be. That’s because I’m learning new things every day. I’m sure as soon as I hit publish on this, I’ll want to add more. That’s just the nature of my (messy) sanctification process.

But I wanted to share some of my learnings with you. Maybe you’re curious about sobriety, maybe you know you need to get sober, maybe you’re in the midst of sobriety, or maybe you’re a friend or family member of someone with an addiction. Hopefully these will help you. But by all means, if you have any other lessons you’ve learned or questions, just throw them in the comments.

So here we go. Here are 11 things I’ve learned after one year of sobriety…

There are different ways to find sobriety.

I’m just going to get this one out of the way off the top. It’s one, though, that I’ve struggled talking about publicly. But as I grow more comfortable and confident in my journey, it’s one I know I need to say.

Listen, there is no doubt that Alcoholics Anonymous has been helpful for a lot of people. And in so many ways I support it. But in the end, it just wasn’t for me. I read the AA “Big Book” and found it helpful, but I didn’t religiously follow the 12 steps and I didn’t go to meetings.

And that’s OK.

I’ve had some people message me privately in an attempt to question my sobriety and shame me for not getting a sponsor and not going to AA or even Celebrate Recovery meetings. I don’t really know what to tell them. I just haven’t needed that. Trust me, I have a lot of accountability in my life. More than I want, if I’m honest. And every day something reminds me of the “disease” aspect of my drinking problem, and I know my sinful nature could send me down that path very easily.

I’m there. I get it. I’m not in denial. I’m not setting myself up for failure. And I’m not running from accountability. In fact, I’m welcoming it more than I ever have before. And I honestly found that many of the 12 steps actually happened naturally in my life.

But my path was and is just a little different. I followed more basic steps (four of them that you can read about here), and it’s worked.

I’ll also be candid and say I have one small issue with AA. I’m not trying to open the proverbial can of worms here, but I think it has a way of rooting your identity in your worst sin, your worst decisions, that I’m not sure is the healthiest for me. My mistakes and my drinking describe me, but they don’t define me.

Again, AA works for a lot of people, and that’s good and OK. But it wasn’t what I needed. I’ll unpack that A LOT more in my upcoming book, so if that’s what you want to comment and message me about, I probably won’t engage you a ton on it. This just isn’t the best context to have that conversation. If you want my full thoughts, you’ll just have to wait for the book. Sorry.

But know this: There are several ways to find sobriety. AA is one of them, and it’s a good way. But it wasn’t my way.

Yeah, you need a “higher power.” I just happen to know who that is.

Yes, you need to recognize a “higher power” as AA talks about. Yes, you have to realize that you can’t find sobriety on your own. But let me let you in on a secret: I know that higher power. His name is Jesus. And while I believe you can find sobriety outside of knowing him, I don’t believe you’ll ever be truly at peace or fulfilled until you do.

My relationship with God has grown exponentially over the last year. He has kicked my butt, but he’s also wrapped his arms around me. I’ve never been so angry and so in love with him. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

I still struggle with a lot of emotions — emotions as a result of my sobriety, and the emotions that led me to drink in the first place. But those emotions have brought me into a deeper and sweeter relationship with Jesus, and I am so thankful for that.

The definition of “alcoholic” has changed.

This may be one of the most surprising, yet important, discoveries. One of the things that I believe kept me drinking much longer than I should have is that I had a picture of what an alcoholic looked like, and I wasn’t that. I thought I knew what an alcoholic was, but I didn’t.

Now, some of that is the trap of comparison. There’s always someone “worse” than you, no matter how bad you are, and that turns into a justification to keep drinking.

But an important aspect of what kept me trapped is that the literal definition of “alcoholic” has changed. I won’t get too wonky, but the DSM — the medical and psychological “Bible” on disorders — in 2013 changed how it diagnosed and talked about alcoholism.

And it isn’t even called “alcoholism.”

Problem drinking used to be split into two categories: alcohol abuse, and alcohol dependance (or “alcoholism” as we know it). You answered some questions, and if you got a certain amount of “yeses” you were put into one of those two categories. But now, while you do answer a lot of the same questions, it takes only two “yeses” to be placed on the spectrum of what is now called Alcohol Use Disorder.

Friend, I’ve been on the spectrum for some time. But because I was thinking about alcoholism in the traditional way, I was able to justify for a long time what would now be called a pretty obvious disorder.

I’ve come to understand this: alcohol use disorder isn’t just about the amount that you drink, it’s about the place that alcohol occupies in your life. Misordered drinking is disordered drinking. You can drink more than me and not have a problem, or you can drink less than me and still have a problem. That’s especially true if you’re a Christian.

This discovery was so important that the entire first chapter of my upcoming book, “Confessions of a Christian Alcoholic,” is about it. And it’s why I’m slowing shifting my own language from “alcoholic” to talking about alcohol use disorder.¹

There are a lot of things I don’t miss.

I do not miss the hangovers.

I do not miss the missing memories.

I do not miss the shame.

I do not miss the arguments with my wife.

I do not miss the sneaking around and the hiding.

I do not miss the wondering if I was going to be “found out.”

I do not miss feeling like I couldn’t live without something inanimate.

I do not miss the disappointment.

I do not miss the lying.

I do not miss the wasted money.

I do not miss putting my foot in my mouth.

There are some things I miss.

Yet, there are some things I do miss. I’m going to be honest with you: I went through a grief process once I stopped drinking. That might not make sense to the non-alcoholics here, but I think those like me will get that perfectly.

I miss the taste.

I miss the instant escape alcohol gave me.

I miss the conversations about good-tasting bourbon and beer.

I miss the camaraderie I developed with certain people over drinking.

I miss only being able to have one or two.

I miss the way that I felt free to say things I never would have said sober.

I feel like a child again.

You know what I’ve done more in the last year than I’ve done since before I was 21? I’ve been in awe. I’ve watched more sunsets and sunrises than I can count. I’ve taken more pictures of clouds and birds than a 37-year-old man should take. I’ve stared at more trees and mountains and water.

In other words, I feel like a child again. Yes, a child. My wonder has returned. My appreciation has been rekindled. There are so many things it feels like I’m experiencing again for the first time. And it’s beautiful.

I have so much more time.

One thing I didn’t realize until I stopped drinking was how much time alcohol occupied in my life. I’m not just talking about the actual minutes and hours spent drinking. I’m also talking about how much time I spent thinking about drinking, planning on drinking, scheming on how to hide my drinking, and planning my days around my drinking.

When I stopped drinking, it was like I took a limitless pill. So much more time was freed up, both externally and internally.

I suddenly — and yes, this was a pretty immediate effect — had more time with my family. I was doing more things with them, I was talking with them more, I was more physically present with them.

But I was also more mentally present. My mind was freed up to think about other things. My work life instantly became better because of that. I was coming up with ideas more easily and more freely. And it wasn’t just me who took notice: clients and others saw it, too.

I have so many more hours in my day now, even though there are still only 24 of them.

Sobriety doesn’t magically make your life better.

Listen, I’m going to be radically vulnerable with you. It’s kind of my thing. Sobriety did not make my life magically better. In fact, my life got a lot tougher for a while.

I told someone today who asked me about giving up drinking, “My life was actually pretty sh***y immediately after I stopped drinking.” It’s just true.

I remember nights where I literally paced the living room, the garage, the sidewalk because I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had to re-learn — or even learn for the first time — how to cope with emotions that I had worked hard to stifle for years. I had to deal with the shame and guilt. I had to find out what healthy remorse and repentance looked like. I had to go to intensive therapy for a year, something I’m still doing (although I don’t have to go as often).

Getting sober is hard.

Listen, I know there are some people who just stop drinking and never look back. Hats off to them. But for me, the process of finding sobriety was tough because of where I had to go and what I had to do to find it. Sobriety was buried inside myself, but I needed a guide (God) to help me navigate the darkness of my insides.

You may have to wade through that darkness yourself to find sobriety as well.

I now understand why I drank.

When I talk about things I needed to wade through and understand, getting to the “why” of my drinking was and is one of the most important things. But man, is it hard to do that. I’m still making new realizations.

But in the end, I think my “why” can be boiled down to one thing: I want to escape. I drink to escape what’s going on around me and in me. I drink to escape my present thoughts and my past hurts. I drink to get away, even for just a few hours.

I came across a quote a little while back and it perfectly sums up the complicated mess inside me. It comes from a fellow addict named Lara Love Hardin, a suburban mom whose addiction landed her in prison.

“The truth is I’ve only ever had one addiction,” she writes. “The white whale of addictions: escape.”

Friend, that’s my true addiction. It’s to escape. If you’re a Christian like me, you can call that my baseline sin: instead of trusting in Jesus, my pull is to get away. Instead of turning to him, I want to stifle my emotions. Instead of being curious and pressing in, I want to drown them all — and the easiest way to do that is to drink them away. It quiets the voices, it suppresses the emotions, and it transports me somewhere else. Even if only for a moment.

As someone with diagnosed anxiety and OCD, those emotions and thoughts that need drowning are both more prevalent and louder than they are for the “average person.” That’s a recipe for disaster — and a disaster is exactly what I became.

Therapy is important to take care of the root, not just the fruit.

Finding my “why” came through therapy. When I hit rock bottom, my wife told me that she didn’t care if I committed to never drink again, and she didn’t even care if I followed through on that. What she cared most about was getting to the root of my drinking. Why I drank. Because if I didn’t, I would just replace one addiction — one escape — with another.

Therapy helped me get to my why.

I’ve made so many realizations about myself through therapy. For me, it’s been faith-based EMDR therapy, which specifically targets past trauma. It’s unlocked so much and I’d highly recommend it.

I understand myself better, I understand God better, and I understand the world better.

But once again, that hasn’t been easy. I was talking to the wife of a friend this past week. Her husband has started EMDR trauma therapy and I was blunt with her, “Be ready for some hard moments and hard conversations.” You dredge up a lot of things when you go digging through your past to find your “whys.” And those things are ugly, dirty, and messy.

But that process is necessary.

If you want to change the path of the river, you have to interrupt the flow. Therapy interrupts the flow. Just don’t be surprised when the water starts cutting a path through ground you wanted to stay protected.

I understand how bad it truly was.

I’m still learning this. But every day I’m seeing how my “normal” was so abnormal. I’m seeing how what I justified was so jacked up. That’s both good and hard.

I’m also seeing how much my drinking and my choices affected those I love the most. That hardest realization has been about how it affected my wife. I’m still learning the full extent of that, and each time it’s a fight to embrace remorse and repentance and fight off shame.

That is also both good and hard.

Two years ago, I would have drank those realizations and emotions away. I would have stifled them. But now I’m dealing with them — not always perfectly, but now I’m dealing with them. And when I’m dealing with them, at least I’m growing from them.

And boy, has there been a lot of growth.

---

There’s more I can and will say. It’s one of the reasons I’m writing a book on this that will come out next fall, “Confessions of a Christian Alcoholic.” But this will suffice for now. Once again, I welcome your thoughts and questions below.

One year down. One more day to go.

(Pic: Just two years ago, you could always find me not just with one drink, but with several drinks. It was who I was. Today is much different.)

1. I know, “alcoholic” is in the title of my new book. But that’s intentional on a lot of levels. The first chapter will unpack that.