Twenty lessons in twenty years of sobriety

On May 2nd, 2020, I celebrate 20 years of continuous sobriety. I worked hard for this, and I made a lot of mistakes along the way. But through these mistakes, I learned some vital lessons that have helped me stay sober and grow into the person I always dreamed of being.

Here are the ones that helped me the most.

1. Just when you think you've nailed it…..

More than once I've thought 'I've got this!' 'I know everything there is to know about recovery and addiction', 'I've dealt with all my issues…. I don't need to do any more work on myself'. Yep, that usually happens right before I fall flat on my arse.

2. The growth never stops...

Ever. I mean, like never, ever stops. It smoothes out a lot, and things are less bumpy. But there is always more to know and if you think you know, all there is to know, then see above.

3. We teach other people how to treat us.

My behaviour will instruct you on whether to walk all over me, abuse me or hurt me. Instead, I can teach you how to treat me, with the boundaries I protect and by saying what I mean.

4. Say what you mean, mean what you say, don't say mean

People do not need to hear me waffling on about my story, they do not need excuses, they generally just need a truthful 'yes' or a 'no.' my life became so much similar and calmer when I learned how to do this.

5. I have to take responsibility for the experience I want to have.

By practising the above, I become responsible for the experience I am having right now. If events or circumstances are out of my control, then I always get to choose my response. Therefore, I am responsible for my experience, in all circumstances, without fail.

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Veronica Valli
Mistakes are the juice of life

Mistakes are the juice of life.

When I first got sober I was under the delusion that in order to stay sober, I had to become perfect in all areas.
It got worse when I trained to be a therapist. Because I was a therapist I thought I needed to always be serene, wise and know the right thing to say.
I needed to exude a calm, reassuring confident manner with everyone, not just my clients.
But no matter how hard I tried, I would f**k up.

I would say something that inadvertently hurt someone's feelings, or I would forget to do something I said I would or.....well I was plainly very far from perfect. No matter how hard I tried, I always seemed to mess up.
Let me tell you, trying to be perfect is an uncomfortable and suffocating place to be.
As long as we take the opportunity to grow and learn from our mistakes, there is actually great freedom and liberation in making them.
Mistakes have a massive potential to stimulate spiritual and emotional growth.
The gifts that mistakes can bring into your life should not be underestimated.
I would even go as far as saying that mistakes are the point of life.
Does that sound crazy?
Well look at a young child, every single part of their learning and growth comes from making mistakes! Learning to walk, for instance, they fall over, bump into things, even hurt themselves. They get it wrong a lot before they get it right.
We never ever look at them and say 'well maybe he's just not a walker'.
We know that every time they fall over they learn something vital.

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Veronica Valli
The 5 essential components of a successful sober program are:

Let's be clear. There are many paths to a sober life. Yet this is one of the major disagreements within the recovery community. We all seem to be so deeply entrenched in our own method and utterly convinced that our way is the only possible way to get sober. To the point that if you don't do it my way, we believe you will drink and then you will die.

The use of medication is also similarly debated. Some view medically assisted recovery not 'real recovery,' and others consider it life-saving. It's true that in the hands of people with a history of abusing substances, prescribed medication may be abused and cause people to relapse. But it is equally true that medication has made the difference between life and death for many substance abusers. Some people need to take medication for the rest of their lives, others need to take it for a set period of time. But this is still recovering. When medication is used appropriately it can make all the difference in someone's recovery.

Over the years I've met lots of different people in the recovery movement who all have dramatically different approaches but have full, balanced and satisfying lives. What I've observed from this is for sobriety to last and be sustainable* then it must have the following components:

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Veronica Valli
The Misinformation about Alcoholics Anonymous and Sobriety by Veronica Valli

As someone who has found recovery through the program almost twenty years ago because there were simply no other options available, I am both a beneficiary and a proponent to be sure. As a former psychotherapist, I also recognize that there is, of course, no one path to recovery. I know that any body of thought and organization has its flaws, and that AA is is no exception. I have seen people in the program misinterpret the text as justification for abuse of other members; I have come across unhealthy practices and people; I understand where things can go and have gone awry. 

Throughout the years, when given the opportunity to have an open discussion about the criticisms of AA with people inside and outside of the program, I do. My intention is never to change minds or convince anyone to change their mind; I have no problem with disagreement or rejection (nor am I the spokesperson for AA). I only aim to provide accurate information about the program’s principles when it’s clear the criticisms stem from gross misinformation or a fringe experience.

The arguments against AA typically center on a few core themes, which I’ve attempted to lay out here. Although I’ve long wanted to write this piece, I’ve consistently put it off, opting for in-person discussions versus online debates, which are typically futile. A recent piece in The New York Times, “The Patriarchy of Alcoholics Anonymous” by Holly Whitaker, prompted me to finally get it down.

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Other people's drinking

 I was talking to someone in early recovery and they mentioned they were under a lot of pressure from their drinking friends. They had quit drinking about six months ago and felt fantastic. However, it seemed that none of their friends could accept this change. They were constantly being told that they “couldn’t have an alcohol problem,” that “one won’t hurt,” and that “sober people are boring.”

The constant prodding was getting them down and they were beginning to wonder if their friends were right, Maybe they didn’t have an alcohol problem after all?

This is a very common situation for newly sober people. In fact, unless you were a rock-bottom, drinking-in-the-gutter type drunk, I would venture to say that most people go through this when they first quit.

An alcohol use disorder is widely misunderstood in our culture. We have in fact normalized abnormal drinking. Abusive binge drinking is so acceptable in our culture that we have lost all perspective on what a drinking problem is and isn’t. 

Drinking to black out is a perfectly acceptable activity in most peer groups, and I’m not just referring to teenagers here. Binge drinking is normal among adults as well.

If your drinking is a problem, what does that say about their drinking?

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Veronica Valli
Echos

 We are all surrounded by echoes from our past. We may not be able to see them, but they are there — in our behavior, our beliefs and our consequences. Echoes are the unresolved issues or trauma that show up in our present. We all have them. And we all have a choice in how we deal with them. They are, for want of a better word our “stuff,” — our work that we have to deal with. 

 There are only two kinds of people in this world: those who are dealing with their “stuff” and those who are not. You can spot the difference. Our behavior is merely an outward expression of our inner feelings. We behave how we feel, and our behavior is shaped by our echoes.

 Were you told, or did you feel like, you were worthless when you were small?  If you were, that’s going to show up all the time in your romantic relationships.

 Was your home life as a child unsettled or stressful? Was there arguing or uncertainty? That’s going to appear in your choices as an adult.

 Did you experience some kind of trauma when you were younger? Were you in abused in some way? That’s showing up … well, just about everywhere, but most certainly in all your relationships.

 These are all echoes. And the ones that affect us the most are the ones that keep echoing down from childhood.

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Veronica Valli
19 Lessons in 19 years

On May 2nd, 2019, I celebrate 19 years of continuous sobriety. This did not come easy. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done and I made some big mistakes along the way. But through these mistakes, I learned some vital lessons that have helped me stay sober and become the best version of myself that I'm capable of being.
Long-term recovery means you never stop learning and growing. Here are the things that have helped me learn and grow the most....

1. Just when you think you’ve nailed it…..
More than once I’ve thought “I’ve got this!” “I know everything there is to know about recovery and addiction.” “I’ve dealt with all my issues … I don’t really need to do any more work on myself.” Yep, that usually happens right before I fall flat on my arse.

2. The growth never stops.
Ever. I mean, like never, ever stops. It smoothes out a lot and things are definitely less bumpy. But there is always more to know, and if you think you know all there is to know, then see above.

3. We teach other people how to treat us.
My behavior will instruct you on whether you can walk all over me, abuse me, or hurt me. Instead, I can teach you how to treat me, with the boundaries I protect and by saying what I mean.

4. Say what you mean, mean what you say.
People do not need to hear me waffling on about my story, they do not need excuses, they generally just need a truthful yes or no. My life became so much calmer when I learned how to do this.

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Veronica Valli
Fear and drinking

There’s something about a drink problem that twists all our emotions and makes the unpleasant ones dominant in us. Especially fear. We seem to take fear to a whole new level, much more than ordinary people do. It’s like I was born frightened and my whole life has been a reaction to the fear. None of my fears were real, they were always imagined — but they seemed real to me and they followed me wherever I went. It was like a cancer of the mind, spreading and destroying everything in its path.

 When I was drinking, my fear crippled me. I lived in blind terror every day. Everything was frightening for me. Other people terrified me. I felt so worthless in their eyes and was sure they would see any minute what a despicable human being I was and discard me. At any given time I couldn’t really explain what I was frightened of. I just knew that I was scared. It ate me up inside. I would try to act as if it wasn’t there, try to ignore it, but it would come back stronger.

Some days it felt like I could barely breathe because the fear was crushing me. It made me feel sick. I struggled to find different ways to cope with it. Alcohol, of course, numbed it briefly. I tried to ask for help, but I couldn’t find the words that would make someone take me seriously.

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Veronica Valli
The Relationship Fix

Relationships as a “fix’”

A relationship is never going to work when two love-starved and needy individuals demand the other person fix them. I just had nothing to give. 

As I wasn’t capable of having a healthy and functioning relationship, I took “hostages.” I grabbed on to someone and didn’t let go, no matter what I thought or felt. I was just desperate not to be alone. I “engineered” all of my relationships. I was controlling and manipulative. I cared for some of the men I had relationships with, but the truth was that the relationships were never based on love.

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Veronica Valli
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

I’ve just finished the book Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. I finished it in about five days flat. It’s beautifully written and will haunt you days after you have finished. The book touches on two big themes — loneliness and trauma. The main character, Eleanor, is alone and isolated because of her childhood trauma. Her loneliness is crushing and she uses alcohol to escape from it. I have come to believe that loneliness is the disease of our times. It kills more people than anything else. Human connection is life-sustaining: we need it like we need the sun and air. Yet so many of us live in desperate isolation.

 The book made me shudder at times, as there was a period of my life that was very close to hers. It was 1995. I had graduated from university and was living in North London — Wood Green to be exact. I was about 25, and I had succeeded in pushing everyone away. The only connections I had were with the people I interacted with at work.

 I'd started a new job working for the Metropolitan Police in London, and my life was exactly like Eleanor Oliphant’s. I would go to work and be busy and deal with people. Then I would come home on a Friday night, stop at the off-license, and purchase two bottles of wine. I remember thinking that was okay because it was a Friday night and I would hope the person serving me assumed I was having a dinner party or something. Would assume I had a life and wasn’t some sad lonely person sitting at home getting wasted on their own. Which of course I was. I would drink those two bottles of wine, and I would spend the entire weekend on my own smoking cigarettes, watching re-runs of Friends and just drinking. 

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Veronica Valli
The Great Big Sober Secret

Anne Hathaway’s comment that she is going to quit alcohol to be a better parent has drawn quite a bit of attention. Of course there is push back from some who see Hathaway as trying to be perfect for her kids (she’s not, she just wants to be present). In particular, there is this particularly awful piece in The Guardian by columnist Zoe Williams[1] who is somehow trying to present drunk parenting as beneficial to children. Despite her son asking why she isn’t dead from all her whiskey consumption (I know it’s hilarious right?)

 It may have escaped Williams’ notice, but we are not living in 1997 anymore. Tony Blair is no longer prime minister (or popular, for that matter), Britpop is no longer a thing, and the good ship Cool Britannia has sunk.

 Way back in the day, we all thought our drinking culture was a harmless fun thing that we all did. Because so many of us binge drank this way, we thought it was normal. We are, after all, the generation that normalized abnormal drinking. We had the ladette culture spearheaded by Sara Cox and Zoe Ball (who is now sober, by the way). And we drank without thought or care.

 But it’s not 1997 anymore, and Zoe Williams’ tone-deaf piece of dinosaur journalism was 20 years too late.

 I am so bored by the idiotic musings on what a “laugh" it is to get so drunk you wet yourself and can’t remember half the night. Now it’s dressed up as a fun story in a columnist’s “think piece” (hello, Barbara Ellen) or in a tweet (yes, I’m looking at you, Caitlin Moran) just so the writer can signal how hardcore and cool they are. 

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Veronica Valli Comments
Early recovery is like flying to Barbados

It’s not going to start when you find the right job, house, partner, lose ten pounds. This is not a rehearsal.
These precious seconds right now are your life. Are you going to make them count or are you going to fall back into your numbed state and sleepwalk through your life?

I often tell clients that in early recovery, those first few painful months when you ‘wake up’ to who you are and what you have become are like the experience of when you have to wake up at 3 am to catch a flight to Barbados because you’re going on your much-anticipated dream holiday.

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My top 3 strategies for dealing with people who DON'T want you to stop drinking.

When we decide to stop drinking it's common for a lot of us to experience some 'push back' from our family and peer groups.

Generally speaking the people around us don't like it when we stop drinking as it upsets 'the apple cart.'  We have all been conditioned to drink alcohol and abusive drinking has been normalized in our culture. So 'not drinking' is seen as very weird. It's a bit like being a vegetarian in the 70's. People look at you funny.

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Veronica Valli
If we numb the pain then we numb the joy

A question I get asked a lot is ‘when will I know if I’m ok?’ Or, ‘when will I be done?’ Obviously, the answer is never, the journey of self-discovery is one that never ends. However, what I can say is we know we are firmly in the realm of recovery when we begin to have appropriate emotional responses to events.

What does that mean exactly?

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Veronica Valli