Bad Neighborhood

I am so grateful to be sober today. I’m grateful for a really chill weekend, for time with friends on Friday, for coffee and new books. I’m grateful for my family, for being able to help other people and for AA. I’m grateful for this incredible job that makes me happy, for getting dressed up today which will make me feel good, for this little routine me and the dog have fallen into. I’m grateful that HP has continued to keep us all okay.

Morning friends (: Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! Had a little name change over here – a rebrand if you would. I started this wonderful job where I finally feel exceptional as a good friend of mine has inspired me to feel at a job. BUT I work with a lot of talent who are themselves on Substack and I hesitate to tell them that I too am here, and here is all my knowledge about this platform, because of the subject in which I write about.�

I know I know. It’s not that I’m ashamed, I don’t care who knowsI’m an alcoholic. It’s just that this space is so deeply personal to me. And I’m clearly not anonymous here, you all know truly the inner workings of my brain – but out there and in this case I think I’d prefer to hold on to my anonymity. So my cute little logo is still Miss Sober Jane but my ‘name’ is now MSJ and my personal publication is now Sober And The City. Any copyright lawyers here? Can I do that?

Anyway the point is I’m still me. Just choosing to be a tiny bit more anonymous I guess so I can continue to be completely and totally honest in a space where I feel completely and totally safe.�

So here’s the deal today peeps. Anyone else live in a bad neighborhood? Not physically, no no but the neighborhood between your ears. I would really love to know what it’s like to have a brain that does not constantly pick you (me) apart. Or that doesn’t lean negative. Last Monday and Tuesday I was feeling SO GOOD. Truly the best I have felt in a long time, I was feeling so much gratitude for our apartment, our neighborhood, having a happy healthy pup, a job where I feel fulfilled, Tim home from London. All of the things were just feeling great and then I woke up Wednesday on the metaphorical wrong side of the bed. I haven’t woken up on the right side just yet.�

So I’ve typed and deleted all of the possible reasons why at least a dozen times (financial insecurity, Upper West Side imposter syndrome, not feeling like I’m enough, feeling super uncomfortable in my body) and the bottom line is I am just too in my head. I’m in that bad neighborhood again where everything is over thought and I go around and around in circles with myself. And does anyone else struggle with once you’re inside your own head for too long it’s hard to get out??�

I heard a woman at a meeting a few weeks ago talk about how she was really depressed this winter but because of this program she knows how to get through it. She’s been through it before she can get through it again and whether it’s three months or three days it does always pass.�

I think sometimes I set this really high bar for myself like – I have been sober for three years so I should in fact now be emotionally sober. I think I forget that I have gotten lost in my head many many many many times before and every single time I have gotten through it. I knowhow to get through it. It is simply not a matter of how much time I have, if I should or should not be feeling this way.�

Sometimes it really can just be I feel x, I have felt x before, I know how to navigate feeling x, and x will eventually pass. And of course with every day that goes by I learn more and more about myself. Especially all that has happened the past few weeks – through that I have uncovered so much about myself. But that’s another post for another day,�

Bottom line today is that sometimes the neighborhood in my head is really bad. Sometimes it’s really wonderful and sometimes I just have to ride out the bad because I know that I can. This program taught me how. And soon I will wake up on the right side of the bed again.�

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xx �

Jane