You guys, I had to face some major fears, firsts and basically camp outside my comfort zone last night and here’s the (long and totally commonplace!) story: I had my work belated Xmas party last night, an annual occasion for my colleagues and especially the owners of the bar I work to get absolutely shitfaced and I’d be at the very front of this in recent years. Highlights include my one boss who’s 37, has a school age daughter, is like 2m tall and extremely spindly so very conspicuous crashing to the floor drunk tree-trunk-style on a dancefloor leading us all to be expelled from the club, me telling another one of my bosses who’s basically a little boy in a grown ups body he doesnt have what it takes to be a bartender (totally true but I shouldn’t have said that), me skipping the traditional activity and food part of the evening due to social and social eating anxieties and just showing up to the bar part already drunk and telling my 2m boss very candidly how much I’d already had to drink to even make it outside (I’m an honest soul and probably really just wanted some sympathy that moment, but lol) and of course a various coming on to, touching and flirting with colleagues of all ranks and genders by always some people, me not the least, some spectacles I could have easily lived without included. Sorry I’m too embarrassed to say more… Anyway, so this year I’m sober, had major internal resistance to go in the first place but it’s highly expected to and I didn’t really have an excuse. Not only did I manage to show up for the food part in a hip restaurant in a part of town I don’t normally go to, I managed to eat with everyone, have normal conversation, jokes, laugh and enjoy myself. We then also went to a massive karaoke place, which karaoke I’ve never done, where I completely froze up, confronted with an inability to join in and perform, felt like such an inhibited loser for a few hrs, self hate and negative mindset totally ruling me for a while, but managed to overcome it and sing along at least a little bit, so that it would appear I was doing my best to join in and enjoy myself, and not arrogantly stay out, while of course it wasn’t arrogance but introvertion and shyness that separated me from the other’s experience. I even bonded with one of my colleagues who’s a lovely very insightful girl and we talked about this phenomenon. I was so tense when I sang the first song, not alone of course but I had the microphone, I realised my arms and legs actually getting cramps from all the tension. I was sore afterwards. It was hard.
I left as the first person at 0330, nonetheless, managed to see my friends in a more familiar environment of a dirty electro dance club, they were all high and drunk, but I was super glad to be around loved ones, danced for an hour, totally sober, also a first!, then herded all my babies into a taxi, got them home and me and the bf up to help another friend move house only three hrs later, where I even drove the car and was of vital importance so to speak, which driving I’ve only just picked up again very recently. For over a decade I had not driven at all, due to major anxiety and depression issues, just never could, and never did in a big city ever at all even before that.
When I went to bed this morning at 0600 I actually felt some serious habitual, second hand anxiety which I would normally have felt in a big and soul crushing way after having been in a club, dancing to techno and with all the drugs around (and inside me), so did not feel to too good - but man, what a change: waking up with a clear and functioning mind and light heart two hrs later has got to be one of the best feelings I’ve yet felt in sobriety, and I have a lot of great feelings in sobriety! This was my gift for 200days, I am sure of it!
Sorry for the lengthy and totally banal story, just a grateful sober dancing socially awkward girl reporting back from the front lines! Thanks for reading and happy sober Sunday to youse all! 
