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Labor Day Without Booze
Overcoming FOMO
Labor Day Weekend 2024 something got me, but let’s back up and start at the beginning. I am 6 ½ years sober and a sober coach. Alcohol has nothing to do with holiday weekends anymore.
The days of last chances to soak up summer and get wasted in pools and boats are long gone. In part because I am sober and also because my youngest daughter typically has a soccer tournament that keeps us at home and away from bodies of water on this holiday weekend.
Obviously everyone else in the world has travel plans so we are left alone. A part of me wants to have a big blowout party because, even though I am sober, I love to have a good time. I am a little nostalgic for days past when the kids were young and I had a place to go and people to hang out with, a bottomless glass of wine in my hand.
Those relationships changed when I got sober. Even though it is good and right, it is still painful at times. It’s been a continual process to unravel myself from friendships and people that used to mean so much to me. It’s not one act of letting go but a constant act of letting go over and over again. The pain isn’t as fresh as it used to be but it comes up sometimes. Holiday weekends seem to bring the tenderness to the surface, no matter how long it’s been.
