God is it hard being a sober 26-year-old. 

When you look in my fridge, you'll most likely find a couple of Polar seltzers, or a 20-ounce bottle of diet coke.

The way I end my days by "winding down" is boiling a cup of tea, grabbing a pint of ice cream, and putting on my favorite Youtube video that I've most likely seen a million times. 

It's now the deep breath I used to take when I had that first sip of alcohol. 

For over two years, alcohol was my coping mechanism for my anxiety and my chronic depression. 

At 7 months sober, I know still have a lot to work on. But I'm slowly coming to realize that I now envy those my age who are able to able to open their fridge at night and crack open a beer. I have jealousy for those who get to go out to the bars on the weekends and hang out with their friends, who have bottles of wine sitting in the fridge. Who can agree to having drinks with a guy for a first date. 

I have to accept I'm not the normal 26-year-old.

When I went to detox, I remember sitting in my room on the phone with my mother asking why I wasn't normal. It will take time for me to accept that I am not, and slowly day by day I am understanding what acceptance is. 

If I have one sip of alcohol, I won't remember what I did the next day. If I have one sip of alcohol, I'll get behind the wheel of car. And I know if have a drink, I'll get on a train and never come back. 

I can't drink normally, I have come to accept that fact. Drinking and doing drugs for me, is escaping myself. And it's something that I want to do most likely all the time.

In the meantime, I do the work by living life on life's terms, working on my defect's of character, and finding things to preoccupy my time to make shut off my thoughts, and to fill the time that was spent drinking.  But man, is it hard. 

At over 200 days sober, I thought I would have this figured out by now. I beat myself up over having thoughts of drinking, because for so long I thought the desire was gone, but I as I slowly gain things like an apartment; an animal, a good placement in my job, I still find myself going back to the one thing that numbed it all - which is alcohol. 

I have to give myself grace sometimes though, because just because I am sober; it doesn't mean I've figured out the reason why I started drinking and drugging in the first place. I take away the substance, but it doesn't take away the feelings that I still have. But that's why I'm grateful to be surrounded by the program I'm in and have a better understanding of addiction than I did two years ago. 

But man, is it hard!