“I have a question. Can you help? Im 23 and a senior in college. I am pretty timid when I’m around people that I don’t have the confidence to trust. When I’m with my friends I can be normal and cool. But, when I drink im like this happy go lucky guy. Like I can talk to anyone and I won’t have my mind racing. I don’t want to use drinking as a way to show who I am genuinely. So I want to know how do I become the person that I want to be when I’m drunk without alcohol”
My Dearest Bad Biddie,
I used to be an angry drunk. Not that I ever struggled with alcohol addiction, but more so that the facade of sobriety had convinced me that I was an extremely happy, positive person with no negative feelings towards anything and anyone and maybe I even pooped rainbows. The truth is that I operate, most of the time, from a place of anger. And while this may appear to be an extremely negative emotion to carry around with me most of my days, it has fueled me more than any feeling of joy has in my life. Anger has propelled and motivated me to worker harder than any of the positive feelings I hold, and it continues to be the reason why I’ve achieved, really, anything in my life thus far.
When I was in my mid-twenties, I dated a guy who first picked up on the fact that I had a habit of turning into a crotchety asshole when I had more than three drinks. It took me a long time to realize that I only turned into a crotchety asshole when I was drunk because I was scared of what people would think of me if they knew I was a crotchety asshole (sometimes) while sober, too. Here’s the thing, though: there are situations that fully warrant being a crotchety asshole, and anyone who thinks they need to react positively to everything is likely emotionally constipated AF.
I never wanted to reveal my inner crotchety asshole because I was afraid, at the end of the day, that people would leave me if they knew. What you’re asking is not so much how to be yourself while sober, but how to be yourself while sober and still have people like you and accept you, to which I say this: the people who are meant to be in your life will be in your life regardless of whether you’re a happy-go-lucky guy or a crotchety asshole sometimes. It is not your responsibility to win people over and prove to others that you deserve to be a part of their lives, because the truth is, if someone judges you for who you are whether you’re sober or drunk, they don’t deserve to be in your life. Your mind is racing because it’s convinced itself that it can control how others see you. You can’t. As you move through life, many people will see you for who you are, but many others will also misplace their judgments about themselves onto you, and that’s okay. What you can control is how you see yourself, and if you like who you are, truly, at the end of the day, you’ll eventually find the people who like you for who you are, too. The rest doesn’t matter.
Love,
Your internet hype woman
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