Sometimes it just strikes you down from behind like a thug with a log. From one day to the next, all the decisions you made, all the new habits accumulated, all the good things that have happened to me seem like dust in the wind. Then something like a depression pushes you down, aggravated by the weather, the new working year and the darkness.

What helped me to get out of this depressive state?

I had contact with a coach who quit drinking and had the same experience, so that was a little bit of reconciliation, but not a helpful aspect. He wrote that he “slept it off”. That didn’t work for me. But before diving into a deeper stage of depression, I reminded myself of the techniques to help cope with these kinds of emotional backlash. I took a day to meditate. Breathe. Self compassion. Deconstructing bad emotions and surfing the urge to (letting the wave of depression rise and balance on it like a surfer until it ebbed away), accepting the feelings and reminding myself of the better aspects of sobriety and the malignant effects of cellular poisoning.

In the end, I found out that the absence of my routines of coping mechanisms during the free days had pushed me back to face my bad advisor again.

What is the win I take out of this?

Well, in the end I learned that depression states and cravings may come unexpectedly and in waves, but the more I work on the cravings and the waves of bad feelings, the weaker these waves get. I had it in different situations already. And alone the anticipation of having my routines back primed my systems to positive mood, so a pre-dopamine kick set in. The biggest experience I took away from it is that I can rely on my coping strategies and my decision to have quit for good. So, I’m ready if a new wave comes. And it will come. No-one said it’s gonna be easy.

Until then: Take one step at a time and never lose the faith in yourself.