Your Health is at Stake: Navigating the Shallow and the Deep During Dry January

Your Health is at Stake: Navigating the Shallow and the Deep

If you’re on board this Dry January, you’re doing yourself a huge favor and protecting your health. The growing evidence that alcohol causes cancer and is increasingly associated with serious health outcomes is all over the news. The World Health Organization asserts there is no safe level of drinking, and the National Cancer Institute links even moderate drinking to breast cancer. The Wall Street Journal just reported the U.S. Surgeon General has called for cancer warning labels on alcoholic beverages. Getting sober and living alcohol free is one of the best decisions I've ever made, but I never imagined how important that decision would be for my overall health.

Like many, you may experience cravings over the next few weeks (mind you there is a ton of sugar in alcohol) so just know that is par for the course. However, you may also feel triggered to drink and that can be a little trickier to navigate. I used to think triggers were small inconvenient things like stubbing your toe – a sharp pain that makes you hop around and curse for a few minutes before getting on with your day. Grabbing a drink to dull the pain might come as a fleeting thought.

But there are other types of triggers, the ones tied to trauma that live in the deep waters of our psyche like prehistoric fish, waiting to pop through the surface when we least expect them. They slip in through the back door of your consciousness. Years ago, I was caught off guard making silver dollar pancakes one morning– when the cast iron skillet transported me back to my grandmother’s house. Not the warm, fuzzy memories of her kitchen and her hugs, but the summer when everything fell apart, when the adults spoke in whispers and thought we children couldn't sense the earthquake rumbling beneath our feet. Who wouldn’t want to dull that pain immediately.

As a recovery coach, I help clients navigate and learn about cravings and triggers. And here's what I wish someone had told me about healing from trauma: it's not linear. It's more like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree. Just when you think you've got it figured out, just when you've convinced yourself you're "over it," the universe hands you a seemingly innocent moment that unravels everything you thought you knew about yourself. Healing isn't about eliminating triggers; it's about building a better relationship with them.

Here's the thing about triggers, both the shallow and the deep: they're actually trying to help us. They're like overenthusiastic security guards who never got the memo that the war is over. They're still standing at attention, scanning for threats, ready to sound the alarm at the slightest provocation. They're exhausting, yes, but they came from a place of trying to keep us safe. Gabor Mate calls this the wisdom of trauma.

What my clients are learning is to acknowledge them without letting them drive the bus. To say, "I see you there, with your good intentions and your terrible timing. Thank you for trying to protect me, but I've got this now." Sometimes all you can do is breathe through it and remember that this too shall pass, albeit like a kidney stone, but it will pass.

And maybe that's the real victory – not in conquering our triggers or pretending they don't exist, but in learning to coexist with them. In understanding that they're part of our story, but they don't have to be the whole story. They're like the scars on our knees from learning to ride a bike: evidence that we've lived, that we've fallen, that we've gotten back up.

I still make pancakes from time to time and as those memories surface, I skillfully practice dancing between past and present. And maybe that's okay. Maybe the point isn't to arrive at some mythical destination where nothing hurts anymore, but to keep moving forward, one trigger at a time, with grace for ourselves and the understanding that healing isn't a straight line.

As you take a break from alcohol this month, you are safeguarding your health. And as you navigate the turbulence of triggers, you are enhancing the recipe for a successful Dry January.