Why My Neuro-Divergence Has Me Doing Sobriety Differently

Hi, I'm Ro, and I'm a neuro-divergent (ND) person who many would consider to be an alcoholic. I don't personality think of it that way, but it's because I have done a lot of work to be comfortable in the gray areas of life, and dealing with black-and-white thinking is what made sobriety too hard when I tried it before.

D.A.R.E. programs don't really work, and most kids realize this sooner or later. Most kids realized this much sooner than I did. I was hook line and sinker on the "drugs are bad and will kill you" propaganda. I hated being around drinking. It was bad and it made you a bad person. ND People often experience justice sensitivity, and when I was young, my idea of justice meant following the laws against underaged drinking, and maybe even beyond that. Maybe I wouldn't drink until much later than 21, when I might have a glass of wine here and there.

I felt this same way about abstinence from sex before marriage. Even after I figured out I was queer (and this was before anywhere in the world had legalized gay marriage), I told myself that I would wait until I found my forever person, because that was what Good People did. I grew up Catholic, and while we were the more liberal kind of Catholics, that abstinence only message was unavoidable, and combined with what they taught in schools, this seemed like the only true way to be. I knew some Catholics who abstained even after marriage, often because they couldn't shake the idea that sex made someone Bad. There was so much insistence that it radically changed you as a person, a permanent stain.

My senior year of high school, a friend's mom was driving me home, and I parroted some abstinence talk I had heard, and she responded by saying how glad she was to have NOT "saved herself" for marriage. I was instantly intrigued. No adult had EVER said this to me before, not anything like it. Any time someone mentioned having had sex before marriage, they had to say they regretted it or they would be one of the Bad People. But this friend's mom was not a bad person. So I listened as she explained some things I had never heard before about how sex works (and this will be its own essay for another time).

In that moment, a switch was flipped in me. I went from abstinence only to "I'm gonna be a slut" before we got to my house. It wasn't just that she had made sex sound dramatically more appealing than it had been presented to me before (although that was certainly part of it). It was that she had turned sex from a boogeyman that would make me a Bad Person into something neutral. Not moral or immoral, but amoral, something that had nothing to do with being bad or good.

But the thing about many of us ND folks is that we can be very all-or-nothing people. I was the one who took sex neutrality and decided to get as much of it as possible. Moderation was not in my dictionary. I wouldn't say I was an addict, but I definitely ended up in some harmful situations because I wanted to see how far I could go, and I liked the fun chemicals it was releasing in my brain. If you had told me that I needed to stop having sex altogether in order to stop hurting myself with some of these bad ideas, I would not have listened.

I didn't drink any alcohol until a few months before I turned 21. I wish I could say it was because I wanted to learn about how my body handled alcohol before having a 21st birthday bash, but really it was because, like sex, I had come to realize that it wouldn't turn me into a Bad Person. Most of my friends drank, and they weren't Bad People. None of them ever pressured me to drink, but I had gotten tired of being the uptight dork I had come to see myself as. I had learned that alcohol was not bad, and I could no longer think of any reason not to drink it.

So on a random Tuesday night, I had a shot of vodka. And since I had already crossed the rubicon, I had a few more, and before I knew it I was drunk. And then, I went about trying all the various kinds of alcohol that I could find. I liked the fun chemicals it was releasing in my brain. It helped round off the sharp edges of some of the overwhelming sensory issues that came from my untreated neuro-divergence. It made me feel less weird, and if I still came across as weird to other people, the alcohol was a great explanation for that.

But I reached a point where I saw that, while I wasn't necessarily an addict, I was certainly on that path. So I quit drinking in my mid 20s. I counted the days since my last drink, taking pride in watching the number go up. This was what motivated me, that number going up. Every day I could look forward to the number being a little higher than it was the day before, and that gave me a little jolt of dopamine that replaced the fun chemicals alcohol used to release in my brain. I was doing it because I liked to challenge myself.

But eventually, that little jolt of dopamine stopped happening, because my neuro-divergence provides me with less and less dopamine the more I do something. And by this point, I had a lot of friends who did pressure me to drink, to party to excess. There was also a bottle of Jameson or Jack being passed around, and alcohol was becoming less something we did when we hung out and turned into what our plans revolved around. We could do X sober, or we could do Y while drinking, so everyone chose Y, which ended up being not very fun unless you were drinking.

So I had a drink one random night. And since I had already broken my streak, since I was already resetting the counter back to zero, I figured I might as well have a bunch more drinks. I could quit again tomorrow. Except that I didn't quit the next day. I felt too much shame starting over from zero, so I didn't start over. I just kept drinking.

Then, life threw a lot of things my way. I lost almost my entire support system as I fell into an abusive relationship. Jameson was often my only friend. Fibromyalgia was developing in my body at the same time I injured my dominant hand, so I was out of work and in a lot of pain. Two bottles of wine got me through the pain and the boredom. I was realizing I was trans without wanting to think about it, and having a lot of bad sex in an attempt to prove to myself I was a cis woman. A case of beer made bad sex tolerable and made uncomfortable thoughts go quiet. And just when I was finally getting out from under all that, getting my life back together, Covid happened. I drank because the liquor stores were still open, and I was bored.

We moved to a new town in another state, and I only knew of one cool place to go to meet like-minded people, which was a queer bar. I did meet a lot of great people at that bar. The bar was like our clubhouse, where we always met up. I had also started testosterone HRT. Something they don't tend to warn you about when you're transitioning is that it completely changes how you metabolize alcohol. Whereas before, I only needed a drink or two before that warm, floaty feeling took hold, I could drink a lot more and not feel it until I was completely trashed. I would go from fine to wasted in the blink of an eye, and the hangovers were getting worse and worse and worse.

A couple years ago, I went to a friend's birthday party and drank too much liquor with too little in my stomach. The hangover the next day was blinding. I felt like I was dying. I was sick for days. So, I told myself no more shots ever again. Any time someone offered me shots, I remembered how bad they made me feel, so I never did shots anymore. Except for Malort. And except for when the liquor is in a mixed drink.

I told myself to just drink socially, no more drinking alone. But I'm a very social person, and people love buying me drinks. There's no ulterior motive, just people wanting to treat me a little. They'd refill my drink for me without telling me. I'm a performer, and often a free drink was someone's version of a tip, so I'd accept on that basis. One day, I told everybody they were not allowed to pay for my drinks, and I made sure all the bartenders knew this. I needed to know how much I was drinking. I got the bill, and I was astounded. Over a dozen drinks, over $100. And that ended up being just as much alcohol as having a few shots (or more). So I started being better about counting my drinks and turning people down when they offered them to me.

Side note: I was very bad at turning alcohol down for a long time because alcohol is expensive and I often have no money. The same way my cat went from being a stray with no food to eating like an elephant once I rescued him, I often had a sense of "I couldn't afford this on my own, so I might not have another chance at it so I should take this opportunity when it comes," combined with "I can't waste alcohol even when I don't like it, because it's expensive and I don't like to waste things." Even though alcohol was never scarce, I had a scarcity mindset about it. Was that neuro-divergence or just the stress of people poor? Most like a combo of both.

I went down to just wine and low ABV seltzers. But I also lapsed on telling people not to buy me drinks. And I also lapsed on not drinking alone. And I still struggled with moderation because once a bottle of wine was opened, I had to finish it so it wouldn't go bad. If I bought a variety pack of High Noon, I would need to drink one of each flavor, and once I was four drinks in, it was easy to keep going until they were all gone. I started only buying six packs, or even just a couple singles. I stopped drinking wine. I started mentally making myself be okay with "wasting" alcohol. And I was still having hangovers. I was still waking up feeling like I should be in the hospital.

A big part of that was because my fibromyalgia was progressing, and alcohol was causing so much inflammation and exacerbating my pain. I realized how bad it really was for my health, when I'm already medically vulnerable. I realized that drinking eased the pain in the moment, only to return it with interest the next day. Or week. I had given up coffee for my health. I had given up read meat. Alcohol is tough on the body even in a healthy person. What was I doing to myself?

I don't remember the exact day I realized I was going to get sober for real this time. This was intentional. I knew that if I made a big deal of that day, it would become an official Thing, and I knew it was a bad idea for me to count the days since my last drink. Because I did that before, and when I messed up, I would not just fall off the wagon but fling myself under its wheels. I had one final shot of Malort with my pals in Chicago, and spent the rest of the night drinking water.

This time, it stuck.

It stuck because I had set up the mentality of moving towards something rather than away from something. This didn't happen after a bad hangover. It happened when I decided to prioritize my health. I wasn't moving away from alcohol, I was moving towards my health. I was moving towards a version of myself that felt less pain. I was moving towards having more good mornings, getting that time back instead of spending it recovering. It didn't matter how many days it had been since my last drink, because that was not a good motivator for me. All that mattered was that I did not drink today.

I did things that worked for the brain that I do have, not the one I was told I should have.

I will admit that I had some luck involved. Despite drinking so hard for so long, I had somehow not developed a physical dependence on it. I could quit without detoxing, something that many people can't do without potentially dying. I have seen friends go through it, have seen somebody die from it. It's scary and bad. A lot of my friends have also quit drinking in the past couple years, so there are a lot more sober-friendly hangouts, but these hangouts also don't require everyone else to be sober.

The bar my friends and I hang out at has a growing selection of NA drinks that are actually good. For a lot of people, especially folks who need community outside their immediate families, losing connection with a bar can mean losing connection with community just as much as getting excommunicated from a church. If you're oppressed or disenfranchised in some way like being queer or trans or neurodivergent, going to a bar and drinking is not only a way of easing your troubles, it's a way of finding community. When bars go through the effort of supplying NA drinks that are actually good, it can continue to be a meeting space for all kinds of people. Nobody has to worry about losing all their friends and support system because everything is either all the way sober or all the way drunk. You don't set up a dichotomy between alcohol = company and sobriety = loneliness.

Since the summer, I have had two drinks. I still consider myself sober. I had a nice glass of wine at my sister's wedding, and I had a VERY nice glass of wine to celebrate launching my new webcomic. Two special occasions for positive, both around people, both with food, both with other enticing NA things to drink after my one glass of wine. Since I didn't have a counter to reset, it was much easier to stop after just the one glass. In fact, the last glass of wine I had, I struggled to finish it! I put the glass down with a couple sips still left in it. But allowing myself those regulated "cheat" days has kept alcohol from becoming a monster, kept it neutral. Not a god or a demon. Just something that exists in the world. I have to make it as boring as possible because my ADHD hates boredom most of all. My brain encounters abstinence and decides it must be really good and exciting if they're trying to keep me from it, even if the "they" in question is me.

I didn't drink when I went to any parties. I didn't drink before shows when I was nervous. I didn't drink when I had a blowout argument with someone close to me. I didn't drink after the election or the inauguration, although I got close. I didn't drink when I felt bad, because I finally found a way of permanently remembering how much worse I feel afterwards. I got my anxiety under control with other, healthier coping mechanisms. I didn't drink anymore because I want to be healthier, and I want to make progress moving towards that.

I'm sure AA works for some people, but their methods can be damaging for many other people, and I know it would've been bad for me. It's very much set up for neuro-average* brains. Counting days is bad for me, and so is collecting tokens for accomplishments. Abstinence-only is bad for me, and usually has the opposite effect. I don't recognize a higher power and I don't want to give control to one. I don't have enough free time and energy to both attend meetings and see my actual friends, and I refuse to cut myself off from my community. And I know I'm not alone in this. But AA is often the only program in an area, and if you've been court-ordered to deal with your alcoholism through an official program, you might end up getting worse when the 12-step program tries to force you to go against your own brain functions.

(*I say neuro-average instead of neuro-typical because there really is no "typical" brain. It's like saying that one person has 3 apples and another person has 5 apples, and the average amount of apples is 4, but nobody involved actually has 4 apples. We can only see average statistics of populations, but there is too much diversity to say that there is one type of brain that is normal to have. We all differe from that average in different amounts. Neuro-divergent is how we describe people who stray much further from that average, the outliers.)

There needs to be more avenues for neuro-divergent people to get support that works for our brains, and it means have a diversity of options. Some ND people do thrive more in black and white rigid formality with someone else at the wheel. But many of us do better with gradual steps and therapy, or support from our actual communities rather than the ones created by programs. We need other ND people to relate to, because we often communicate and learn through sharing common experiences. Some of us need cheat days, because the all-or-nothing thinking is the root of the problem that got us drinking so hard in the first place.

Many of us ND people end up feeling so much shame all the time for not acting like neuro-average people. By being in a program that is built for neuro-average people, this can lead to an increase in shame, and drinking is one of the ways we often cope with that. It's often why we started drinking in the first place.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. You can tell I'm ND because this was meant to be three paragraphs and now it is a whole 3000+ word essay.