Exact Nature’s New Year’s Resolution is to Help You Get Sober
On December 14 I celebrated my 16th year of sobriety, which means I became sober just as I was entering the holiday season and New Year’s Eve and all the temptations that poses for an addict and alcoholic. Yeah, timing has never been my strong suit, and, truth be told, I’d been trying to get sober for a full year prior to this day, having finished a 30-day stay in rehab the previous December.
While I’m proud that I’m sober today, what I feel most is relief and gratitude. To help me stay sober, I need only think about my time pre-rehab.
I was living in New Jersey and had just earned my second DUI. I could no longer avoid the monkey firmly affixed to my back, so I arranged to go to rehab in West Palm Beach.
Arriving at Palm Beach International Airport I was nothing short of terrified. I was there to meet the person who was going to escort me to my new home – my new prison, as it were – for the next 30 days and I was filled with enough helplessness, hopelessness, and shame for a lifetime. Add to that this the constant loop in my head asking, “You mean I can never drink again?” and I was feeling pretty dispirited. How had it come to this, I asked myself. I was full-up with “woe is me.”
In spite of my caretakers’ best efforts to provide me the tools to prevent this, I relapsed five or six times the year following rehab. My wife was, understandably, disheartened and kinda freaked out. What I told her, and for the first time it had the benefit of being true, was that I was starting to “get it.” I was learning to string together days, then weeks, and finally months at a time of not drinking, something I’d never been able to do before. I was learning to live sober and recovery is a living process for both the addict and his or her family.
Now fourteen years and a lot of “attaboys” later, I’m fortunate my sobriety is as ingrained as my drinking was before it, with the old loop being replaced by helpful new ones: “You mean I never have to drink again?” and “There but for the grace of God go I.”
Like millions before me, I white-knuckled my sobriety, but I don’t believe it’s the only way. Today there are lots of helpful resources for getting sober. My favorites include AA, NA, all the awesome recovery-related podcasts, dedicated sober influencers, and, of course, CBD.
CBD for Alcohol Cravings
While its therapeutic properties are still being researched, it’s generally held that CBD balances a system of neurotransmitters throughout the brain and body called the endocannabinoid system (ECS). A balanced ECS helps return your body to equilibrium, which, in turn, helps stabilize important bodily functions from sleep to mood to addictive cravings.
As alcoholics, our brain’s circuitry is flawed and differs from that of people without addiction issues. There is a growing body of research, fortunately, that suggests CBD can help get this faulty circuitry back in alignment.
By minimizing visual drug cues, CBD, it is believed, can help break the psychological bridge that rewards addictive behavior. In turn, this can depress alcohol-seeking behavior. As such, CBD can be an important tool in a broad approach to getting sober.
Said another way, researchers have observed this all-natural compound can inhibit the part of the brain activated by drugs and alcohol and help you ring in a sober New Year.
Exact Nature’s Wish for a Sober 2023
CBD is like that all-around athlete that helps her team in countless ways – she can score, play defense, and be a big morale booster. Similarly, CBD can contribute to an improved general wellness in myriad ways – it can help stabilize important bodily functions from mood to sleep to addictive cravings, so once you’re feeling better, you can focus on healing. Because of this, at Exact Nature we view every sale like someone is taking a tangible step towards feeling better.
Exact Nature’s top two selling products are Detox capsules and Detox CBD Oil. These products’ singular mission is to lend a hand to people who want to cut down on their use of intoxicating substances. Detox won’t, on its own, get you sober. But as the research suggests, CBD can help curb addictive cravings and, as you know, abstinence is step one in the process of getting sober.
Exact Nature’s Serenity and Zzzs products are then helpful with the mood and sleep pieces of recovery, so you can get control of your good health and set aside the harmful substances.
We wish you every success as you navigate the challenges of 2023 and would like to gently remind you that if nothing changes, nothing changes. You may need to recalibrate your idea of fun, as I did. The things I did for fun before getting sober are now even more fun in sobriety, without exception. The idea of not drinking used to fill me with dread, but it now comforts me. Out with the old and in with the new can be a very good thing, especially if the “old” was harming your health.
With this, Exact Nature wishes you a happy, healthy and sober 2023 and “May the best of your past be the worst of your future.”
