I feel similarly on my mental health journey, which is of course part of your journey too, and also difficult to talk about societally. People who have not experienced something like it themselves have no way to understand how hard I've worked and how much progress I've made, even if I'm still struggling some. I feel like I get more truly sympathetic responses talking about the struggle parts. Trying to describe my wins seems to mostly elicit a kind of puzzled "that's great" that doesn't feel terribly connecting. I guess that's why it's important to find others who do understand from their own experiences, but it does feel like a loss when someone you've previously felt close to can't really come with you on your journey.
I so appreciate your thoughts on all this, Ann, thank you so much for sharing them here. My whole being screamed "YES! That Part!!" when you mention the puzzled "that's great" that feels distant and disconnected. You are making me wonder if it feels like a loss, or maybe it tugs the loneliness strings in my heart, too. It's like they say it to be nice, but it feels like a tough reminder that we are really still alone in it. It's strange to navigate forming new connections in midlife, but I'm really glad for the chance to do it with people like you who understand. Thank you for being here!
Thank you so much, Allison. I feel significantly less alone hearing others experience that too. And trying to figure out how to make new connections in midlife...I'm right there with you. I'm honored to travel this road with you a little way.
This is so beautifully written you’ve made me sob. I also have a dream of everyone knowing about my addiction and how I am now a different person (even so early in recovery). In reality, I remain anonymous; one day I will come out with it all, for now I am strong and this bubbling energy to introduce myself properly fills me with hope.
I am so touched and grateful you would share this here - I am thanking you, too. My heart is bursting for you! It takes everything we have to do this recovery thing. And it is so wonderful to meet you because of it. All my respect and encouragement to you.
This was just so good🥹 I too stopped drinking January 2022 and have also been married 17 years!Your writing makes me feel so seen and understood! I recovered small and quietly for the first 2 years. It was hard and lonely and only in the last few months have I been more comfortable speaking about it and sharing more. Maybe a small part of me was still worried I would still fail? I don’t know- it has felt safer keeping my recovery close. But I know that like you I have been spiritually blown wide open and am just living this new adventure of life and love this person I am becoming. Thank you for your gift of words. It’s an amazing feeling when you read something that just says “Yes!” Inside of you.
I cannot thank you enough for your thoughtful and sincere words, Julie. We are kindred spirits! I feel everything you’ve shared, I’m so damn grateful you are here. 🥰
Maybe not so much a “new” you as the ancient you that was always there, just covered like most of us are with layers of stuck energetic pain. I really love how you envelope and accept your “beast”, which was there to try to protect you from further pain, I suspect, in the only way it knew.
My second article this morning that thrilled me! Have one year as of yesterday and damn it’s crazy but living this new life is impossible to describe or explain, but living it is indeed a gift. Thanks for another wonderful article thanks to Substack
Sandra, all congratulations and respect on your One Year! That is absolutely outstanding! ♥️ I’m so honored you found this article helpful. Substack really is the best. :) So glad you are here!
I am not in recovery anymore. I’m in discovery. After 50 lost years, I need to meet myself and find out just who I am. I was really struck by this phrase you wrote about the people in your life. “I’m so new that I’m afraid we’ve never met.” That includes the girl in the mirror. I always smile and wink at her. There’s so much to learn, so much to discover. 😉
Wishing you every wonderful thing in your discovery. And thanking you so very much for sharing your kind connection with me, it means so much. Here’s to the ones in the mirror. 🥰
Thank you for your bravery -- and suggesting a new line of cards for Target! Happy sobriety to you. My partner is in his fifth year of sobriety and I made him a handmade card one year to honor another hard-won year. You're breaking chains out there.
Thank you so much for your generous and encouraging words, Sarah. I’m so grateful! And I think it’s so powerful that you took the time and care to acknowledge your husband’s achievement in such a tangible way.
This is such a tour de force, Alison! I see the struggles and darkness and pain that the brevity of this essay delies. It is a crystalization of the pheonix arising from the ashes. Every word is a grain of salt, distilled from the ocean of suffering. Although I don't have an alcohol addiction, I can resonate with so much that you wrote about recovering and becoming an expanded and new self:
"...you don’t grow into yourself. You grow beyond yourself. Over and over again, you expand and expand, and fumble and get the shit kicked out of you because of the tedious, relentless honesty. The brutality of the commitment to wrangling this invisible thing. How is it possible you carried that dark beast around with you all that time, in my case over twenty years? That pain. That crippling, unidentifiable pain."
For 15 years, I was married to someone with an alcohol addiction, and then I was in a 5-year relationship with someone addicted to porn and sex. So I got the behind-the-curtain view of how a person runs away from their wounds and pain, and I can imagine the Herculean effort to heal from addiction.
I also agree with you how society doesn't have the container or ritual for people to celebrate a person's rebirth. I'm literally going through a rebirth and my new voice is even a little strange to myself as I never let that part be known to the world. But it feels exhilaring to hear it grow and get louder.
Dear Louisa, thank you so much for your kindest of words, and for taking the time and care to connect and share your story here. There are so many ways we share similar perspectives, and have developed empathies most others do not have. I am so grateful you are here. I’m so grateful we are able to connect as we do. Through the darkest of things, we are little lights. 🥰♥️
Halfway through reading this I realized tears were dripping down my cheeks.
I so get it. All of this. The fact that we are slaying dragons every damn day we do this work and no one who “knows us” sees it. No one sees us - the real us.
“I know exactly where I am when I’m alone with me.” Oooof. That’s everything.
Thanks for writing this. It captures so much of how I feel yet couldn’t quite articulate.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read and share your thoughts on this, Allison. I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to me. I’m so proud of us. ♥️
This is so beautiful Allison! You captured a feeling I've frequently had but never expressed out loud, or even allowed myself the grace to fully feel in my own heart and body. Thank you. Most people will never understand this feeling of freedom in their whole lives (whether they're problem drinkers or not) and it fills me with gratitude every time it hits me that I don't have that terrible crushing secret haunting me anymore. Thank you for expressing it so eloquently.
Oh Jennifer, I'm so touched by your words, thank you for sharing here. It really was a terrible crushing secret wasn't it. I'm so proud of us for pulling through, and I am truly heartened to know you understand. Thank you so much!
I’m finding the sobriety journey to be a double-edged sword. Simultaneously I want everyone and no one to know I’m doing it.
I totally get that, Nate. It really is both at once and changes all the time. Thanks so much for sharing that here.
I feel similarly on my mental health journey, which is of course part of your journey too, and also difficult to talk about societally. People who have not experienced something like it themselves have no way to understand how hard I've worked and how much progress I've made, even if I'm still struggling some. I feel like I get more truly sympathetic responses talking about the struggle parts. Trying to describe my wins seems to mostly elicit a kind of puzzled "that's great" that doesn't feel terribly connecting. I guess that's why it's important to find others who do understand from their own experiences, but it does feel like a loss when someone you've previously felt close to can't really come with you on your journey.
I so appreciate your thoughts on all this, Ann, thank you so much for sharing them here. My whole being screamed "YES! That Part!!" when you mention the puzzled "that's great" that feels distant and disconnected. You are making me wonder if it feels like a loss, or maybe it tugs the loneliness strings in my heart, too. It's like they say it to be nice, but it feels like a tough reminder that we are really still alone in it. It's strange to navigate forming new connections in midlife, but I'm really glad for the chance to do it with people like you who understand. Thank you for being here!
Thank you so much, Allison. I feel significantly less alone hearing others experience that too. And trying to figure out how to make new connections in midlife...I'm right there with you. I'm honored to travel this road with you a little way.
This is so beautifully written you’ve made me sob. I also have a dream of everyone knowing about my addiction and how I am now a different person (even so early in recovery). In reality, I remain anonymous; one day I will come out with it all, for now I am strong and this bubbling energy to introduce myself properly fills me with hope.
Thanks!
I am so touched and grateful you would share this here - I am thanking you, too. My heart is bursting for you! It takes everything we have to do this recovery thing. And it is so wonderful to meet you because of it. All my respect and encouragement to you.
This was just so good🥹 I too stopped drinking January 2022 and have also been married 17 years!Your writing makes me feel so seen and understood! I recovered small and quietly for the first 2 years. It was hard and lonely and only in the last few months have I been more comfortable speaking about it and sharing more. Maybe a small part of me was still worried I would still fail? I don’t know- it has felt safer keeping my recovery close. But I know that like you I have been spiritually blown wide open and am just living this new adventure of life and love this person I am becoming. Thank you for your gift of words. It’s an amazing feeling when you read something that just says “Yes!” Inside of you.
I cannot thank you enough for your thoughtful and sincere words, Julie. We are kindred spirits! I feel everything you’ve shared, I’m so damn grateful you are here. 🥰
Maybe not so much a “new” you as the ancient you that was always there, just covered like most of us are with layers of stuck energetic pain. I really love how you envelope and accept your “beast”, which was there to try to protect you from further pain, I suspect, in the only way it knew.
Thank you so much, Janet. I'm so grateful this resonated so deeply with you. "Stuck energetic pain" - that sounds very true.
I felt this- so well written. Thank you
Thank you so much for connecting. I’m so grateful.
My second article this morning that thrilled me! Have one year as of yesterday and damn it’s crazy but living this new life is impossible to describe or explain, but living it is indeed a gift. Thanks for another wonderful article thanks to Substack
Sandra, all congratulations and respect on your One Year! That is absolutely outstanding! ♥️ I’m so honored you found this article helpful. Substack really is the best. :) So glad you are here!
I am not in recovery anymore. I’m in discovery. After 50 lost years, I need to meet myself and find out just who I am. I was really struck by this phrase you wrote about the people in your life. “I’m so new that I’m afraid we’ve never met.” That includes the girl in the mirror. I always smile and wink at her. There’s so much to learn, so much to discover. 😉
Wishing you every wonderful thing in your discovery. And thanking you so very much for sharing your kind connection with me, it means so much. Here’s to the ones in the mirror. 🥰
Thank you for your bravery -- and suggesting a new line of cards for Target! Happy sobriety to you. My partner is in his fifth year of sobriety and I made him a handmade card one year to honor another hard-won year. You're breaking chains out there.
Thank you so much for your generous and encouraging words, Sarah. I’m so grateful! And I think it’s so powerful that you took the time and care to acknowledge your husband’s achievement in such a tangible way.
This is such a tour de force, Alison! I see the struggles and darkness and pain that the brevity of this essay delies. It is a crystalization of the pheonix arising from the ashes. Every word is a grain of salt, distilled from the ocean of suffering. Although I don't have an alcohol addiction, I can resonate with so much that you wrote about recovering and becoming an expanded and new self:
"...you don’t grow into yourself. You grow beyond yourself. Over and over again, you expand and expand, and fumble and get the shit kicked out of you because of the tedious, relentless honesty. The brutality of the commitment to wrangling this invisible thing. How is it possible you carried that dark beast around with you all that time, in my case over twenty years? That pain. That crippling, unidentifiable pain."
For 15 years, I was married to someone with an alcohol addiction, and then I was in a 5-year relationship with someone addicted to porn and sex. So I got the behind-the-curtain view of how a person runs away from their wounds and pain, and I can imagine the Herculean effort to heal from addiction.
I also agree with you how society doesn't have the container or ritual for people to celebrate a person's rebirth. I'm literally going through a rebirth and my new voice is even a little strange to myself as I never let that part be known to the world. But it feels exhilaring to hear it grow and get louder.
Dear Louisa, thank you so much for your kindest of words, and for taking the time and care to connect and share your story here. There are so many ways we share similar perspectives, and have developed empathies most others do not have. I am so grateful you are here. I’m so grateful we are able to connect as we do. Through the darkest of things, we are little lights. 🥰♥️
You're very welcome. I'm so glad that Substack brought us together. Through listening and resonance, we can heal together ❤️ ✨️!
I’m so here for it! ☺️
Halfway through reading this I realized tears were dripping down my cheeks.
I so get it. All of this. The fact that we are slaying dragons every damn day we do this work and no one who “knows us” sees it. No one sees us - the real us.
“I know exactly where I am when I’m alone with me.” Oooof. That’s everything.
Thanks for writing this. It captures so much of how I feel yet couldn’t quite articulate.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read and share your thoughts on this, Allison. I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to me. I’m so proud of us. ♥️
I’m so proud of us, too!!!
Beautifully written and so relatable. Thank you
I'm so grateful to hear from you that this resonated, Kelly. Thank you so much.
Hi Allison. Yes, yes, yes. We need a discovery celebration 🥰
Tonia, you have been on my mind and in my heart. Here’s to celebrating our incredible selves! 🥰♥️
This is so beautiful Allison! You captured a feeling I've frequently had but never expressed out loud, or even allowed myself the grace to fully feel in my own heart and body. Thank you. Most people will never understand this feeling of freedom in their whole lives (whether they're problem drinkers or not) and it fills me with gratitude every time it hits me that I don't have that terrible crushing secret haunting me anymore. Thank you for expressing it so eloquently.
Oh Jennifer, I'm so touched by your words, thank you for sharing here. It really was a terrible crushing secret wasn't it. I'm so proud of us for pulling through, and I am truly heartened to know you understand. Thank you so much!
Lovely to meet you too. Keep doing your thing!