How we interpret ourselves after monumental change
3rd-year recovery, The Pivot Year, and finding your own way
When you begin to tell the truth about your life and how you are experiencing it, there are cellular changes. There are tiny vibrations of change within and emanating from you, thus your entire existence takes on new meaning and texture, little by (nearly) imperceptible little.
And then you realize it’s been two whole years of truth telling (and counting). In the name of sobriety. In the name of recovery. In the name of faith in a thing you cannot prove or promise or force. In the name of saving your own life. And when I say life I mean the one no one else can see or touch or understand. I’m not talking about the life as it looks on Instagram or in writing on Substack, or careers or families, or day counts — none of that. I’m talking about the life that you are, that only you are. The sense of self as separate from any outward demonstration.
I am reading Brianna Wiest’s The Pivot Year because who isn’t. Day 9 (shown in full below) strikes me as the best summary of what recovery does to you, how it moves through you, and when I read this passage this morning over coffee and journaling, I thought: Oh, yes. This is it. This is the exact way it feels to be on the other side of addiction to alcohol. This is what it is to be inside my third year of recovery and realize how far I’ve truly come. How I’m not the same person anymore. Not even on a cellular level. And why.
And it can be so jarring to think about re-entering the world after you have had such a transformation. If I had the energy to do it, I would re-introduce myself to every single person I know or have ever known. There’s something about monumental change like this on such a personal, solitary level, that has rendered me mute.
On Instagram there’s a million people sharing their sobriety. I feel overwhelmed and crushed by it. I cannot cheer for everyone individually. I cannot bear to be online for so long, or read every story, or to take in endless personalities, feelings, agendas, performances, thoughts, ideas, victories, tragedies, hopes, dreams, regrets, and all the rest. It’s too much. I lose myself in the cacophony and I can’t tell what is genuine. What is genuinely mine among the massive onslaught. I lose my grip on reality, and that feels dangerous.
This is only my experience of it, though. I am only sharing how it feels to me. It has nothing to do with anyone else. At the end of the day, my number one priority above all else is not losing myself. I know the terror of that. Over Christmas, I had what I can only describe as a dissociation from myself brought on by a gravely hurtful rejection by a family member. In all my sober experience, that was the one that cut the deepest, that caused me the most visceral fear. It punched me in the gut of my most vulnerable childhood wounds. I was metaphorically slammed to the ground, but goddamn did it shock me awake. I hate to say it but I do believe it had to hurt that bad to force me to face what was hiding in the darkness of my being. Subconscious abandonment stuff.
I came through it, but not without a lot of mess and hysteria and therapy. Sometimes a thing has to finally crack you wide open. Often it’s unspeakable pain. But now I know better what my edges are, my own boundaries. And I won’t allow myself to be put through that anymore. I don’t blame anyone. I hold no grudges. I hold no resentment. I’m grateful for all of it because this is what it takes to transform: realizing every human (myself included) holds great power to hurt and to heal. And that we are responsible for how we experience, make sense of, and respond or react to those things.
Sometimes, it takes being so shattered to your core that when you look around you, very specific things have crumbled into rubble never to return: illusions, false narratives, generational lies, the masks of smiles over panic and cruelty. Growth can mean destruction. Progress can look like a dead end.
There are things you learn to see when you see with recovered eyes. When you re-enter the world with a heart that knows too much pain, too much of what it takes to be human and remain in touch with everything that requires. We look for spiritual rituals, religions, belief systems, wise people and books like The Pivot Year to help us make sense of things otherwise cumbersome, confusing, and unseen. I’m so grateful Brianna Wiest wrote this particular Day 9 piece. Because I don’t know how to talk about what recovery has done to me, with me, through me. Not yet.
But as this new year begins to turn, I’m more and more willing to go silent. To practice listening as an art. I’m lost somewhere I don’t quite understand, but I’m trying — like blinking to adjust my sight in the dark. There’s more to it than sight, though. There’s the listening. The going quiet to listen for what’s snapping, creaking, and stirring beneath you. Noticing through sound what’s above you, out in front, or coming closer.
Listening, it seems, is a lost art, too.
Allison Marie Conway is a published author (Love Me Sober, 2023; Luminae, 2018), addiction recovery coach, mentor, researcher, and advocate. Allison currently lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, with her husband, John, of seventeen years. Follow on Instagram: @allisonmarieconway
Wow, Allison... This is a very powerful post. The fact that there are so many sharing their stories online really resonated with me. It is quite overwhelming. All I can do is concentrate on myself and try to figure out where to start and have the will to continue.
I want to extend my sincere congratulations to you as you enter your third year of recovery. Thank you for sharing your journey.
Whoa, this is a great post. Thank you for sharing this.
"If I had the energy to do it, I would re-introduce myself to every single person I know or have ever known. There’s something about monumental change like this on such a personal, solitary level, that has rendered me mute." Allison M. Conway
"You will fall in love with life again, and it will be better than it was before, because you will become a different person." Brianna Wiest’s The Pivot Year
Those are two very profound statements. I can think of a couple people that I would LOVE to get a re-introduction with my new found self respect; start fresh.
Bravo.