I never thought that when I was a teenager (drinking at 16 years of age) that alcohol would turn on me. That alcohol would become an enemy to me physically and emotionally. But 16 short years later that is exactly what it had become. My enemy. My body became both emotionally and physically attached to it. Most times I would drink to just feel normal again, not realizing that it truly wasn’t normal. I’d drink to make myself feel sober because without drinking I would shake, sweat, and feel sick. Drinking no longer was an occasional thing with friends while watching a football game on TV or attending an opening baseball game. Drinking had become something I needed to do like using the bathroom or eating food.
It was so bad that not drinking would wake me up at night. I couldn’t even sleep without alcohol at times. I tried to stop but I just couldn’t. And the more I drank the less I realized I had a problem. It wasn’t until the hallucinations began and my husband got me help that I realized reality and just how bad drinking had become for me. How my reality was so far from just that (reality). The day I woke up in rehab after a night I thought only movies were made of made me see reality for just that, what was real. I couldn’t believe that my mind could have played tricks on me in such a way, thinking I could hear voices of friends and family and speak to them with telepathy- in other words no physical interaction, not even seeing the person, we could communicate and have conversations.
My journey was a long one but I am now over 3 years sober and fully comfortable in my sobriety and not drinking. I have zero issues with being at a gathering with friends and family, or even strangers being there, and saying I do not drink. I am not sover because I have to be, but rather I am sober becuase I CHOOSE TO BE. Anyone who is or may in the future travel this road, know someone that may travel this road must understand the choice be sober and to stay sober is something one must make on there own and for themselves. Others may help them to this choice, but ultimately it is a journey one must want to be on.
Starting a journey toward sobriety often reveals a sobering truth: our culture is absolutely saturated with alcohol. It’s a shift in perspective that makes you realize you aren’t just fighting an internal battle; you’re navigating a world that feels designed to trip you up.
Early in this journey, you realize just how deeply alcohol is woven into the fabric of daily life. It’s unavoidable. You walk into a Target or a grocery store and are met with free samples—a sharp reminder that you are moving in a different direction. For others, it’s a generous offer; for you, it’s a path you can no longer afford to take. Between the billboards and the commercials, the world feels like one giant trigger. Just as a commercial for a juicy steak makes your mouth water, these ads stir a hunger that you simply cannot feed. For some, the choice to stay sober is a grueling, daily decision. That is why every hour of clarity is a victory. Eventually, those tiny, hard-won milestones stack up until they become a mountain of strength.
They warned me about complacency and I believed them. So I made the second year without alcohol about doubling down and trying to grow a life that thrives without the poison that is alcohol. Now I am 4 months into year three and it just gets better and better.