I am not afraid to share my struggles. I’m not afraid to talk about my anxiety disorder or depression or how hard it is to be a mom while managing mental illness. I will tell you all about my radiantly joy-filled autistic daughter and the waves of grief I feel for parts of life that she will likely miss out on. I’m happy to share the good and the hard parts of raising a strong willed, deeply feeling powerhouse of a seven-year-old girl.

I have felt afraid of talking about my struggles with alcohol. Alcoholism and sobriety are so definitive in our culture; they are heavy with shame. Once you begin to speak openly about addiction, you can never go back.

Alcoholism is synonymous with disease and weakness. It is incurable, intolerable, and determines the rest of your life. According to the rules of our culture, someone who is addicted to alcohol is to be pitied above all else. They are made to feel less than, different than the rest of us.

The shame and fear around being viewed in these ways keeps many of us from ever questioning the role of alcohol in our lives or the safety of consuming it. I know for me, I was ready to stay stuck as my drinking-self forever to avoid the label of “alcoholic.” Alcoholism is supposed to be loud and extreme, culminating with car accidents and public embarrassment. If that isn’t us, we are supposed to be fine with alcohol as it exists in our world. It is simply accepted that there are normal people and then those who can’t handle drinking.

The truth is, I have unquestionably become emotionally and physically addicted to alcohol. I do not want to drink anymore. But I am not an alcoholic and I am not entering into a life of sobriety. Most importantly, I reject the blame and shame that I am supposed to feel about confronting addiction.

Does it seem that because I am sharing this so willingly that I can’t actually be struggling with “real” addiction?

Since there were no tales of rock bottom or whispers of rehab, does this make you think that quitting couldn’t have possibly been that hard for me?

Do you think that since I don’t accept myself as eternally diseased and weak, there is no way I can move past addiction for good?

This is just more shame; more of the fear that is keeping us from questioning alcohol use; more of the cultural conditioning that wants us to stay in our lane, follow the pack, be part of the crowd.

I am trying so hard to unlearn these conditioned thoughts. I’ve spent the last six months listening to podcasts and reading books and learning from people in the fields of neuroscience and psychology. There are specific facts that I now know to be true about addiction and alcohol consumption.

And yet, my protective nature is telling me that I should keep it to myself. That writing this is the same as pushing religious or political beliefs on someone who feels differently. That isn’t my goal. My goal is to share how I got here and why I keep going. I’m working really hard to prioritize communicating and honoring my own truth, instead of trying to protect the feelings of others above all else or control the reactions of others to things I want to say.

In reality, the most basic nature of alcohol is as an addictive substance. Couple that with how drinking is an unquestioned part of American life– consumption is expected at any social event and associated with enhancing relaxation or joy—and it’s clear to me that the blame for addiction is not personal. The shame we feel should be put on our society instead.

 As a whole, I don’t think we want to know the truth about alcohol. I know I didn’t.

We don’t want to be told that our glass of wine is 12% ethanol and the gas we put in our car is made of 10% of the very same chemical. We know that drinking is bad but no one wants to learn the real ways that alcohol damages our brain cells, sleep, liver, ability to fight other diseases, mental health, skin, stress response, ability to feel emotions…

The last one was my true tipping point. We know alcohol is really good at blocking out stressful feelings but I had no idea it was keeping me from experiencing happy feelings too.

Because of its nature as an addictive substance, when you drink alcohol, your body craves more. The more often you drink, the more you build a tolerance for the drug– you have to drink more to get the same feeling. This is because the body is always trying to return to a feeling of stability and balance– homeostasis. Our first drink floods the body with unnaturally strong, good feelings. The brain immediately counteracts with chemicals that do opposite as it tries to return to its normal state.

You know that numbed out feeling you have when you lay down after a few drinks? That feeling stays much longer than the good feelings your first drink brought on. Your body doesn’t just stay numb during the hours we associate with a hangover—this dampening of emotions lasts for days. It becomes harder for your body and brain to experience joy, to laugh, to feel happy. The things that made you smile before will barely register compared to the chemically-produced, good feelings from alcohol. The more a person drinks, whether that means more in frequency or more in quantity, the more numb that person will become.

This is the feeling I was most desperate to change.

I want to feel joy from the little things in life. I want to feel truly happy and build a life I don’t need to escape from. This doesn’t mean no stress, that’s impossible. This means actually dealing with my problems instead of drinking to numb negative feelings– trying to build strategies to manage stress, working to regularly complete the stress cycle, going to therapy, dealing with problems instead of pushing them away.

If not drinking means I have to feel and do hard things, it also means I get to catch the giggles with my daughters or feel emotional because of a beautiful sunset.

This is a return to living fully, not recovering from disease.

I crossed an invisible line in December 2021, one that showed me parts of myself that I will never be able to un-know. It’s taken about seven months, more than half of another year, to be able to say the words I don’t drink anymore out loud. It still isn’t easy to say it but, once I crossed that line, there was really no going back.

The idea of publicly sharing my experience with alcohol addiction feels both terrifying and necessary. Feeling afraid of being labeled in a certain way or viewed as weak doesn’t change what is. It doesn’t change where I am in life. My fear won’t change what I want to show my daughters, everyone in my life really, about what it means to try to be stronger.

Strength and vulnerability go hand in hand.

Strength and vulnerability are necessary in this return to myself.