I am so fucking grateful for you Holly. Thank you, again, for publishing your words at exactly the moment I need to consider the ways I straddle the lines between authenticity and fitting in. Perimenopause has rendered me full clarity around the activities and substances I use as a way to participate in a capitalist sanctioned life and keep myself feeling sick and tired. I recognize, in this threshold place, that I must choose a path. Line straddling is not an option. It’s a watering down to drowning experiment. The consequences seem awful when I’m hanging on the line, but I can sense the freedom if I step into my own authentic reality more completely. My mom is dead now, my daughter went to college. There is no crisis to manage (outside of the dumpster fire of our country’s democracy). I have no excuses to not be fully inhabited. Right here. Years ago when I finally got off the drinking hamster wheel I realized the way the fracturing of the day with alcohol was similar to the feeling of my uncertain childhood. It was familiar to not know what tomorrow would be like. When I quit I felt this ease of day into night into day into night. At first I panicked and felt bored, but soon it felt like relief my NS needed like nothing else. I’m right back there again, only afraid of what will leave me next in my grief, my loss. Drinking is not going to keep that pain from coming. It will only make it harder to face when it does because I’m so goddamned fractured and fried. Moderation has kept me out of my body, sort of a glitch of myself. Clambering to keep myself tethered as I face these ultra impossible challenging times both in my personal and in our collective. What if I believe the world needed me to be something other than fitting in?
This part of what you write is, I think, critical,
This guy had one date with me, considered my stance on alcohol, gave it up on the spot. Over the year+ we dated I think he got drunk on a trip with his friends or something, probably had a few beers when I wasn’t around, but he basically went teetotal. No effort or anything like that.
I think we all find out (or already know) whether we are ‘George’ or not, and that’s surely how the question gets an answer.
My closest friend is now 13 years in recovery. Despite many hedonistic shared experiences in our youth, we diverge dramatically when it comes to alcohol. He knows he can never touch it again, and I have no interest in drinking anymore but, like George, feel no sense of loss.
I think many people (not necessarily the person who posed the question here) ask the question because they know the answer and don’t like it, so they want someone to tell them something different which, by the way, is an understandable emotional strategy not restricted to questions related to alcohol use.
I read most everything you write and listen when I catch you on a podcast. Your perspective is fresh and inspiring. There is so much discussion about addiction and recovery that infuriates me. Thank you for your courage in speaking your truth even when it isn’t ’the party line”. You inspire, challenge and affirm in ways that are meaningful to me!
What Laura said! Loved every word of this and particularly love this part — “I recently made it through getting kicked out of my company, losing most of my wealth and pretty much all my future plans, an ego death, a global pandemic, and two lonely lonely years in the deep dark woods without using alcohol or drugs². I am not the kind of person inclined to believe one needs alcohol to survive the worst years of their life; I am also not kind of person inclined to believe one needs alcohol to enjoy the best ones, either.” Well said, Holly. 👏
Hey Holly. Gosh, I’ve been reading and listening to your words for so long now. I was one of your first Hip Sobriety students too. (Back in 2014? Can that be right?!) Anyway, I love all the stuff you’re currently digging into on return to use. So interesting and I happen to align with you on all of it. I keep wondering though: WHY did you go back to your cannabis use? Absolutely zero judgement. I reengaged with alcohol after years of continuous sobriety myself, having had a horrendous addiction to it years before. My WHY was bc - I could. I just had a nagging feeling that I’d actually be able to take or leave it, having worked through all the reasons I drank addictively in the first place. (I don’t believe in the disease model at all. It never made sense to me.) Anyway, I found that I could moderate with no problem. (I now leave it though just bc: general health reasons and I don’t rely on it for anything anymore anyway, having learnt to successfully live without it for so long. Any benefits just weren’t worth it to me. Happy to have ran that experiment on myself though!) I am so curious to hear your why - if you’re happy to share. Love that you’re so honest about your recovery experience. All the love.x
“[sobriety] also purchased me a number of things, namely, the freedom to never have to think about alcohol again, and a life that continues to exceed expectation—a very big, beautiful, complicated life that I fully live into, that I would not trade for all the best drinking days in the world.” Boo Ya!! You rock.
I am so fucking grateful for you Holly. Thank you, again, for publishing your words at exactly the moment I need to consider the ways I straddle the lines between authenticity and fitting in. Perimenopause has rendered me full clarity around the activities and substances I use as a way to participate in a capitalist sanctioned life and keep myself feeling sick and tired. I recognize, in this threshold place, that I must choose a path. Line straddling is not an option. It’s a watering down to drowning experiment. The consequences seem awful when I’m hanging on the line, but I can sense the freedom if I step into my own authentic reality more completely. My mom is dead now, my daughter went to college. There is no crisis to manage (outside of the dumpster fire of our country’s democracy). I have no excuses to not be fully inhabited. Right here. Years ago when I finally got off the drinking hamster wheel I realized the way the fracturing of the day with alcohol was similar to the feeling of my uncertain childhood. It was familiar to not know what tomorrow would be like. When I quit I felt this ease of day into night into day into night. At first I panicked and felt bored, but soon it felt like relief my NS needed like nothing else. I’m right back there again, only afraid of what will leave me next in my grief, my loss. Drinking is not going to keep that pain from coming. It will only make it harder to face when it does because I’m so goddamned fractured and fried. Moderation has kept me out of my body, sort of a glitch of myself. Clambering to keep myself tethered as I face these ultra impossible challenging times both in my personal and in our collective. What if I believe the world needed me to be something other than fitting in?
This is so fucking good.
This part of what you write is, I think, critical,
This guy had one date with me, considered my stance on alcohol, gave it up on the spot. Over the year+ we dated I think he got drunk on a trip with his friends or something, probably had a few beers when I wasn’t around, but he basically went teetotal. No effort or anything like that.
I think we all find out (or already know) whether we are ‘George’ or not, and that’s surely how the question gets an answer.
My closest friend is now 13 years in recovery. Despite many hedonistic shared experiences in our youth, we diverge dramatically when it comes to alcohol. He knows he can never touch it again, and I have no interest in drinking anymore but, like George, feel no sense of loss.
I think many people (not necessarily the person who posed the question here) ask the question because they know the answer and don’t like it, so they want someone to tell them something different which, by the way, is an understandable emotional strategy not restricted to questions related to alcohol use.
YES. This whole conversation is meaningful and helpful and just so fucking real.
I read most everything you write and listen when I catch you on a podcast. Your perspective is fresh and inspiring. There is so much discussion about addiction and recovery that infuriates me. Thank you for your courage in speaking your truth even when it isn’t ’the party line”. You inspire, challenge and affirm in ways that are meaningful to me!
What Laura said! Loved every word of this and particularly love this part — “I recently made it through getting kicked out of my company, losing most of my wealth and pretty much all my future plans, an ego death, a global pandemic, and two lonely lonely years in the deep dark woods without using alcohol or drugs². I am not the kind of person inclined to believe one needs alcohol to survive the worst years of their life; I am also not kind of person inclined to believe one needs alcohol to enjoy the best ones, either.” Well said, Holly. 👏
So so good. Especially this - “I’d say trying to keep your feet in two worlds is a really great way to not live at all.”
I don’t miss the constant splitting. Doing differential calculus on ourselves is no way to live.
Thank you 🙏🏼 Holly
Hey Holly. Gosh, I’ve been reading and listening to your words for so long now. I was one of your first Hip Sobriety students too. (Back in 2014? Can that be right?!) Anyway, I love all the stuff you’re currently digging into on return to use. So interesting and I happen to align with you on all of it. I keep wondering though: WHY did you go back to your cannabis use? Absolutely zero judgement. I reengaged with alcohol after years of continuous sobriety myself, having had a horrendous addiction to it years before. My WHY was bc - I could. I just had a nagging feeling that I’d actually be able to take or leave it, having worked through all the reasons I drank addictively in the first place. (I don’t believe in the disease model at all. It never made sense to me.) Anyway, I found that I could moderate with no problem. (I now leave it though just bc: general health reasons and I don’t rely on it for anything anymore anyway, having learnt to successfully live without it for so long. Any benefits just weren’t worth it to me. Happy to have ran that experiment on myself though!) I am so curious to hear your why - if you’re happy to share. Love that you’re so honest about your recovery experience. All the love.x
Yes agree with Laura and love
“[sobriety] also purchased me a number of things, namely, the freedom to never have to think about alcohol again, and a life that continues to exceed expectation—a very big, beautiful, complicated life that I fully live into, that I would not trade for all the best drinking days in the world.” Boo Ya!! You rock.