I wake up and I already know. 

Not because I remember everything clearly – but because of the weight. It’s sitting on my chest before I even open my eyes. Heavy, familiar, impossible to ignore. 

My mouth is dry, my head is dull, and there’s this quiet dread creeping in like it’s been waiting for me to wake up so it can fully settle. 

I check my phone. 3:07 p.m. 

What day is it? I’ve completely lost track. I’m sure it’s only Friday… It’s Tuesday. 

Of course it is. 

Half the day is gone and I wasn’t even living it. Just hiding from it. Sleeping doesn’t even feel like rest anymore – it feels like avoidance. Like I knocked myself out just to not be conscious inside my own head. 

I lay there longer than I should. Staring at nothing. Thinking about everything I don’t want to think about. 

What I did. 

How easy it was. 

How fast I folded. 

It replays in flashes, not even full memories – just enough to make my stomach turn. And the worst part? There’s this sick, quiet voice in the back of my head that’s not even surprising. As if to say, yeah…. This is what you do. It was only a matter of time. 

I hate that voice. Because it sounds like me. 

Getting out of bed feels pointless, but staying in it feels worse. So I just sit there, stuck in between, scrolling my phone like I can outrun the feeling. I can’t. It’s in my body now. It’s in the way my chest feels tight, the way my thoughts won’t land anywhere without turning dark. 

I start doing that thing where I bargain with reality. 

Maybe it wasn’t that bad. 

Maybe I can just reset tomorrow. 

Maybe no one has to know. 

Maybe someone DID hack my instagram and phone and messages and phone calls…

But underneath all of it is the truth, loud and steady: 

You knew better. And you did it anyway. Not once at this point, but for days in a row now. 

That’s the part that cuts the deepest. Not the act itself – but the awareness. The fact that I watched myself cross the line a long time ago and said nothing. That the last relapse wasn’t that bad. Like I was split in two – one part screaming, the other part already too far gone to care. 

At this point, as Brad Pitt once described it, this thing had me on my back.  

Basic things feel hard now. 

Showering feels like a chore. Eating feels like something I have to force, if I even can. Texts go unanswered because I don’t even know how to pretend to be normal right now. Everything in my life suddenly feels slightly out of reach, like I’m behind glass watching it instead of actually living it. 

And there’s shame. 

Not the soft kind. Not the “I messed up, I’ll do better” kind. The kind that makes you want to disappear and draw completely into yourself. 

The kind that says if people really saw this version of you – the one who caves, who lies to themselves and everyone around them, who keeps going back to the same thing – they wouldn’t recognize you. Or worse, they would. 

I sit with that for a while. Too long, probably. 

Because the truth is, this isn’t just about one relapse. 

It’s about the pattern. The cycle. The part of me that keeps choosing something that wrecks me and then has to wake up and live in the aftermath like this. 

3 pm. Alone. Heavy. Trying to figure out how to exist in my own skin again. 

And the scariest thought isn’t even “why did I do it?” 

It’s – 

What if I do it again? 

This brings me to today. 

A few days sober, technically. But it doesn’t feel clean or triumphant – it feels like I’m walking through fog and I can’t see where I’m going or what’s on the other side. Like everything is slightly muted, slightly off, like I’m here but not fully in anything.

My brain is slow, my emotions are unpredictable, and there’s this constant low hum underneath it all that I can’t shut off. It’s not loud enough to name, but it’s there. 

This is the part no one celebrates. 

The in-between. The early days where nothing feels fixed, just exposed. 

And I’m writing this because I’m too good at hiding. Too good at smiling just enough, responding just enough for people not to worry, showing up just enough that no one keeps asking me deeper questions. I know how to disappear without actually leaving. I know how to shut people out in a way that’s almost scary. 

And that’s exactly where this thing has always grown – in the quiet, in the isolation, in the spaces where no one can see me clearly. 

I think that’s why I refuse to keep being silent about it. Why I refuse to keep sitting in denial and just waiting for my character to suddenly change. 

Because when people picture someone struggling with this, they often picture something obvious. Something messy and visible and easy to label. (I’ve been there before too). But a lot of the time, it looks like me – functioning just enough, hiding really well, slowly unraveling in private. 

And no one likes to talk about that. 

Or if they do, they soften it. They make it more palatable and easier to swallow. Less uncomfortable. 

I don’t want to do that. Not this time. 

Someone recently asked me if putting such vulnerable things about my life out there is even a good idea. What if it makes people uncomfortable? What if it upsets or embarrasses someone? 

And honestly – yeah. It might. 

But hiding hasn’t done me any favors. Silence hasn’t protected me. If anything, it’s protected the addiction – even when I wasn’t drinking. It’s giving it space to grow without resistance, without exposure, without consequence. 

I’m over that. 

I might be someone who has relapsed more times than I can count. Someone who has fallen on her face, made the same mistakes, sat in the same shame over and over again. 

But there has never been a time I didn’t get back up. 

Not once. 

Bruised, embarrassed, exhausted – yes. But I get up. 

And I’m not sharing this because I’m proud of the mess or because I need anyone to tell me I’m strong. I’m sharing it because I know exactly what happens when I don’t. 

My addiction thrives in secrecy. 

It survives in isolation. 

But it does not survive in vulnerability. 

And I’m done giving it somewhere to hide. 

So I will keep writing. 

Not just when things are messy. Not just when I’ve fallen apart. Not only when everything feels like it’s burning and I need somewhere to put out the smoke. 

But also when it’s quiet. 

When it’s uncertain. 

When nothing dramatic is happening and that’s exactly what makes it hard – the in-between days where I don’t know if I’m healing or just pausing, where I can’t tell if I’m moving forward or just standing still in the thick of the fog, unsure of where I am, and hoping it counts as progress. 

Those are the moments that usually get lost. The ones no one really documents because they don’t feel important enough. They’re either too painful, or not painful enough to be compelling, not joyful enough to celebrate. Just… existing. Floating. Unclear. 

But I think that’s where most of life actually happens… Especially for me right now. 

So I want to write it all. 

I want to write about the mornings where I still feel heavy but I get up anyway. The days where I don’t feel fixed, but  I don’t fall apart either. The quiet decisions no one sees – choosing not to isolate, choosing not to spiral, choosing to stay present even when everything in me wants to disappear and hide. 

Because healing isn’t just the big turning points. It’s not just the relapse or the breakthrough or the dramatic before and after. 

It’s the slow stitching in-between. 

And I don’t want to only remember my life as a series of extremes – broken, then better, then broken again. I want the full thread. The continuity. The small, almost invisible moments where something in me shifted and I didn’t even have language for it yet. 

Maybe that’s what this becomes. 

Not just a record of what I survived – but a testimony built in real time. Not polished. Not edited for comfort. Just honest enough to hold the truth of who I was in each version of it. 

So that one day, when I’m further on the other side of this,  I can look back and see it clearly. 

Not just the falling apart. 

Not just the getting back up. 

But everything in between that quietly made me someone who stayed.