365 Days Without The Thing I Used To Need Most...

Today marks a milestone for me….one that might surprise you to hear:

One year. No alcohol.

(But this story isn’t really about drinking. It’s about what was underneath it….)

For years, I carried an anxiety I didn’t fully understand. It was always there, like a low hum of dread I couldn’t turn off. From the outside, my life looked like it was working: Respected career. Relationship. All the boxes checked. From the inside, I couldn’t shake the feeling of unease and discomfort that something wasn’t right.

Alcohol was just one of the forms of distraction I would use to quiet the hum of discomfort. (Others included overworking, food, and staying so busy that I never had to sit still long enough to ask myself what was really going on.)

My anxiety continued to grow, and so did my distractions…I was caught in a loop, coping with anxiety in ways that were creating more anxiety. Something had to change, not just the drinking, but something much deeper.

So I started searching for solutions...therapy, self-help books, personality tests, journaling….all of it helped, but none of it gave me the full picture. What I really needed was to understand myself deeply enough that I could trust my own decisions. I needed to find the conviction to stop performing and start actually listening to what was going on inside me.

The process took years…it was messy and uncomfortable and slow. But piece by piece, I started to see myself more clearly. I started to understand not only where my anxiety was actually coming from, but what I needed to feel more like myself.

After years of that work, something unexpected happened. I wasn’t forcing myself to drink less…I just wanted to drink less. The thing I’d been reaching for to escape didn’t make sense anymore, because I was finally learning to face what I’d been escaping from. A year ago, I thought: "I think I can go 6 months without a drink…just as an experiment."

Then something wild happened…6 months turned to 7, then 8, then 9…and now I’m at one year of zero alcohol.

In that time, the anxiety didn’t disappear. But I’m not afraid of it anymore. I don’t run from uncomfortable feelings….I let them arrive, I sit with them, and I’ve learned how to navigate them as my full self.

I’ve been more present, more connected, more healthy (physically and mentally!) than I’ve been in years.

I finally understand myself enough to trust what I need.

I still have a long way to go (who doesn’t!), but everything changed when I stopped trying to fix the surface-level symptoms and started learning to understand what was underneath them. When I stopped performing and started listening.

Learning to finally hear myself...to become fluent in who I actually am...that’s what made this year possible. Not willpower. Not discipline. Self-fluency.

And it’s something I believe anyone can learn.