Big alcohol sold me a story.
That I could buy excitement, happiness, connection, friendship, name it all from a bottle.
And I believed it. I ignored how small my life had become. How tired I felt.
How miserable I was most days. My feelings didn’t seem valid.
So I pushed them away.
The good and the bad.
“Why feel anything…when you can buy “happy” for $9.99?”
That’s a clever strategy.
So I distracted myself.
I overworked. I overdrank. I scrolled for hours. Anything to avoid feeling. And one day I woke up and thought
Who the hell am I? How did I get here?
Having a mimosa on Saturday morning just to feel okay.
No hobbies.
No joy outside of alcohol.
I knew something was wrong.
That pit in my stomach after every night of drinking wouldn’t go away.
I didn’t recognize myself anymore.
And because I didn’t know what to do…
I kept drinking. Read The Full Story Here.
Then I learned something from a wise woman (Brooke Castillo) through hours of listening to her podcast.
Being human means feeling.
All of it. The pain. The loneliness. The boredom. The anger. The anxiety.
We have been taught those feelings are a problem.
That we should avoid them.
But that’s not true.
Suffering happens when we avoid feeling.
When we abandon ourselves.
Not from the feeling itself.
I’m not saying it’s easy.
But it’s necessary.
So now… I stay.
I stay through the discomfort.
I stay through the hard moments.
Because I can handle it.
Feelings won’t kill me.
But avoiding them almost did.
And on the other side of that pain…
there is a wiser version of me.
Every single time.
