what started when i stopped

celebrating 1 year without alcohol today

At seven years old, maybe eight, I proclaimed I’d be a writer.

I was going to live in Barcelona. I was going to have parties all the time and wear beautiful clothes. Imagine little me, dressed in a turquoise satin bridesmaids dress pulled from my dress-up box, proudly telling my parents these facts. I spoke with the assuredness of someone who unabashedly knew themselves, who had not yet lost themselves. 

Sixteen years later, I couldn’t have been further from my prediction. It wasn’t bad, by any objective measure. Judging against my peers, I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I had a good finance job and lived in New York City. I wore the right things, I went to the hip bars. I was up-and-coming, a rising star, I told myself. 

But the black hole of anxiety ruled my life. Paranoia, exhaustion, depression. A resounding emptiness that no amount of “wellness” could fill. I kept adding hobbies, building self-care routines, making connections, doing more, looking for the thing that was going to finally set me free. 

Deep inside, little me poked and prodded at the glass castle I had built for myself. Where’s the art? She asked. Where’s the softness? Where’s the light? 

I ignored her and instead, silenced the spirit within me in every way possible. Worshiping busyness, status, achievements, I had no idea how deeply disconnected I really was. On I went through my gray existence, wearing suits, restricting my eating, dating not nice people, not writing, not drawing, not dancing. 

It was all wrong, but I couldn’t imagine what it would cost me to make it right. I knew what I wanted my life to be like but I didn’t know how to get there. 

What I didn’t know then is that the greatest addition to my life would come from subtraction. I needed to quit. 

One year ago, I stopped drinking. 

The next quits came right before and soon after: a job, a city, a way of being available to everyone at all times. These brought the end of several friendships, a hiatus from dating and sex, and the crushing death of an identity I had spent years constructing. 

I was no longer the person I had carefully curated, calculated, and coerced myself into becoming. In this destruction, I met myself. Who I actually am.  

There is no bypass to sobriety, for better or worse. I’ve been shaking out my ghosts. I’ve had to. I couldn’t skip to the good part, without reckoning with the bad. What I lost, what was taken, who I hurt, who I was hurt by, how it happened. 

I no longer resent the ghosts. They are a part of me, like the freckles on my arms, like the scars on my knees. They tell stories of days past and lessons learned.

I’m not afraid of myself anymore. I’ve grown curious, poking around the places I swore I would not go again. Exploring with compassion, I found the little lost girl who was doing the best she could with the tools she had. 

For seven years, I drowned my brain in ethanol and starved it of nutrients. Of course, I didn’t feel good. Of course, I wasn’t even scratching the surface on my creative potential. Drinking a depressant 3-5X a week and eating hardly enough food for a child to survive is no way to treat a precious thing. 

Even knowing this, I’m shocked by all that has occurred in one year. 

If you told me that I’d be published in The Cut and Refinery29, speak on ABC News and NPR, reconcile one of the most important relationships of my life, work on a book, make meaningful progress on my eating disorder, move to Barcelona, fall in love, find God, etc.… I’d ask you, what super drug did I start taking? 

It turns out, all I needed to do was cut one thing out of my life. 

It’d cause a divine snowball effect, removing everything that was not meant for me. With time, it’d wash away the blockages that kept my dream life at bay. My true nature would reveal itself again. 

I was shocked when the life I had always dreamed of presented itself both so suddenly and effortlessly, without me forcing it into fruition. It’s clear now that I had to silence the noise, stop numbing, and walk out of a pretty good life to make room for an exceptional one.

It’s funny, my great evolution is actually a regression. I am more like who I was at eight, than the person I was at eighteen. Sobriety has stripped me, shaken me, renewed me, and returned me to who I really am. 

The little girl who knew that she wanted a life of love, art, sunlight, sweetness, softness, and wholeness had a lot more figured out than I gave her credit for. I’m glad I’ve been given the chance to meet her again. 

This first year without alcohol has felt both like an eternity and a millisecond. Some days I forget my life wasn’t always like this. Other days I remember how things were just one year ago and I’m awed beyond belief. How can it be? That in 365 days, a life can become unrecognizable in an impossible amount of ways.

Over the next year, I pray for the courage to continue stopping what isn’t serving me. To do less. Celebrate more.

What a magical little life this is.

What a miracle it is to begin again.

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quick hits

• Location / Time: 6 pm in Barcelona, Spain

• What I’m Eating: This incredible soup & spicy nuts my friend Laura made me, check out her account for other amazing recipes

• What I’m Reading: Body Work by Melissa Febos which I’ve been waiting for months for and was able to order at an English bookstore in Barcelona!!!

• What I’m Celebrating: today is my one year sober anniversary which ironically & fittingly fell on Easter Sunday (talk about a rebirth!)