Dear Me, One Year Later
A year ago, I wasn’t sure I was going to get a year like this one.
Today I celebrate one full year sober from alcohol and drugs, and one year of learning to stop reaching for something outside myself every time I didn’t want to feel what I was feeling. That second part has been the real work.
A little over a year ago, things had gotten bad in my head. I was hurting and didn’t know how to tell anybody how much. There were days when my own brain told me it would be easier not to be here anymore. I thought about taking my own life, and even a year later, I hate writing that. There is still shame attached to it. I didn’t tell people because I was afraid they’d think I was being dramatic or looking for attention. I wasn’t sure if anybody would even care if I were gone. I felt alone, and when you’re already judging the hell out of yourself, somebody else’s judgment feels like one more thing you cannot handle.
So I hid it. You may have thought I had things together, or maybe you thought I was a hot mess. Depending on when you saw me, both were probably true. I was still working, doing community things, taking care of people and probably posting something funny on Facebook. I’ve had an interesting life and been successful in a lot of areas. None of that protected me from being mentally unwell. I just got very good at functioning while feeling awful.
I also got really good at isolating. People invited me places and I found reasons not to go because I didn’t want to be seen too closely. Being me had become incredibly uncomfortable, so I kept finding ways to get a break from myself. Alcohol and drugs did that. Food could too. Staying ridiculously busy worked. So did getting completely wrapped up in somebody else’s problem. There are apparently a lot of ways to leave yourself without actually going anywhere.
My world crashed hard, and somehow being sober started feeling easier than continuing the way I had been.
THE FIRST DAYS
If I’m being honest, it was nothing like a movie moment where everything suddenly became clear. I was scared, embarrassed, exhausted and not particularly confident in my own thinking. I knew I couldn’t keep living the way I had been living, but knowing what you don’t want anymore and knowing how to build something different are two very different things.
What changed first was that I stopped pretending I could muscle my way through everything by myself. I started telling the truth about how bad things had gotten and accepted that simply promising myself I wouldn’t drink or use drugs again wasn’t going to fix everything else that was going on inside me.
The day after I got sober, October 28, 2025, I wrote myself a letter and called it Dear Me. It is at the bottom of this post exactly as I wrote it. I don’t want to rewrite that woman with a year’s worth of hindsight. She was scared, trying to give herself some hope and making promises she had no idea yet how she was going to keep.
Then came the work.
MIND
I thought sobriety was going to be mostly about not drinking or using drugs to change how I felt. Those things mattered, and I needed them gone. But once I took them away, I discovered they hadn’t created every problem in my life. They had also been helping me avoid looking at some of them.
Suddenly I was completely available for all my own feelings.
Well, that was just flipping fantastic.
I started seeing patterns I couldn’t unsee. I overfunction. I’m a rescuer. I’ve confused being needed with being loved. I’ve done things for people they never asked me to do and then felt hurt when they weren’t grateful for work they never requested. I’ve held onto relationships because of history and potential while ignoring what was happening in the present. If somebody misunderstood me, I could spend an absolutely ridiculous amount of time trying to explain myself into being understood.
Those aren’t fun things to admit, but they’re incredibly useful things to know.
One of the biggest changes this year has been getting curious about myself instead of beating the shit out of myself. Shame never improved me. It usually made me want to escape myself, which took me right back to the things I was using to escape myself in the first place.
Writing, reading and cognitive behavioral tools have helped me understand my own brain differently. One of my favorite discoveries has been that just because my brain produces a thought with tremendous enthusiasm does not mean we need to convene Congress about it.
I’ve also had to decide what sobriety means for me without deciding what it should mean for everybody else. I don’t want to grade anyone else’s recovery. The question I keep coming back to in my own life is: Am I reaching for this because I actually need it, or because I cannot tolerate what I am feeling right now? That question applies to a whole lot more than alcohol or drugs.
I don’t want to spend my life playing whack-a-mole with different ways of numbing myself. I want to understand why I wanted to disappear in the first place. Recovery for me has become learning how to stay in the room with myself, and I’m getting better at it.
BODY
My physical health and mental health used to feel like separate subjects. They don’t anymore.
Exercise has become one of the most important things I do for my brain. I can tell when I haven’t been moving enough because everything starts getting crowded up there. I’m also finally learning the difference between exercising because I hate my body and want to change it and exercising because I care about myself and want to feel good living in it.
Food has been part of this too. I’ve used it for comfort, reward, boredom and stress, so getting healthier has meant looking at that relationship without turning food into one more thing I can punish myself over.
Eating better, sleeping, moving and generally taking care of myself make an enormous difference. Revolutionary information, I know. The strange thing is that I spent years going ridiculously far out of my way to take care of other people while treating my own care like something I’d get around to when everything else was finished. Everything else is never finished. At some point I had to put myself on the list.
My body has changed a lot this year, and people notice that because it’s the part they can see. But the biggest transformation isn’t visible in a picture. I live differently inside myself now.
SPIRIT
My faith has changed tremendously this year, but it wasn’t all beautiful.
When I was really hurting, I was mad at God. I didn’t understand why I felt the way I did, and I definitely didn’t understand why He wasn’t fixing it. When you’re miserable and someone tells you to just pray harder or give it to God, that can be about as useful as telling someone having a panic attack to calm down. I didn’t need a bumper sticker. I needed help.
Eventually I started recognizing that help was showing up in all kinds of places. Recovery. Church. Prayer and meditation. Writing. Music. Books. People who knew things I hadn’t learned yet. Conversations I didn’t particularly want to have.
Doors started opening, but God help me, some slammed shut while I was standing there trying to pry them back open. I spent a lot of time asking God to change situations. Looking back, I think a good part of the time I was the thing being changed.
My faith now doesn’t mean I understand everything. It means I don’t feel like I am walking through all of it alone anymore.
PEOPLE & GRACE
Getting healthier can be excruciatingly lonely. I was not prepared for that. Some people move closer when you change. Other relationships start feeling completely different because maybe what connected you was drinking, partying, complaining, gossip, chaos or simply being two hurting people whose wounds happened to fit together.
I’ve had to own my part in that. I’ve gossiped. I’ve been jealous. I’ve compared myself to other people and participated in plenty of negativity. I’ve participated in unhealthy relationships and then acted surprised when they were unhealthy. I’m not writing this from some enlightened mountaintop where everyone else is toxic and I alone have achieved emotional wellness. Please. I’m recovering, not running for sainthood.
But I do see things differently now. Getting healthier makes you harder to manipulate. You start saying no. You stop running toward every emergency. You question why you accepted certain treatment for so long. You also start noticing your own ugly stuff, which is probably even more important.
I’ve also learned that I cannot save people who aren’t asking to be saved. I can love them, pray for them and be available when it’s healthy for me to be. What I can’t do is crawl inside another human being and fix what is happening inside them.
That was true for me too.
Billy loves me about as fiercely as one human being can love another. My sweet husband couldn’t love me out of what was happening inside my head, but he loved me while I found my way through it.
And Billy, if you’re reading this, I hope you know how grateful I am for you. You have such a tender heart, and this road has been rocky for both of us at times. You stayed steady. You gave me room to figure things out, made me laugh when I desperately needed to laugh and gave me more grace than I sometimes knew how to receive. You never made me feel too broken or too difficult to love. You kept showing me I was loved while I learned how to believe it for myself. I am so grateful I get to do this life with you.
I have also thought a lot this year about people who were not particularly kind to me when I was in a very bad place. I’m not saying that to make them villains. My mental health wasn’t their responsibility. They didn’t cause it, and it wasn’t their job to fix me.
But they had no idea how close I was to giving up.
I think about that now when I hear someone called crazy, or when a person who is obviously struggling becomes the entertainment instead of anybody stopping long enough to wonder if maybe she’s actually not okay. You can walk away from somebody. You can have boundaries. You can decide a relationship isn’t healthy for you without recruiting a jury. Kindness and boundaries are not opposites.
Grace could be as simple as asking, “Hey, are you okay?” It could mean praying for somebody from a distance or simply leaving them alone without adding another brick to whatever they’re already carrying. The person everybody thinks is strong may barely be hanging on. The hot mess may actually be drowning. Even the asshole may be hurting. We could all give each other a little more grace before deciding we know somebody’s whole story.
ONE YEAR IN
I am still recovering. I’m not fixed. I still get hurt. I still catch myself trying to fix people. I still discover things about myself that make me think, Well, that’s annoying.
But I am happy. I am genuinely happy to be alive.
A year ago, I was miserable in my own skin and looking for ways not to feel like myself. Today I’m getting to know myself, and it turns out I like her. I think the woman I’m becoming is kinda cool. I’m writing again. I’m listening to my heart. I’m bringing back pieces of myself I pushed down for years. My faith feels like something I live now instead of something I simply say I have.
Most importantly, I love my life, and I don’t say that lightly considering where my head was a year ago.
If you’re reading this from somewhere dark, I don’t have some neat formula for getting from there to here. I’m not a therapist, and I can’t tell you which tools will work for you.
I can tell you this: a hurting brain can be incredibly convincing when it tells you the way you feel today is the way you are always going to feel. Mine convinced me. It was wrong.
Tell somebody what is really happening. You don’t have to make it sound pretty first. If the first person doesn’t understand, tell somebody else. Get professional help or recovery support if you need it.
You don’t have to fix everything today. Please don’t give up on yourself before you get to meet the person you could be on the other side of what you’re going through.
A year ago I wasn’t sure I wanted another year.
Now I pray that I am blessed to have many more.
Reading the letter below now, I can hear how scared I was and how badly I wanted to believe things could get better. A year later, I read it with so much more compassion for the woman who wrote it.
I wouldn’t change a word.
Dear Me
October 28, 2025
Dear Me,
I’m writing this because I owe you something better. You’ve been carrying so much — stress, pain, disappointment, guilt, and maybe even some shame — but you’ve also been carrying strength, resilience, and hope. I see that.
And I want to promise you something: things can get better. And they will.
Starting now, I promise to take care of myself — body, mind, and soul. That means making healthier choices, not just because I “should,” but because I deserve to feel good. I deserve peace in my mind, calm in my body, and joy in my heart.
I’m going to reach out for help — real help. Therapy, counseling, or support groups. I’m not weak for doing that; I’m brave. Admitting I need it is not giving up — it’s choosing to live better.
When it comes to drinking, I’m ready to be honest with myself. It’s been a comfort, but also a cage. I don’t want to live numbed anymore; I want to feel life again — all of it, even the hard parts — because I trust that I can handle it now.
I’m not aiming for perfection. I’m aiming for progress.
For mornings that feel lighter.
For nights that don’t end in regret.
For moments of clarity where I remember who I am and why I’m still fighting.
So here’s my promise:
I will keep showing up for myself.
I will ask for help when I need it.
I will choose healing over hiding.
And I will not give up — not this time.
Because I’m worth the effort.
Because I am loved.
Because I am ready.
With compassion and courage,
Me
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, a mental health crisis, alcohol or drug use, or simply feels like things are becoming too much, please reach out for help. In the U.S., call or text 988 for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. It is available 24/7, and you do not have to be suicidal to use it. For free, confidential help finding mental health or substance-use treatment, call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) or visit FindTreatment.gov. If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 911.