The Day Writing Saved My Life

 

Twenty some odd years ago I was lost and struggling to not pick up another drink. My life had become a whirlwind of drinking myself into oblivion every night, though I told myself it was only every other night. I couldn’t do anything without a drink in my hand. I needed that liquid courage to talk to strangers, solve my romantic problems, oh hell, escape whatever I was running from that day. I could not face my life, any part of it, without drinking.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I was sober at work, but I couldn’t wait to clock out and find the next round that would help me feel normal again.

Normal meant three things. One, a little hair of the dog to cure last night’s hangover. Two, turning off the thoughts that kept creeping in and making me squirm in my own skin. Three, getting over my shy demeanor so I could actually talk to people.

I convinced myself I couldn’t do any of these things without a few beers, which always turned into shots and mixed drinks as the night wore on. This sent me into a tailspin of feeling like shit every day and needing alcohol just to function. Eventually, I had to have a drink to stop the shakes.

I remember ordering a beer at the bar and watching my hands tremble so violently I couldn’t pick up the glass. Did I think, maybe I should stop this insanity? Nope. I ordered a mixed drink with a straw so I wouldn’t have to pick up the glass.

I paid my bills on time. I showed up to work and did my job well. I was what they call a functioning alcoholic. I was also stumbling through my front door at three in the morning, sleeping for three hours, and doing it all over again.

One morning I woke up in my car in the driveway, engine running, passed out at the wheel. Did I stop after that? Hell no. I just took more precautions not to let it happen again.

It never crossed my mind that what I was doing was killing me. I thought this was normal, what all young thirty-somethings did. I surrounded myself with people who drank just as much because excessive drinking was not only accepted, it was encouraged. We enabled each other in this vicious cycle that continued for years.

Eventually, I had a brush with suicidal ideation. I’ll save that story for another time. The thought of wanting to end my life terrified me. I didn’t want to die, and in that moment I knew I couldn’t keep living like this.

I had to stop drinking.

I thought if I stopped for a while, I could eventually come back and drink like a normal person. You know, have one or two and call it a night. I had no idea that being an alcoholic meant I could never drink again.

Never?

How was I supposed to give up my lifeline? How was I going to deal with life’s shit without numbing out?

I couldn’t hide anymore. I couldn’t escape the uncomfortable feelings. I had to face everything raw and unfiltered. No more unwinding with my drinking buddies after a hard day. If work was brutal, I had to sit with the anger, the frustration, the inadequacy.

I had to endure the thoughts that whispered you could just go have one drink, and the shame that made me want to curl into the fetal position and disappear.

When shame hit, I wanted to be alone. I didn’t want anyone to see me cry or watch me frantically pace my apartment. I couldn’t sit still long enough to read because my head was jammed with what felt like the entire universe screaming at me all at once.

But I could smoke.

I could sit outside and burn through a pack of cigarettes like it was nothing. One puff and ahhh, a tiny moment of relief.

So I smoked and paced and curled up on the floor. I begged on my knees for anything or anyone to help me get through the misery. I don’t think I’ve ever spent so much time on my knees in my entire life.

I didn’t know what to do with myself.

I could watch TV and zone out, disappearing into whatever was on the screen like I was an invisible character in the room. I could escape to other countries, fall in love, find courage, save the world, as long as the TV stayed on.

But I couldn’t live there 24/7.

I had to work. I had to interact with actual human beings.

How the hell was I going to do that?

I asked a coworker who was in recovery for help, and he picked me up that night and took me to my first meeting. Walking into that room, I felt ashamed and out of place. I wasn’t like these people. My story wasn’t as bad as theirs.

Maybe I was in the wrong place.
Maybe I wasn’t really an alcoholic.

A thousand thoughts ricocheted through my head, but I sat there and tried to listen.

I kept going to meetings. I found a sponsor who required me to call her every single day. So my life became this, call my sponsor, go to meetings, watch TV, smoke. Rinse and repeat on an endless loop.

But my overwhelming thoughts still had a death grip on me, and I was desperately searching for a way to slow them down, turn them off, or at least get them to whisper.

You know that feeling when you’re in a crowded room and everyone’s talking so loudly you can’t hear your own thoughts, let alone the person standing right in front of you? That’s what every single minute of every day felt like.

One evening those voices got so loud and relentless that I was ready to walk into the bar and say fuck it to everything. Instead, I called my sponsor while I sat outside chain-smoking and tapping my foot on the ground like a drummer playing double bass.

I told her I couldn’t stop the negative thoughts, that I was drowning in shame about how I’d treated people, how I’d pushed my family away, and all the damage I’d caused.

She said this was normal and told me to write it all out on paper.

“What? Why?” I asked.

“It might slow down your mind,” she said. “Write for thirty minutes and call me back.”

I thought she’d lost her damn mind, but I didn’t want to drink that day. So I grabbed a pen and started writing.

One word.
Then two.
Then three.

Suddenly I had sentences. Paragraphs.

I can’t tell you what any of it said, but my mind had to slow down because I can’t write as fast as my brain spits out thoughts. I had to focus on the words forming on the page and the feelings pouring out of me.

I fell into a trance of paper and pen, barely aware of what I was writing, caught in that magical space between brain and hand where thought becomes word. When you stop to think about it, the way our mind and body work together is pretty incredible.

I scribbled down everything I could hold onto long enough to get on paper. Run-on sentences. Misspelled words. Skipped words. Handwriting like a drunk spider.

I didn’t care.

For once, I wasn’t beating myself up. I was just making letters into words into sentences.

When I finished, I called my sponsor and read it to her. To this day, twenty-two years later, I have no idea what I wrote.

What I do know is that writing saved my life that day and has continued to save it every day since.

In the beginning, I wrote about anything that crossed my mind just to stop the spinning. As time passed, I started examining my past and my role in everything that happened. That was part of my recovery work.

I never stopped writing after that first day.

I don’t have profound revelations every time I sit down with a pen, but I know if I keep at it, eventually I’ll uncover my own wisdom buried underneath all the noise.

Sometimes I borrow inspiration from other writers or use journal prompts. Sometimes a quote or a single line from a book strikes something in me and I start there. Over the years, I’ve learned to ask myself deeper questions.

Sometimes the answer comes in minutes.
Sometimes it takes months just to figure out what question I need to ask.

I’ve learned so much about myself and how to navigate this life. I still get caught in the spin, but nothing like before. When I feel it starting, I know I need to sit down, pay attention to what’s surfacing, and trust that writing will lead me to the wisdom waiting inside.

We all have that inner knowing.
We just need to slow down enough to hear it.

Thank you for being here with me on the page. I hope something in my story resonated with you. There will be more stories, more discoveries, more of what I’ve learned that might help you through whatever you’re facing.

I don’t have all the answers, but I know journaling saved me, and I’m here to share that in case it might save you too.

Looking back, I realize that writing was the first thing that helped interrupt the relentless mental loops I was stuck in, what I later learned was part of the rumination cycle.
Read more about breaking the rumination cycle