For a long time, I wanted out of my own life. Everything felt flat, lonely, and pointless. When I got high for the first time at seventeen, shortly after moving abroad on my own, it felt like I’d found a hidden exit. Something that lifted me above all of it.
At first, it felt like freedom. Like I’d unlocked a version of myself that was fearless, confident, and interesting. While other people my age were focused on school or routines, I felt like I was doing something bigger. Exploring. Testing limits. Living faster than everyone else.
I honestly believed I had it figured out.
That feeling didn’t last.
What I thought was flight turned out to be temporary elevation, followed by a long drop. The thing that made life feel larger slowly took the ground away beneath it. Addiction didn’t just give me a high. It narrowed my world until there was barely anything left inside it.
When Drinking Felt Like Power
At the beginning, alcohol felt like a solution. It erased social anxiety. It made conversations easy. I felt confident, relaxed, and capable in a way I didn’t feel sober.
Limits disappeared. So did doubt.
Then the cost started showing up. Hangovers. Blackouts. Gaps in memory. I couldn’t get through a day without thinking about the next drink. Relationships started to strain. Motivation disappeared. Everything revolved around maintaining the feeling.
Drinking stopped being social and turned into something I needed just to function. It was both comfort and threat at the same time. I kept chasing the feeling I had at the start, even though it was already gone.
I told myself freedom was just one more drink away. In reality, I had never been more trapped.
The Collapse
Looking back now, that period feels unreal. The decisions I made don’t match the person I am anymore, but at the time, everything revolved around staying numb and elevated.
Alcohol slowly took priority over everything else. I skipped work. I worked night shifts cleaning hotel rooms and convinced myself that drinking all night made sense. Eventually, I quit. I stopped exercising. I lived on junk food. My health dropped fast.
By the end, I drank from the moment I woke up until I passed out. There wasn’t a plan anymore. Just a need. The life I’d built fell apart piece by piece, and I didn’t have the distance to see it happening.
When Escaping Stopped Working
I used alcohol and drugs to avoid dealing with things I didn’t know how to face. That worked for a while. Then it stopped.
Admitting I had a problem wasn’t a single moment. It was a slow realization that nothing in my life was actually under control anymore. As long as I downplayed it, nothing changed.
Once I stopped drinking and using, I saw how often I’d treated substances like an answer to everything. Stress. Bad moods. Conflict. Boredom. They were my default response.
Removing that forced me to find real alternatives.
If I was irritated, I worked on design projects. If the weather was bad, I stayed in and watched a movie. If a relationship felt unstable, I talked to friends or accepted that it wasn’t right anymore. None of that fixed life overnight, but it stopped the spiral.
Changing the People Around Me
At one point, nearly everyone around me drank heavily. That environment made it easy to keep going.
When I quit, some friendships fell away on their own. The ones that only worked when I was drinking didn’t survive sobriety. New people showed up instead. People who didn’t revolve around alcohol.
We’d get coffee, play tennis or mini golf, drive around at night, or just walk and talk. I realized I felt better doing those things than sitting in bars or clubs surrounded by drunk strangers.
I still go out sometimes, mostly for music or social connection, but alcohol isn’t the center anymore. That alone changed everything.
Staying Sober Isn’t a Finish Line
Sobriety isn’t something you complete. It’s something you maintain.
Some days are easy. Some aren’t. What keeps me steady is remembering how small my world became when drinking ran it. I don’t want to return to that.
Now, when I pass bottles in a store or airport, I don’t avoid them. I look straight at them. Not out of defiance, but because they don’t control me anymore. They’re just objects.
Where I Am Now
Addiction gave me an escape, but it stripped away my ability to deal with life honestly. It took my health, strained my relationships, and left me unable to cope without numbing out.
Sobriety didn’t magically fix everything. I’m still rebuilding. But I’m present for it. I experience things as they are, not filtered through a substance.
I don’t chase the highs anymore. I’ve learned to live inside the range of real emotions, even when they’re uncomfortable. That’s something addiction never gave me.
I’m here. Clear. Grounded. And finally living my own life instead of running from it.
