A letter to my past addicted self

hand writing letter

Someone suggested that I write a letter to my past addicted self. So I did and you can see below what came out. Why not give it a try yourself? You could do it in the comments below.. or in a private capacity at home. Be brutally honest, persuasive and encouraging. It's a very powerful exercise.

========

Dear Mrs D,

Here’s the thing. You’re hooked on booze.

It’s got its claws into you and that’s just a fact. Don’t hide away from the truth, get your head out of the sand and admit it. Come on! You know you’re sinking far too much wine most nights. You know you’re wrestling with yourself every day about whether to buy any. You know you’re doing deals with yourself about how much you’re going to drink and you know you keep breaking those deals. You know you keep waking up at 3am feeling guilty, with a bursting bladder, pounding head and sick guts. You know this is all true.

Don’t hide from the truth. That’s just stupid. This is your life, no one else’s. You’re the one in charge of it, no one else. You get to live how you want to live. What other people know or want is irrelevant. This is just about your relationship with yourself. So do you want to live like this? Do you? You need to be brutally honest with yourself. What anyone else thinks doesn’t matter. Face up to yourself and accept the truth.

Right. So we’ve established what the problem is. You can’t control or moderate alcohol. Now we need to get to the solution. First things first – the booze has got to go. Completely. No more wasting time and energy trying desperately to control the stuff. You’ve been doing that for long enough and you know you can’t. You just can’t! Once you touch wine you just want more and more. So don’t touch it ever again. Take it out of your life and learn how to live without it.

Now don’t go all ‘woe-is-me’ on it girl. Don’t waste energy wondering why you’re like this. There are probably a multitude of reasons why you’re an addict, but the bottom line is you just are one. I thought we’d established that fact – get over yourself and accept it. It’s a bugger of a fact about life but there you have it; some humans can control alcohol and use it moderately and some can’t. I know it’s unfair! I get it! This is the most socially acceptable drug on the planet and its wedded into our culture and daily lives. It’s everywhere we turn. It’s seen as the vital ingredient for fun, it’s poured liberally at every social occasion, celebration and event. It’s cheap, it’s acceptable, and it’s readily available. But it’s not for you any longer.

Don’t freak out, admitting this doesn’t make you weak or a loser. It just makes you someone who got addicted to an addictive substance. Jeez! We all know alcohol is addictive! There’s no big mystery there. Millions of people are hooked just like you are, struggling day-in-day-out to control alcohol. The biggest bummer about today’s world is that it’s not common to openly admit you’re hooked, so lots of people keep their struggles private. But know that you are not alone. Don’t waste any more energy asking ‘why me?’ Just accept you got bit with the booze bug and get it out of your life. Do what you need to do but take it away and learn how to live without it. Others do it. You can too.

I’ll repeat. It’s irrelevant how other people respond to what you are doing, just press on with the truth that only you know. You can’t control alcohol, it’s bringing you down and you need to get it out of your life. Simple.

I know it’s scary to contemplate living without touching alcohol ever again. I get it. It goes against everything we’ve been conditioned to believe – that alcohol is a necessary part of life. You just have to challenge your thinking around that and shift your mindset. Other people do it. Look around … find people who are completely sober and don't look miserable. Find them and then keep looking. There are many happy sober people out there in the world, so it must be possible to get to that place. It is possible to get to that place. Get to that place. Do whatever you need to do but get there.

How? Well that depends on what you uncover once you take the booze away. You may find you can get to a happy sober place just by writing a blog or participating in online recovery. You may find you need to go see a counselor or therapist regularly. Maybe face-to-face meetings in your neighborhood are just what you need. Maybe taking the booze away will uncover some underlying mental health issue that you need specialized help with, or you’ll start to realize some other fundamental aspect of your life needs changing. Maybe the perfect thing for you will be to go into full-time residential care for a while to get intensive support.

You’ll figure out what you need to do as time goes on. Just get started. Put the drink down and decide you’ll never touch it again.

It’ll be the beginning of an amazing journey of discovery for you. I promise you won’t regret it.

Love, Mrs D xxx

10 Comments
  1. 20012015 3 years ago

    I’ve got so much out of this post and are going to adopt that thinking….remind myself that I cannot handle the booze and most importantly just get started, figure it out on the way (instead of wanting all the answers on Day 1) and tell myself over and over that I’m never going to drink again.

  2. SandyJoy 3 years ago

    I don,t even know where to start

  3. RichyNew 3 years ago

    Thank you for this, it feels like you wrote this just for me 😂. I think I shall re read each day around 2pm….

  4. CarolineS 3 years ago

    Thank you for sharing this, A very sobering read, I found it very inspiring and motivating with a reasoning that makes it easier to to stay on track, despite all possible obstacles we encounter. I will write one to myself.
    Is this a recent letter or did you write this some me time ago?
    Thank you 🌸

  5. gage 3 years ago

    Thankyou, just what I needed to hear.

    • sept2219 3 years ago

      Thanks, I needed to read this right now xo

  6. RB2019 3 years ago

    Great open letter Mrs D! I read it as a Pep talk for myself!

  7. JR 3 years ago

    This is why I have never felt the need to “announce” my sobriety path….it is my private thing and if people have issues with it, then they are the ones that really need to look closer at their drinking. I look at JLO and her reason is fitness, protecting my brain as I age and great skin and that is my motto if anyone asks……

    Thank you for taking the time.

  8. RunnerJ 3 years ago

    Thanks for a great read, MrsD. Just what I needed to hear, I have been in the “why me” agony the past few days. The reality is, and I know this, is “why not me?”. It does not matter what other people think, I need that reminder daily!

  9. Rosieoutlook 3 years ago

    I want to say ‘Dido’. Everything you have said Lotta is exactly what I would write to myself. I wrote a diary on July the 19th 2014 and it is a great read on why I gave up 6 1/2 years ago. I didn’t have to hit rock bottom to give up, but in my heart I knew what I needed to do. Once I went through the initial grieving period of what was my go to for …celebrations, stress, a relaxant etc, life fell into a rhythm that I love. 🌻

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Licensed by NZ Drug Foundation under Creative Commons 4.0 2024. Built by Bamboo Creative and powered by Flywheel.

Log in with your credentials

or    

Forgot your details?

Create Account