Your Addiction is Nothing to Be Ashamed of

When we collectively challenge the stigma, we weaken it.

Chelsey Flood
Nov 4 · Unlisted

For a year or two, I daren’t write about getting sober.

I didn’t even tell most of my friends and family for a while, let alone start publishing stories on the Internet.

So what stopped me those first years?

A few things. My alcohol-positive upbringing, for a start. I was nervous of being accepted as a teetotaller. Everyone I knew growing up drank too much on a regular basis, and it was fairly normal for adults to stagger around drunk. I was worried my abstinence would make people uncomfortable.

All of these responses triggered the shame that I still carried, very close to the surface.

They underscored the idea that there was somehow something wrong with me because I couldn’t drink ‘normally’.

Because the truth is that I don’t have a problem with alcohol.

Maybe I never did. Society, however, has a huge problem. Pockets of our country are chockfull of normalized alcohol abuse, and I came of age within one of these pockets.

And it’s sad, all this escapism because the world is such a psychedelic trip anyway if you only train yourself to pay attention.

I’m not saying I walk around in a state of wondrous presence all the time. Far from it. I still read a lot, and binge-watch TV shows and overeat on occasion (every day).

So if I struggle with people’s reactions to my abstinence from alcohol, why do I write so much about it?

Because I hope that by sharing my experience the dominant narrative will begin to change. I started Beautiful Hangover because I wanted to join a conversation that I believed to be important. For years, alcohol had caused me to suffer unnecessarily and for what?

Does writing about it help disperse the shame?

Ultimately yes. Though occasionally it seems to exacerbate it. This is because I suffer from pathological embarrassment. Officially known as shame.

Try a new approach.

Taking responsibility for your life and choices is hard, but it brings you power and autonomy. It allows you to learn the lessons your mistakes were trying to teach you. To discover how they improved you. To share your learning with others, and make it count.

Beautiful Hangover

Learning to live and love without alcohol.

Unlisted

Chelsey Flood

Written by

Author, tree worshipper, truth-teller. Writes about learning to live in the light. Talk to me @cjflood_author. www.chelseyflood.com/beautiful-hangover

Beautiful Hangover

Learning to live and love without alcohol.

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