Dear Sobriety,
One of my sisters in sobriety shared this today and I am absolutely bursting with excitement to share it with all of you!
If you ever think you’ll never see the light at the end of the tunnel, take a moment to click this link for an exercise in gratitude. You will soon see that the light has been surrounding you the entire time.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PMjZ98sxzQ0&feature=youtu.be
Sending much love and good vibes to you all!!
🥰🤗🥰🤗🥰🤗
Dear Sobriety,
Getting sober in 2017 initiated an unexpected health kick for me.
Within the first few months of simply not consuming alcohol followed by drunk binge eating calories, I’d lost 20 pounds. And by starting to build up new habits, like drinking more water and regularly walking outside, that number slowly grew as I watched the one on the scale in the bathroom shrink.
It took me 5+ years to lose 80+ pounds.
That’s a long time, huh? I think so too, but being on this side of it, I needed to take it slow.
Because evolving from a rampaging drunk who hoped to die to a hiking warrior deeply in love with life is not an overnight kinda process.
So when I finally got sick and tired of being sick and tired, I had to start putting that energy somewhere constructive.
My mentality was, and essentially still is:
I’m sober now, so… I guess I gotta figure this shit out.
I found a glimmer of hope in losing those first 20 lbs. I had made a huge lifestyle change by not drinking and positive results were starting to show.
I’d spent the first half of my life drunk, high on pills and in unhealthy relationships, so sometimes I feel like I “suddenly woke up” in my late 30s realizing,
If I want a knight in shining armor to come save me, then I’m gonna have to put on chainmail.
Because I finally started learning that the only person who can really make a difference in changing me is… me.
That’s when I decided I wanted to start building a healthy life for myself.
So that’s what I’ve been working on the past few years: replacing all the time I used to spend drinking with… everything but that.
If you’ve ever tried losing or gaining weight, you know how difficult it can be to get that number moving in the direction you want. It can be so disappointing and demotivating when it doesn’t.
So after that first 20 lbs, I started hitting a plateau and realized I couldn’t ride the wave of just not drinking anymore. If you’ve heard of the “pink cloud,” that was starting to run out and reality was really starting to set in:
If I wanted to change, I had to commit to it.
That’s when I started paying attention to consistency and I’m neurospicy, so when I say CONSISTENCY MATTERS to me, please know I mean that in my mentally unstable little soul.
Consistency helps create clean metrics and patterns to help you see results. And I can see the logic in consistency.
I’d been consistently sober for a couple months and already I was seeing benefits.
But the only place I thought to look then was at the scale. And it was giving me the same data, no matter how hard I felt I tried to keep it decreasing. I realized I had to start finding motivation elsewhere if I was going to keep losing weight.
I read an article somewhere that once mentioned “non-scale victories” and listed out a few suggestions.
With that thought kinda stuck in the back of my brain, these are some of the things that kept me motivated when the scale wasn’t budging:
If the last time you went to the gym was a bad experience, you’re probably going to have some anxiety going back. That’s to be expected with (re)starting any habit. You’ve got to do it a few times to start building up a tolerance for it.
One thing that held me back from even going to the gym was feeling like people were going stare at me being awkward and new at something.
Which… putting it in writing like that makes me think: is that really so bad? It’s so cliche to say, but you gotta start somewhere, right?
How I changed my focus from all the thoughts that other people might be thinking about me (aka my projections) was to put mental blinders on myself.
I zeroed in on every little detail of myself:
Once I started focusing fully on my body, I was able to begin seeing that all the people working out around me were literally there trying to do the same.
People make the gym out to be a place that’s scary, and, I mean… you’re going to a place where you’re literally putting your physical weaknesses on display while you work to get stronger. That is scary.
But once you get into a habit, you may start finding you begin to enjoy it.
Which leads me to my last bit for today…
Like… what if you start to enjoy it?!
Maybe you could go from thinking:
I don’t want to.
To…
Ok. I’m making life changes. I see progress. What if I keep showing up for myself?
To…
I can cycle for 60 minutes in 125° sauna and when Lil Jon’s Turn Down for What pops on, I say, ”Yes sir! I’ll turn down for another song while cycling, of course!”
Maybe that’s the thing nobody tells you.
You start out hating it.
Then you keep going because you see progress.
Then one day you realize you’ve become someone who actually enjoys the thing you once dreaded.
Somewhere between the first miserable workout and singing along to Lil Jon in a 125° sauna, I stopped trying to survive my life and started participating in it.
And that’s probably the biggest non-scale victory of them all.
Dear Sobriety,
I recently finished reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson and honestly… beneath the sarcasm and f-bombs, there’s a lot of solid psychological insight in it.
I’d definitely recommend it if you feel like you need a perspective shift or a reminder that discomfort is part of being human, not proof that life is broken.
Also, IMHO, the book proves to me once again that most self-help books can be summed up at their most basic concept by AA page 417, IYKYK. And if not, here’s the Cliffs Notes version:
Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.
It’s kind of wild how many different ways humans keep relearning the same lesson. 😅
What’s stood out to me the most are the sections about entitlement and the difference between blame and responsibility.
Because ooof. Those hit home. 😬 So let’s dig in!
One of the points the book makes is that modern culture can quietly encourage a kind of emotional entitlement where people begin to believe:
And to be clear, I do not think feelings are fake or unimportant. Quite the opposite. Feelings are incredibly real. I have them all the time! Ask my partner. 🤭 I’m his little tornado of emotion! 🌪️
But I do think I’ve spent periods of my life unconsciously expecting external things to fix internal discomfort.
If I felt hurt, angry, rejected, triggered or misunderstood, I often wanted relief to come from outside of me first and pictured it like:
And sometimes those things mattered.
But sometimes… I was also unknowingly handing other people responsibility for emotional work that ultimately belonged to me.
That’s where the book’s distinction between blame and responsibility really landed for me.
One of the biggest ideas in the book is:
That’s such an uncomfortable concept at first because our brains naturally want fairness. We want the person who caused the pain to also resolve the pain.
But life does not always work that way.
I didn’t ask for degenerative cervical discs. 🩻 Trust me, if there were an unsubscribe button for that experience, I would have smashed it immediately.
But whether I like it or not, it’s still my responsibility to learn how to manage it, adapt to it and take care of myself through it.
I can resent reality all day long and my spine will still be my spine.
That realization applies emotionally too.
Trauma may not be your fault.
Triggers may not be your fault.
Loss may not be your fault.
Other people’s behavior may not be your fault.
But eventually, healing still becomes your responsibility.
And honestly? I think accepting that has changed me more than almost anything else in the past few years.
Because the more I worked on my own emotional regulation, the less energy I spent trying to control other people. And that’s turned into:
Meditation has helped with that a lot too. It created space between trigger and reaction. Space to notice my emotions without immediately becoming them.
And weirdly enough, some of the most freeing realizations I’ve had lately are:
Sometimes feelings are signals.
Sometimes they’re old wounds echoing.
Sometimes they’re projections.
Sometimes they’re important.
Sometimes they’re fear.
Learning the difference has probably been one of the hardest and healthiest parts of growing up for me.
I still have opinions. Loud ones sometimes. 🥹👉👈
But I’m getting better at pausing long enough to ask:
Is this actually about the present moment?
Or is this an emotional reflex looking for somewhere to land?
That pause has changed a lot.
I still have a very loud internal monologue sometimes. 🧠 The difference now is that I don’t automatically treat every emotional reaction like an emergency anymore. And honestly? That’s been freeing as hell.
Want to learn more? Watch Mark Manson summarize the entire book on YouTube 👉 here 👈 or go old school like me and check out the book at your local library! 📚
Dear Sobriety,
Road rage is hurting you more than helping.
I used to watch an ex get genuinely frustrated behind the wheel every time it rained. The law in Missouri states: if it’s raining, turn your headlights on. And he took that seriously.
So seriously that he’d aggressively flash his brights at every passing car without its headlights on trying to “correct” them, convinced he was helping.
But the thing is… the other drivers probably didn’t experience it that way.
They weren’t grateful.
They weren’t learning a lesson.
Most of them probably didn’t even realize anything had happened.
All that effort, all that frustration… and none of it actually changed anything.
That’s when it clicked for me: a lot of road rage isn’t really about safety… It’s about control.
And not just control… fear.
Fear that something unpredictable is happening around us.
Fear that other people won’t do what we expect.
Fear that we’re not actually in charge of what unfolds around us.
And when humans feel fear, we tend to react instead of respond.
We escalate.
We correct.
We try to force order onto something that was never fully ours to control.
But here’s the truth… 👀
I know no one appointed me to be the boss of the road and I bet no one appointed you either.
Let go of the weight of managing everyone else and you stop carrying tension that was never protecting you in the first place.
Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is…
Stay in your lane. ✨🚙✨
Dear Sobriety,
When I got sober, I began learning how to “practice the pause” (aka pause myself before reacting to a trigger). But overstimulation still has a way of shoving that pause right out the proverbial window, leaving me raw and reactive.
In May, my partner introduced me to Transcendental Meditation. While six months of building a consistent practice hasn’t “fixed” my problems, it has opened a deeper channel into my emotions.
Meditation has given me the ability to see the feeling behind the trigger – the emotion that drives the reaction – and to respond with more clarity.
I’ve learned to (mostly) compartmentalize those big emotions when they surge. Instead of being swept away, I can hold them, set them aside and return to them when I’m ready to work through them at my own pace and time.
Now, with the holidays fast approaching, I’m realizing just how strong that ability to compartmentalize has become – and also how much clutter still lingers in my head, waiting to be untangled.
Personal growth, it turns out, has opened a new category for me…
Frustratingly Hopeful – a place where strength and mess coexist – where progress is undeniable, but the work is far from done.
Want to read more about my Transcendental Meditation practice?
Here’s how I got started: Day 2,796 – Demystifying Meditation with Magic Shell
Here’s an update: Day 2,814 – NOW! That’s What I Call Living in the Present! Vol. 1
Dear Sobriety,
When I choose to take responsibility for my own feelings and emotions, I release my loved ones from carrying that weight.
In the space created, joy has more room to dance. ✨
Dear Sobriety,
When I learned to lift myself up and fill my own cup, love from others no longer filled a void… it simply overflowed. 🖤
Dear Sobriety,
In honor of the woman I once was – the one who couldn’t do this – and in celebration of the woman I am today, who can and does…
I offer every individual who reads this a challenge.
Go to a mirror. Look yourself in the eyes and tell yourself,
I love you.
If you can’t say it, or don’t mean it, I challenge you again to begin the work of finding what you need to heal.
The world won’t heal until the people do.
And you, of all people, are worthy of your own love.
Dear Sobriety,
I learned how to create memes on CoPilot and doing that inspired this blog.
Acceptance isn’t surrender… it’s alchemy.
For a long time I thought healing meant fixing. Erasing. Making sense of the mess. But acceptance has taught me something softer, deeper and far more powerful: I don’t need to understand every negative life event in order to move forward. I don’t need to agree with what happened to reclaim my worth.
Acceptance doesn’t mean agreement. It means I stop fighting the past and start honoring the present. It means I let my story breathe – even the jagged parts. It means I trust that every version of me led to this one. And this one?
She knows now she’s been worthy all along.
I created this meme to remind myself (and maybe you) that healing doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it curls up on your lap. Sometimes it exhales through a joint. Sometimes it whispers:
You’re allowed to begin again, even if no one else understands why.
Maybe I didn’t know then, but I know now. And now is the perfect time to learn that.
A lot of my inspiration for applying acceptance into my daily life is from being in recovery. If you’d like to dig further into the world of Acceptance, these are two of my faves:
Dear Sobriety,
Read about it here: https://dearsobriety.home.blog/2025/07/13/day-2796-demystifying-meditation-with-magic-shell/
“NOW = Never Over Whelmed”
Jen Sincero
My reward for a consistent meditation practice is that my outlook on life is no longer influenced by anxiety, hormones and pain. And that, my friends, makes my life so magically simple.
Have you ever felt “on edge” about something? You know the feeling. Like when you’re waiting to hear if you got the job or not. Sitting at home, staring at the phone… almost willing it to ring. And when it does, it scares the crap out of you so badly that you literally scream? Yeah. That feeling. Well, the feeling right before the phone ringing and hollering… the AN-TICI-……
…PATION.
That’s the best way I can describe what it feels like to be overstimulated and anxious. I feel wound up inside – quite literally sometimes – because I’m anticipating the Universe’s next move. And that feeling doesn’t go away. It starts from the moment I wake to the moment I fall asleep. I’ve learned that the volume can get turned down with regular exercise and a healthy diet, but it never goes away. And the volume always gets turned back up with PMS and pain – there’s no mental break for me allowed during PMS and pain.
Anxiety can even manifest as a physical feeling for me with things like traffic. While I’m driving, a knot forms in my belly and pulsates with the energy of all the cars and people around me. If I’m talking on the phone with someone and I get cut off in traffic, I will scream because it’s too overwhelming for me. Ask my partner. He’s been on the receiving end of those calls a few times…
Damn that’s embarrassing to write. But it’s true. When I’m overstimulated, I have no control over my emotions or reactions.
🎤 Sorry, mic check… I HAD no control over my emotions… until I started meditating in May.
In June, I noticed my PMS moodiness and associated general lack of patience had vanished. Yes. Vanished. I still have body aches, breast tenderness, bloating and night sweats. My body is still going through the whole process, but my mind is no longer tied to it. It’s so freaking cool and so difficult to explain! So I wanted to wait until at least another month had rolled around to make sure that what I was experiencing wasn’t just a “fluke”.
Here we are in July and my PMS moodiness and overall lack of patience is still gone. My breasts are super sore, my back hurts like heck, but here I sit typing away with a slight smile on my lips and a new lightness in my fingertips.
Life is still happening, stress is still there, work is still worky, but I’m not anxious about it. Instead, I’m confident that I’m putting my very best abilities out into the world right now.
And NOW… I’m Never Over Whelmed.
Dear Sobriety,
I am so excited to talk to you about sitting quietly! Seriously! It’s my new favorite thing to do! So much so that I do it for 20 minutes twice a day!
My dear partner was instructed on Transcendental Meditation (TM) in 1975. After he shared his experience with me, I decided I needed to at least try it out for myself. If there’s a way to tap into the type of calm that my partner carries, then yes, please. Sign me the fuck up. And yesterday, if not before!
He said there are over 350 peer reviewed research studies published in the most highly respected medical and science publications! “Go ahead, Google it,” he said. I did. Sure enough, I learned there are 380+ peer-reviewed research studies conducted on TM published in over 160 scientific journals and conducted at numerous universities and research centers worldwide. Science backs this up, friends!! SCIENCE!!
I’m not here to sell you on TM. So if you’re about to cancel me because you think this is going to come with a price tag, here’s a chance to change your mind.
I recommend the type of mediation practice – mantra based – TM touts, but I don’t think you HAVE to have a mantra assigned by a TM instructor to be able to gain the benefits and learn how to “do it correctly”. Because we have the internet now – unlike the 1970s when my partner learned.
Where I’m located, TM instruction is only offered once a month, so I had a bit of time to start building up a routine before being assigned a mantra of my own. In that time, I did some internet sleuthing and found a really cool article on Harvard Health Publishing explaining some of the benefits of a consistent, mantra-based meditation practice called The Relaxation Response: A once (and future) meditator tries the relaxation response for stress.
After I read that article, I found a YouTube of Dr. Herbert Benson Teaching You The Basics of The Relaxation Response and used that as my “guide” to self-start my practice.
The first mantra I chose was “peace” and I felt good with that. I continued my self-start journey by googling TM mantras and “trying them on” to see how each felt inside. It’s hard to explain, so you’re gonna have to trust me until you start your own practice.
It was fun for me. I kept coming back for more and THAT is what made me realize that there might be something to this.
As someone with ADHD, PTSD and a whole slew of other mental health acronyms behind my name, getting my brain to be quiet for five seconds is a feat – let alone 20 minutes, twice a day. But I can do it with a mantra. Easily.
My experience with guided meditation has been ho-hum at best. I always found myself fidgeting and hoping that time would speed up, so I could get this over with and on with my life. I got all the things to do, don’t ya know?! All the things!
Saying my mantra, I’m not fighting off thoughts. I’m able to experience the moment. I’m able to treasure the moment. I’m able to live the moment.
Recently, I’ve even let go of the need to check the clock. One of my first concerns with starting my TM practice was:
How do I know when 20 minutes is done?
First of all, it’s ok to open your eyes to check the time. You’ll find you’re not ruining any of the Meditation Magic just because you need to be aware of when your work lunch hour is up. That’s real life.
~ How I made time tracking easier ~
I keep a clock in direct line of sight. I note the time when I start, do mental time math and add 20 minutes (this is not a skill that comes easily to me), then I close my eyes and start. I peek as needed. Over the last two weeks, I’ve peeked less… and less… and less… And the last couple days, I’ve just opened my eyes and it’s right at 20 minutes. It’s so fucking cool!!!!!
I’m not asleep when meditating. I’m fully aware of everything happening around me, but I’m soaking in a deep, deep well of calm. Each time I leave that calm, I’m coated in a thin, invisible layer of peace. With each session, that layer gets a tiny bit thicker.
Think of it like Magic Shell on an ice cream cone. The first time you dip an ice cream in Magic Shell, it’s immediately covered in an opaque shell of deliciousness. But you have to be careful because that shell can be easily shattered.
But if you dip it again… and dip again… and again… See where I’m going with this? I can’t be the only one who’s put so much Magic Shell on their ice cream that they needed a steak knife to saw into it, right?! I digress…
So right now I’m walking around with two months of Meditation Magic Shell on me and it’s really starting to show in my lack of reaction to life around me.
The thing is… there’s not really a lot of “evidence” to show you how much it’s helping me. What’s showing to an outsider is probably not a lot – other than a stupid grin on my face. But what’s happening inside my head is astounding. I’m not reacting to things that would normally spin me the fuck up and I’m not overstimulated.
Let’s get real for a sec: I’m on my period, my hip hurts like fuck because it’s still healing, I had to get new rear brakes unexpectedly this week, a coworker yelled at me in the office on Friday and my energy vampire has been a complete fuckwit this week. Oh… and work is absolutely stupid stressful still. But none of that has even started to crack through my Meditation Magic Shell. What?! What?!
Also, my focus is out of the fucking roof, I’m more present in conversations and I have insatiable hunger for information on self-improvement.
Speaking of hunger for self-improvement, since starting my meditation practice, I’ve read three fiction books and am halfway through my fourth. I’m also simultaneously reading two other nonfiction books. I’ve listened to one nonfiction book-on-tape (yep, I’m still gonna call it that) and started another – I have at least three more in my queue. And I’m retaining this info. This is on top of working my 40 hour a week job, time with my partner, time with friends and community, eating well, meditating, and getting hip-friendly exercise in.
Oh! And my self-talk has improved immensely! I knocked over a big cup of water while cleaning my kitchen cabinets and, right on cue, as soon as that cup made impact with the floor, my inner critic started berating me. I literally stopped myself and said outloud, “It was an accident MonicaSue. Just get a towel and clean it up.” And I did. And then I moved on. It was that easy.
I’m so curious to see how my practice continues to grow. I’ve become my own voyeur watching me grow from inside my electric meatball (aka 🧠) and I couldn’t be happier about it.
Dear Sobriety 