When the Weight Becomes Part of You. (Disclaimer: this could be triggering for recovering addicts)
Some days, the heaviness doesn’t just sit on you — it becomes a part of you. It settles into your breath, your thoughts, your muscles, your mornings. And lately, that’s exactly how life has felt for me. Not just heavy… but consuming. Like the weight has woven itself into my skin and I can’t remember the last time I felt light.
This holiday season has been one long ache. An ache I can’t hide behind decorations or cheerful music or the pressure to “be festive.” I feel like I’m watching everyone else glide through December while I’m dragging myself through it, step by step, breath by breath. I feel like I’m ruining the holidays because every smile I force feels like a lie, and every moment I spend trying to pretend everything is fine just makes me feel even more disconnected.
I’ve been angry.. more angry than I’ve ever been. Not because I want to hurt anyone or lash out… but because I’m hurting and I don’t know where to put it. My anger isn’t loud. It’s quiet, boiling, sitting beneath my skin like a storm I can’t release. And the worst part is feeling like I should be stronger than this. Like I should “push through,” “stay positive,” “find joy anyway.”
But the truth is, some days I can hardly get out of bed.
Some days brushing my teeth feels like climbing a mountain.
Some days the world is so loud that the only thing I want is silence.
And other days… I just want to run.
From the stress, from the expectations, from myself.
From the feeling that I’m stuck between who I was and who I’m supposed to become.
I look at my life and I want more. I want joy, ease, peace. I want to feel carefree again. I want to feel like myself again. I want to live without the constant ache of fear, worry, and exhaustion pressing against my ribs. But right now? It feels like I’m fighting a war inside my own head, and every day I wake up already exhausted from the battle.
And to be completely honest, brutally honest, being a recovering alcoholic makes all of this even heavier. The urges are loud. Deafening. There are moments when the temptation feels like an old friend calling me home. Moments where that familiar voice whispers, “Just one. You deserve a break. You deserve relief.”
But I know what that voice really is.
It’s not comfort, it’s destruction wearing a softer mask.
Sobriety is beautiful, but sobriety in pain is hard.
Sobriety in loneliness is hard.
Sobriety in heaviness is hard.
Sometimes the hardest part is knowing you’re one decision away from undoing every ounce of strength you’ve built — and still choosing, stubbornly, painfully, to stay. To resist. To remain.
And if you have your own vice — alcohol, food, shopping, shutting down, overthinking, toxic people, old habits — then you know exactly what I mean. These things don’t disappear when life gets hard. They wait. They circle. They creep back in when we’re vulnerable.
But here’s what I’m learning, even in the middle of this storm:
Feeling lost doesn’t make you weak. Wanting to escape doesn’t make you broken. Feeling the pull of your vices doesn’t erase the work you’ve done.
It means you’re human. And you’re fighting.
Every single day that you choose to stay here, even when your heart is heavy… that is strength.
Every day you get out of bed when your body feels like stone… that is resilience.
Every time you say “not today” to the thing that once controlled you… that is victory.
I’m not writing this as someone who has found her way.
I’m writing as someone still searching, still hurting, still trying to connect with a soul that feels distant and quiet right now.
I’m writing from the middle of the mess.
From the center of the weight.
From the heart of the fight.
Because someone needs to know they’re not alone in this suffocating season. Someone needs to know that their anger, exhaustion, confusion, and cravings don’t make them a burden.. they make them human.
So if you’re feeling lost, if life feels unbearably heavy, if you’re barely holding on… I hope you hear this with every part of your heart:
You are not drowning alone.
You are not fighting alone.
You are not surviving alone.
I’m right here with you.. aching, angry, tired, overwhelmed, sober, fighting, and still trying every day to believe that the light I can’t see is still out there.
And one day, when the weight finally lifts, we’ll realize that every breath we fought for, every craving we resisted, every tear we wiped away…
was proof that even our broken days held a strength we couldn’t see.
Until then, we keep going.
Together.
Even when it’s heavy.
Especially when it’s heavy.