Through the Fog

Tag: alcohol

  • The World Wouldn’t Stop Turning

    I didn’t move,

    but the world wouldn’t stop turning.

    Time kept its pace

    while I stood still inside myself,

    watching everything pass

    like I wasn’t part of it anymore.

    The sky seemed blue

    or maybe that was just my emotion

    projecting something softer

    onto a day that didn’t earn it.

    Funny how feelings can repaint reality

    and call it truth.

    I tried so hard to be cool about it,

    to play it off like nothing touched me,

    nursing a half-empty bottle

    or is it half full?

    I could never decide

    if I was losing something

    or still clinging to it.

    I drank for the pause,

    for the quiet between thoughts,

    for the moment where I didn’t have to name

    what was breaking underneath my calm.

    The world kept spinning.

    The sky kept pretending.

    And I sat there measuring my life

    in sips and seconds,

    wondering when stillness

    started feeling heavier

    than motion ever did.

  • I Was High Then

    I was high then—

    I couldn’t face things

    the way they stood in front of me,

    bare and demanding.

    I needed the blur,

    the soft edges,

    the lie that told me

    tomorrow could wait.

    Reality was too sharp,

    asking questions I didn’t have answers for,

    holding mirrors I didn’t want to look into.

    So I floated above it,

    called it coping,

    called it freedom,

    anything but fear.

    I wasn’t chasing joy—

    I was running from myself,

    from the weight of being present

    in a life that hurt to touch.

    Now I see it clearer:

    I wasn’t weak,

    just overwhelmed.

    I didn’t want to disappear—

    I just didn’t know

    how to stay.

  • Voice of Addiction

    You whisper like you know me,

    like you built me,

    like I wouldn’t be standing here

    without you holding my hand.

    But listen closely—

    I’m not yours anymore.

    I hear you in the quiet moments,

    trying to slip back into my breath,

    telling me you can make it easier,

    that you can take the weight off my shoulders.

    But you never carried anything

    except pieces of me

    you stole.

    You say you miss me.

    I don’t doubt it.

    Parasites always miss the body

    they drain.

    You say I was better with you—

    no, I was quieter,

    numb,

    half-alive,

    a shadow of the person

    you were killing slowly.

    You were never comfort.

    You were a cage.

    So let me be clear:

    I don’t need you

    to feel less.

    I’m learning how to feel

    and still survive.

    You can whisper all you want—

    but I’m done mistaking your voice

    for my own.

    This time,

    I walk away.

    This time,

    I choose breath over burning,

    light over lies,

    life over you.

  • Happiness in Sobriety (I Still Miss the High)

    Photo Credit: Frankie Cordoba

    They don’t tell you this part—

    sobriety doesn’t erase the memories.

    I still miss the high.

    I miss the numb,

    the blur,

    the way the world melted just long enough

    for me to forget I was hurting.

    There are days I crave the nothingness,

    days when pain feels louder than progress,

    when the urge whispers,

    “One more time won’t kill you.”

    But I know better—

    it almost did.

    More than once.

    Sobriety isn’t a clean break.

    It’s a war with the version of myself

    who still thinks relief comes in liquid,

    in powder,

    in pills,

    in poison that used to feel like peace.

    I don’t stay sober because I stopped wanting the high.

    I stay sober because I finally realized

    the high never loved me back.

    It just made the fall quieter.

    It made the pain delayed—

    not gone.

    Now happiness is different.

    It’s small.

    Subtle.

    Hard-earned.

    It comes in mornings I don’t regret,

    in nights I remember,

    in breathing that doesn’t taste like escape.

    I don’t always feel strong.

    But I feel present.

    And maybe that’s what living really is—

    missing the high

    and still choosing the heartbeat.

  • 3:00 A.M. Confession

    Do you drown out your sorrows

    with whiskey, cocaine,

    a 3:00 a.m. panic

    and a prayer for change?

    Do your hands shake

    when the silence gets too loud,

    when your heart forgets

    what calm feels like?

    Do you chase peace

    the same way you chased the high —

    desperate, trembling,

    half alive, half gone?

    Because I do.

    Every night I beg the dark

    to let me start over,

    and every morning,

    I wake up still burning.

  • Fragile

    Recovery isn’t the clean, steady climb people imagine it to be.

    It’s not a straight line, and it’s not always inspiring.

    Sometimes it’s messy and painful — full of steps backward, relapses of thought, and nights spent questioning whether I’m really getting better or just getting used to the ache.

    I’m fragile in recovery.

    I wake up some days full of hope, and by nightfall, I’m drowning in doubt again. The smallest thing — a memory, a song, a smell — can pull me back into the dark, and I hate how easily I break. But breaking is part of it. Healing doesn’t mean the cracks disappear; it means learning how to live with them.

    People think recovery is about strength, but I’ve learned it’s mostly about endurance — about showing up when your hands are still shaking. About forgiving yourself when you fall apart again, even after promising you wouldn’t.

    There’s no finish line here.

    No moment where I suddenly become whole again.

    There’s just me — fragile, trembling, trying.

    And maybe that’s enough.

    Maybe being fragile in recovery means I’m still fighting,

    still choosing life,

    even when the weight of it threatens to break me.

  • Why Is Sobriety a Big Fucking Deal, and Why Do I Not Care to Have It?

    People talk about sobriety like it’s the prize at the end of some brutal marathon. You crawl through addiction, you drag yourself through the mud, and if you’re lucky enough to survive, you get to hold up sobriety like a trophy. And I get it. For families, for doctors, for the people who almost lost you, it is a big fucking deal. It means they don’t have to bury you. It means you live to see another day.

    But living and wanting to live are two different things.

    Sobriety is supposed to give you your life back. What no one tells you is that sometimes the life you get back isn’t the one you want. You’re suddenly left without the rituals that made the hard days bearable. No glass of whiskey to unwind. No chemical escape hatch when the walls close in. Just you — sober, raw, restless. And if you didn’t like yourself much to begin with, staring that person in the face every day without a buffer feels like punishment, not freedom.

    That’s the cruel irony: sobriety is celebrated because it saves lives, but it doesn’t always feel like living. It feels like existing. Like standing still in a world that keeps moving. Like being handed back a version of yourself that’s patched together but missing all the edges you thought made you interesting.

    And maybe that’s what pisses me off the most. People expect you to be grateful. To glow with this new appreciation for mornings and coffee and “clarity.” But sometimes sobriety feels like sitting in a quiet room while everyone else is at the party. Sometimes it feels like being alive when you don’t know what to do with the days you’ve been given.

    So why is sobriety a big fucking deal? Because it saves lives, and that matters. Why do I not care to have it? Because I wanted more than just survival. I wanted to feel alive, even if it burned me.