Secret Letters: Writing & Sobriety đ·
Getting sober changed my relationship to writing. Here's how.
Welcome to Secret Letters, a paid subscriber perk of Letters from the Homestead. These monthly letters are exactly what you think: secret dispatches that feel a little too vulnerable to put in a free newsletter.
Thank you, as always, for reading and being a supporter of my work.
Twenty two months.
Iâve been sober from alcohol for twenty two months. Almost two years. If you told me a decade ago that I wouldâve quit drinking and stuck with it, I wouldnât have believed you. I loved it all too muchâthe taste, the ambient vibes, the dive bars, the grandpa pubs, the way everyone loosens up after half a glass of wine, the way it seemed to quiet my head. All of it, I loved. All of it, I treasured.
Except for when I didnât treasure it anymore. Thatâs another, much longer story.
Thatâs the thing about alcohol. You can love it, but it has no obligation to love you back.
The beginning of my sobriety surprised me for all kinds of reasons. Eliminating something unhealthy was supposed to make my life generally better, but instead it seemed like a continuously scrolling argument for why my life was better when I was drinking.