Sobriety Series: Learning to Stay
Radical non-interference, staying with our inner voice amidst waves of loss and change, recent must-reads
If you’re new to Sober Soulful, welcome! The Sobriety Series includes a letter with support for changing unhelpful patterns and finding serenity, plus a link-up of provocative listens and reads. You can upgrade your subscription for full access here:
Dearest Reader,
I’ll be leaving almost everything soon: a country, a continent, parts of myself and my story. Leaving holds a particular thrill, momentum, and magic. I’m stepping out of one version, into another.
If you too are leaving something behind—a substance or behavior, perhaps—maybe you’re feeling this too. Let yourself. Feel it. Open wide to possibility and the unknown and aliveness. Because while it may feel unsteady or scary or even altogether wrong, this kind of change holds powerful gifts. Here in the turbulence. Here in the newness and intensity that can’t and won’t last forever.
By leaving something behind, we’re also learning to stay with the small, true voice inside of us. One that offers an alternative to numbing and distracting. One that understands our needs and how to meet them. One attuned to our deepest values, our greatest loves, what really matters.
Sometimes that voice is hard to hear—especially in this day and age. But it’s in there—always has been, always will be. And it just so happens that leaving something behind and learning to stay can reconnect us. More on that process below.
You’ll also find this month’s links, featuring (sometimes intense, sometimes confronting) explorations of:
Ozempic, including as relates to eating disorders, food-related addictions, and addiction generally
The exhaustion of justification and denial…and the relief of honesty and surrender
What remains and who we become when we quit social media
What a “safe space” is and isn’t
The harm of othering
The limits of empathy
The newsletter on my daily read list
The book on my must-read list
Accessing the part of us that’s greater and more whole than whatever we call ourselves and whatever stories we tell
As always, you’ll find links applicable to addiction recovery in the conventional sense, but also a more expansive one—one that applies more widely to being a human in these times and bringing awareness to our patterns.
As you click through, I encourage you to consider these reads using the lens and language that you find most helpful, whether that’s the language of addiction and sobriety, attachment and letting go, bringing awareness to our patterns, taking personal accountability, or declaring agency over our choices.
