One of my group colleagues presented her family tree today. It’s strange how something as simple as a chart with names and lines can open doors you’ve kept locked for decades. She walked us through her childhood, layer by layer, story by story. A bit reluctant and also things she had never shared with a single person before.

I’ve been lied to enough timesthat the words started sounding like prophecy.Useless.Hopeless.Broken beyond repair.

Last afternoon was my fourth meeting in the program, and somehow each session manages to go deeper than the last. It was one of those afternoons where you walk in expecting “just another step,” but end up leaving with something that stays in your chest long after you’ve driven home.

The sunlight hits me in a way I don’t deservesoft, forgiving,like it doesn’t knowwhat I did last night.

Today was my third day in the 12-week treatment program, and I felt like a few of the pieces started to fall into place. Not the emotional part, that one’s been loud for years, but the biological part. The mechanical part.

There’s a voice in me

Today was the second day of my 12-week program, and for the first time in a long time, I felt like I wasn’t just “a person with a problem.”I was a person with a system, a brain, a history, genetics, stress responses, memories, all interacting in a way that explains why alcohol became my escape, my reward, and eventually my prison.

I was born with restless feetand a bottle hidden in my shadow.Every road I walkedwas just another way of leaving myself behind.

There are seasons to my downfall,a tide that knows my name.It rises in the quiet hourswhen no one’s watching,when the world stops demandingand my mind starts whispering.

I walked the long streets with a bottle in my hand,pretending every swallow was strengthand not surrender.

They all want something a piece of me,a promise,a future I can’t keep steady.

I’ve thrown fists at the world,but the worst blowswere always the ones I aimed at myself.