The past few weeks have been a blur. Not just the “what day is it” confusion between Christmas and New Years. Part of it was because of the flu, but if I’m being honest, a bigger part was the over-the-counter medication I took to manage the symptoms. I generally avoid most OTC meds because many of them contain pseudoephedrine hydrochloride. For me, that stuff might as well be speed. Even at recommended doses, it wires me, scrambles my sleep, and knocks my nervous system completely off balance. It’s always a debate, feel like crap from the flu physically and mentally or take OTC and feel OK physically but stoned.
So between being sick and chemically overstimulated, my body pretty much hit the brakes. Hard.
I was mostly bedridden, which meant more screen time than I usually allow myself. And yes, that turned into a fair amount of doom scrolling on Threads, especially in sobriety spaces. Newcomers sharing fear, hope, desperation, relief. People counting days. People counting minutes. People asking if it ever gets easier.
Even sick, even foggy, I still found myself responding. Encouraging. Reassuring. Being of service in the only way I really could from bed.
That part didn’t surprise me.
What maybe did surprise me was how much I felt pulled to share that this was my 40th sober Christmas and New Year’s. I don’t always talk about numbers, but this one mattered to me. Not as a badge, not as a victory lap, but as a quiet way of saying: this can last. Even when life gets messy. Even when your body betrays you. Even when you’re flat on your back scrolling a little too much.
I didn’t relapse.
I didn’t spiral.
But I did override my body for a bit by trying to “push through” with medication that I already know doesn’t work well for me.
That’s not a failure. It’s information.
Healing, sobriety, and emotional sobriety all seem to come back to the same lesson eventually: listening sooner instead of later. Respecting limits before they turn into consequences. Letting rest actually be rest, not something you earn by suffering first.
This wasn’t a big insight week. It was a maintenance week. And sometimes that’s the work.
