Paralyzed by Doubt, Saved by Hope: My Path from Addiction to Freedom

By: Holly Wilson

One of my favorite songs is “I Go Back” by Kenny Chesney. In it, he sings about how songs like “Jack and Diane” and “Only the Good Die Young” take him back to “another place and time.” As Kenny sings about the smell of chicken on Sunday after church and how he lost a good friend at the age of 16, he paints a vivid picture of his childhood growing up in East Tennessee. Kenny’s song can take anyone from a small town right back to their own childhood, me included.

I had an “I go back” moment recently while I was walking one morning at the dog park. I was listening to John Mayer on Google Music when “Gravity” came on. As I listened to John’s powerful guitar and equally powerful lyrics, I was immediately taken back, not to my childhood but to a night in 2006. 

It was a crisp November evening in Sandy Springs, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta. I was 34 years old, newly divorced and living alone for the first time in my life, with only my cat and a bottle of red wine to keep me company. I sat on my apartment balcony wrapped in a blanket, staring out at the iconic King and Queen buildings nearby, and questioning how and why my marriage fell apart. I left the door ajar so I could hear a John Mayer concert playing inside on TV. When John sang “Gravity,” which he had just released a couple of months earlier, I hung on every word.

“Gravity is working against me

And gravity wants to bring me down

Oh, I’ll never know 

What makes this man, with all the love that his heart can stand

Dream of ways to throw it all away

Gravity is working against me

And gravity wants to bring me down

Oh, twice as much ain’t twice as good

And can’t sustain like one half could

It’s wanting more that’s gonna send me to my knees

Gravity, stay the hell away from me

Gravity has taken better men than me

Now, how can that be?

Just keep me where the light is

Just keep me where the light is

Just keep me where the light is

Come on, keep me where the light is

Come on, keep me where the light is

Come on, keep me where, now, keep me where the light is."

As the song reached its crescendo, I half sang and half shouted John’s repeated pleas to "keep me where the light is,” hugging my knees close to my chest and ugly crying all at the same time. Looking back, I believe I was calling out to God in my moment of despair. But at the time, I couldn’t see past my pain. So I numbed it. I finished that bottle of wine, opened another, and spent the rest of the night alternating between drinking and sobbing. I eventually curled up on the cold concrete balcony floor and passed out.

Often when I hear “Gravity,” I replay that painful scene in my mind. It hit me differently this time, though, as I recalled something I learned while I was training to be a certified alcohol-free life coach through the This Naked Mind Institute by Annie Grace.

During the training, renowned business growth strategist Myron Golden explained that as humans we have a choice when something happens to us. We can choose hope, or we can choose doubt. Hope is the belief in an outcome we desire. It creates a feeling of anticipation and floods the body with energy that leads to positive action. Doubt, on the other hand, is the belief in an outcome we are afraid of. Doubt creates a feeling of anxiety, which paralyzes us. 

In fall 2006, I chose doubt. I doubted that I would ever be loved again. I doubted that I was good enough. I doubted that I was worthy. I became paralyzed with anxiety. I couldn’t see the proverbial forest, so I stayed among the wine bottles.

To be honest, I had abused alcohol long before my divorce, binge drinking at social and corporate functions for years to overcome social anxiety. But the moment I chose to use alcohol to numb my pain and escape from my reality, is the moment I became dependent upon it. 

I spent the next decade slowly slipping into addiction. Unlike other drugs that hook people the first time they try them, alcohol is more insidious, often taking years to fully take over a person’s life. As Annie Grace explains in her book This Naked Mind, alcohol works like the pitcher plant that attracts insects with a sweet nectar along its rim. The insects land on the plant and start drinking the nectar. What they don’t realize is the rim gives way to a slippery slope. The more nectar they drink, the farther they slide into the plant. By the time they realize what is happening and try to fly away, they can’t. So they fall into the cavity at the bottom where the plant’s enzymes digest them.

With alcohol, by the time we realize we are addicted, often we are too far down the pitcher plant to easily fly away. I praise God every day that I made it out before I fell all the way in. I didn’t experience a dramatic rock bottom moment like many people who get sober do. But I had enough hungover days filled with anxiety and depression that I finally decided I had to make a change. I was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. 

In September 2020, I finally chose hope. I signed up for an online alcohol reset challenge with SoberSis that began my alcohol-free journey and changed my life. Just as my slide into addiction was gradual, it took time to become completely free from alcohol. I spent a year stringing together weeks of sobriety interspersed with weeks of “moderation” when I tried to regulate my drinking. During this time I learned a lot about alcohol, our society that constantly pushes it, and my own internal beliefs and feelings that caused me to drink it in the first place. 

When I signed up for the alcohol challenge, I had no intention of completely giving it up. I just wanted to regain control over it. But over time I changed the way I feel about alcohol and I created new beliefs that it doesn’t serve me. I have been living joyfully and completely alcohol free since November 11, 2021. I no longer crave alcohol because I no longer desire it. And that is true freedom!

If you are struggling and want to change your relationship with alcohol, please reach out to me at [email protected]. As painful as my past was, I wouldn’t change it because it has brought me to this place and time where I can help others overcome addiction and discover joyful alcohol-free lives that they no longer wish to numb or escape. I am proof that there is hope on the other side of doubt, joy on the other side of pain.

Come on, keep me where the light is.