In this article, author Laura Antonia Jordan candidly talks about her own experience of quitting alcohol, her fear of failure, and why celebrities' public confessions about returning to alcohol can be important and supportive for others.
A scene from the TV series “Sex and the City”
January 2016—ten years ago—was the last time I drank alcohol in my life. The day I had my last drink, I didn’t know I had my last drink in my hand. The phrase “never again” sounded as familiar to me as “one more?”—a rhetorical question with no real choice. I had no plans to stop drinking and using drugs. The main reason was simple: I didn’t believe I could quit. The drinking until I lost control, the memory lapses, the tears, the falls, the unexplained bruises, the cuts at strangers’ kitchen tables—it wasn’t just a part of my life. It was who I thought I was. Until it wasn’t true.
That January, I finally hit my “bottom.” It was almost no different from dozens of other crisis moments before. But this time, something about the situation really scared me, shocked me, and at the same time completely exhausted me. I felt afraid, tired, and bored with repeating the same cycle. That’s when I decided to take action. With the support of kind, caring, and patient people, I started from scratch and took the first steps on the path to sobriety and recovery.
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This is where stories like this usually end. I was bad and I became good. Chaos gave way to order, darkness to light, alcohol and cigarettes to green juices and smoothies. It's a comfortable, satisfying story with a clear resolution and a simple conclusion. Everything seems to fall into place. Credits. The end.
But it was really just the beginning. The beginning of a more complex, deeper, and much more honest story of sobriety, addiction, and recovery. We often say—and I do too—”I quit drinking,” as if it were a to-do list item that can be checked off once and for all. But sobriety and recovery from alcoholism are an ongoing process. It doesn't become static over time. It remains alive and changing. Sometimes I have to hold on to my sobriety very tightly, as if I might lose it. Most of the time, I have it pretty easy.
A scene from the TV series “Sex and the City”
Reasons for drinking, I’ve come to understand, always exist. Sometimes they are serious and painful—grief, loss, intense emotional pain. It’s hard to judge someone at such moments. Sometimes these reasons are petty and almost funny. For example, orange wine has become popular. Why not try it? I haven’t acted on these thoughts yet. But I would be dishonest if I said that they don’t arise and don’t linger longer than I’m comfortable with. I hope that my last drink was exactly ten years ago. I believe it. But I also understand that I can’t know for sure.
For many people, a breakdown is part of the journey to sobriety. I haven't had a breakdown in ten years, but I've had many failed attempts to quit drinking before. Breakdowns don't fit into the convenient “and they lived a long and sober life” scenario. That's why they're often kept quiet about them. It's easy to call a person weak after a breakdown or say they're “not ready yet.” Shame, fear, disappointment, and embarrassment are all reasons for silence.
Meanwhile, a new, bolder openness is emerging in conversations about addiction, sobriety, and breakdowns. Last week, actress Natasha Lyonne wrote in X: “I’ve made my breakdown public. There will be more to come.” She later added: “Recovery is a lifelong process. If you’re struggling right now, remember: you’re not alone. We’re only as sick as our secrets are. If no one told you this today, I love you.” That same week, Chrissy Teigen revealed that she had been sober for 52 days since her last breakdown. “After a year of sobriety, I started drinking again. I promised myself I would do it consciously,” she wrote on Instagram, explaining how her drinking had gradually escalated. “It wasn’t a slurred speech binge or a fall down the stairs. It was a quiet, regular binge. And I felt terrible.”
Natasha Lyonne in the series “Matryoshka”
Natasha Lyonne and Chrissy Teigen, like any of us, don't have to explain their experiences with addiction or breakdown to anyone. But such public confessions take a lot of courage. Their openness helps others not feel alone in their own struggles with alcoholism. Even those who seem successful and flawless can have problems with addiction.
Life always looks more complicated and less organized from the inside. If I had been asked ten years ago to imagine myself sober in the future, I wouldn’t have taken it seriously. In my imagination, such a woman would have been calm, poised, perfectly put-together, with glossy hair and a wardrobe of neutral colors. The reality turned out to be different. Sober life can be nerve-wracking, uneven, and far from ideal.
This doesn't mean that sobriety didn't bring me inner peace. It did. But I realized something important: when you quit alcohol or any other substance, the addiction itself doesn't go away. The reasons you drank or used remain. Alcohol dulls the sharp sensations of life. Without it, pain relief is sometimes very difficult. For a person with an addiction, any substance initially supports, but then begins to destroy.
Paris Jackson also spoke openly about this. She wrote that sobriety does not make life perfect. A few years after giving up alcohol, it became very difficult for her. She admitted that she did not have the skills that would help her cope with reality without the usual mechanisms. She had to learn to live on the terms of life itself. The ability to accept life as it is is a universal challenge, regardless of whether a person has an addiction.
I have tried many times to understand why I drank in this way. There is still no clear answer. In the simplest terms, it can be explained as follows: I have always had a hard time being myself. I experience emotions very deeply, and sometimes it seems that I am not enough to withstand them. Sometimes I still look for ways to drown out the inner noise and feelings of loneliness. Addiction can change forms. In my case, it was shopping, relationships, work and food. At the beginning of sobriety, I gained a lot of weight when I discovered sugar. The only difference is that now I know how to notice these substitutions and understand when they start to harm.
If you've never dealt with alcohol addiction or seen someone close to you struggle with it, you may think this story doesn't apply to you. But it doesn't. The honest stories of sobriety, failure, and recovery hold an important reminder: There is no perfect path. Mistakes, failures, and difficult moments happen to everyone. What matters is how we move forward. As Natasha Lyonne wrote, “Keep moving forward.” We have no other choice.
Based on material from vogue.co.uk