Trading One Crutch for Another?

Teez Testimony

Welcome to another Teez Testimony

If you are new here, let me set the tone real quick.

These Soulful posts are not fiction. Not storytelling. Not me dressing things up to sound prettier or more palatable.

This is my real life.

As it is. As it has been. The messy parts. The healing parts. The parts I am still figuring out.

These posts exist so you can see where I have been, where I am standing now, and how I am actively overcoming the BS that was never meant to stay with me.

No filters. No characters. Just truth.

Normally, this is where I say “Happy Sunday.” But yesterday got full. Church, work, and then my eyes decided they were absolutely not interested in staring at a screen any longer.

Add in a lack of drive and a need to listen to my body, and here we are.

It’s Monday.

And honestly… why wait another week because I missed the day?

This reflection was still calling to be shared. The message did not expire because the calendar flipped a page.

Growth does not check the day of the week before showing up, and healing certainly does not wait for perfect timing.

So if you are reading this today, thank you for being here. Thank you for sitting with my truth.

These testimonies are sacred to me, and I share them freely because I know someone out there needs the reminder that where you are right now is not where you will stay.

Let me just begin. But first? 👇

Today (well, now yesterday) feels like a confession, but also like a checkpoint.

I have been in active recovery from meth for over a year now.

That sentence still feels heavy and sacred at the same time. I am proud of the distance I have put between myself and that life.

I am proud that I chose survival. I am proud that I wake up clear-eyed enough to choose each day.

And still, here I am.

Tequila has quietly slid back into the space meth once occupied. Not loudly. Not destructively in the obvious ways.

Just… comfortably. Conveniently. Socially acceptable. Wrapped in a salt rim and a laugh. Or so we say.

I tell myself I have it under control. And, in some ways, I do. (I have been an alcoholic before, I know what it consists of and what it ends with)

I can go without it when I have to. Work nights, responsibilities, obligations. No withdrawals. No spirals. No chaos.

But when I do not have to go without it, I want it.

That part matters.

I notice I reach for a drink when the house is quiet. When boredom creeps in. When the silence feels too loud.

I notice how it loosens my thoughts, how stories pour out more easily, how words flirt with the page when tequila is nearby.

• Creativity feels flirtier

• Bolder

• Less guarded

But it comes at a cost.

• Sleep has become a struggle

• Restless nights

• Shallow dreams

• Waking up tired even when my body technically slept

• My nervous system does not lie, even when my mind tries to negotiate

This is the part of recovery no one romanticizes.

The part where you stop asking, “Is this ruining my life?” and start asking, “Is this quietly stealing from it?”

I am not writing this to shame myself. Shame has never healed me. Never will.

I am writing this because honesty has.

Because recovery is not a finish line.

It is a series of truths you have to be brave enough to say out loud.

I am learning that my brain likes escapes. That boredom feels dangerous to me. That creativity does not actually require intoxication, even if it feels easier with it.

That rest is not laziness. It is medicine.

I do not know yet what my relationship with alcohol will become.

I am still listening. Still noticing. Still choosing awareness over denial. But I have been here before in myself. (2016, the epic 20-year marriage fail)

So, I know what it will not become.

So, today’s testimony is not “I’ve conquered this.”
It is “I see this.”

And sometimes seeing is the bravest step forward.

If you are reading this and quietly recognizing yourself, know that…

You are not weak for wanting relief. You are human. But relief that costs your peace eventually asks for more than it gives.

I am choosing to keep telling the truth. Even when it is unfinished. Especially then.

And for today, that is enough.

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Before you go, I want to say this.

If anything in this stirred something in you, if you felt seen a little too closely, or if you are carrying something heavy and quietly convincing yourself you have to handle it alone… You do not.

You can reach out to me. Truly. If you need someone to listen, to hold space, just to let you be without judgment or solutions, I am here.

Sometimes we do not need advice. We just need another human to witness us and say, “I see you.”

We all struggle. Every single one of us.

Some battles are loud, some are private, some look put together on the outside and chaotic on the inside. None of that makes you weak. It makes you human.

If today all you can do is breathe and keep going, that is enough. If you are in the middle of your own unfinished healing, you are not failing. You are becoming.

Thank you for sitting with my truth. Thank you for trusting me with yours, even if it is only in your heart for now.

You are not alone here.💋