Hello, my name is Jamie, and I’m an alcoholic.

Well… I say that with some hesitation. When most people hear the word “alcoholic,” they picture the movie stereotype—the angry guy who beats his wife and drinks until he burns his life to the ground.

That’s not me.

I’m not the guy who takes one drink and spirals into a blackout. I don’t carry a flask, and I’m not the dude who always has a beer in his hand. In fact, for most of my life, alcohol was just social. I’d get wasted with friends once in a while, have a few nights of drinking, and then go months without touching it.

Things didn’t start unraveling until a few years ago, around the time my mom passed away. That’s when my drinking stopped being social and started becoming something else entirely.

At first, I resisted the label. I told myself, You don’t drink every day. You’re not out of control. But when I tried to quit—and couldn’t—I had to face the truth. My behavior fit the profile. I was drinking nearly every day. I struggled to stop. That was the wake-up call.

And I think there are a lot of people out there like me. People who don’t fit the “classic” image of an alcoholic, so they assume they’re not one. But the truth is, alcoholism doesn’t always look like a wrecking ball. Sometimes, it’s a slow, quiet slide you don’t notice until you’re halfway down.

Not Born This Way

I used to think alcoholics were just born different. They were people with addictive personalities or some faulty gene that made them powerless around booze. And sure, maybe that’s true for some.

But I think for most of us, alcoholism sneaks up over time.

I didn’t drink as a teen. I had a decent childhood. No major trauma. No chaos. But when the pain started showing up later in life—real pain—I started using alcohol to manage it.

And that’s where it started to get dangerous.

Alcohol as Medication

Here’s what I’ve learned: alcoholism, at its core, is a form of self-medication.

It’s not about the party. It’s about the pain.

Some pain is temporary. You feel it, your body responds, and eventually it fades. But some pain lingers. It sets up camp and refuses to leave. That’s the kind of pain that drives people to numb out. Emotional pain. Physical pain. Existential pain.

For me, alcohol helped mask the grief of losing my mom. The identity crisis that came with leaving my teaching career. The insecurity that followed.

At one point, I also battled chronic back pain for seven years. When you’re living in constant physical pain, you’ll do anything to escape it. And alcohol worked… until it didn’t.

Because here’s the thing: painkillers are addictive. Alcohol is no different. The more you use it to numb pain, the more you rely on it. And the more you rely on it, the more you lose control.

Eventually, the only way out is to stop numbing and start healing.

The Boredom of Sobriety

Which brings me back to today.

As of today, I’ve been sober for five months. That’s the longest stretch I’ve had since 2016, when my life first started unraveling.

But let me be clear: I didn’t get here in one try.

I decided to quit drinking on July 16, 2023. It’s now May 2025. That’s a hell of a long time for only five months sober. I’ve had one other good stretch—about four and a half months—and dozens of relapses in between.

So if you’re struggling to stack days together, I get it. Sometimes just getting through today is the win. And that’s okay.

But here’s the truth: you can’t just white-knuckle your way to sobriety. You need a plan. You need to understand your pain and figure out how to manage it without the bottle.

That’s the first task.

The second? Learning to live life differently. And that includes learning to be bored.

I don’t think we talk enough about the boredom of sobriety. Once the fog lifts and the hangovers stop, there’s this strange quiet that sets in. The days get predictable. The weekends drag. The little voice in your head starts whispering: Wouldn’t a drink make this more fun?

For me, that boredom has been more dangerous than the pain.

I’ve lost more sobriety sitting in my apartment on a Friday night, bored out of my skull, than I ever did during emotional breakdowns.

Fighting the Boredom Blues

So here’s what I do now when boredom creeps in.

I get up out of my chair, put on Pandora, and dance like an idiot to a few songs. It sounds silly, but it works. It gets my body moving, my heart pumping, and my mood lifted. It reminds me that I don’t need alcohol to feel good.

And that’s the trick: finding new ways to interrupt the cycle. To bring joy back into your life without relying on the bottle. It doesn’t have to be big. It just has to work.

Sobriety isn’t just the absence of alcohol. It’s the presence of a new way to live. And yeah, it’s uncomfortable at first. But it gets better. You start to build momentum. You remember who you were before the numbing started.

So if you’re out there struggling—whether it’s your first day or your fiftieth—just know this:

You’re not alone. You’re not broken. And you’ve come too far to go back now.