The Morning After

As the year turns, a familiar story often rises:
New resolutions.
Big declarations.
Fresh starts.

That’s not how change has come for me.

It arrives quietly—
in the difference between two mornings.

Yesterday, I sat to meditate.
Fifteen minutes felt heavy.
The body was sluggish.
The mind scattered.
Fog lingered from the night before.
I had drunk too much.

There was no insight.
Just resistance.

And still, I stayed.
Not gracefully.
Not perfectly.
But I stayed.

That alone mattered.

Because devotion isn’t a feeling.
It’s a rhythm—
especially when the moment feels dull,
when nothing opens,
when the body wants to escape.

Today was different.

I sat again.
And without forcing anything, a clear recognition rose:

Alcohol is a force that dims.

Not in dramatic ways.
Not in ways that always look like crisis.
But in subtle ones—
the kind that quietly shape
what you can access.

Energy.
Clarity.
Desire.
Direction.

It adds resistance.
It takes the morning.
It takes the clean edge of attention.

I’m not writing from shame.
Or punishment.
Or the need to be “good.”

I’m writing from observation.

When you meditate consistently,
you notice what’s real.
Not what you justify.
Not what you tolerate.

But what is actually happening
inside the body,
inside the mind,
inside the energy.

And what I saw was simple:
When I drink,
everything becomes harder than it needs to be.

My intuition grows quieter.
My nervous system more reactive.
My creativity delayed.
My motivation conditional.

The life I want—
the one that feels aligned—
requires steadiness.
Presence.
A mind that doesn’t need to numb to be okay.

For a long time, alcohol felt like:
a treat, a release, a softening.

Now it feels like:
a dimming, a postponement,
a step out of my own life.

And I don’t want to step out anymore.

Not when I’m finally building something true.
Not when my energy has become sacred.
Not when I can feel what’s possible.

What surprised me most wasn’t the realization.
It was how it arrived.

Yesterday—hungover, low—
there was no wisdom. Today—
clearer, quieter—
it surfaced on its own.

That’s cause and effect.
Not as idea.
As lived experience.

Remove the noise, and you can hear.
When you can hear, you can choose.

This is the change I trust now.

Not dramatic vows.
Not manic reinvention.
Just a calm recognition that
something no longer aligns.

And that life responds when I honor what’s true.

I know, deep in my body,
that choosing to be alcohol-free will be a catalyst.

One habit. One choice.
Rippling outward.

Not because sobriety makes you better—
but because it makes you clearer.

And clarity changes everything.

How you wake.
How you respond.
How you create.
How you listen.
How you return to yourself.

I’m curious about what the next year
could hold without that subtle resistance.

Not performatively.
Practically.
Energetically.

What happens when mornings are clean?
When meditation isn’t recovery?
When energy stops leaking?

I don’t want a smaller life.
I want an honest one—
one that can hold what I’m asking for.

So I’m choosing to explore.
To experiment.
To see what opens when I stop
dimming the signal.

This isn’t an identity.
It’s a practice.
A quiet devotion to the life
that’s been calling.

If you feel a similar nudge—
subtle, persistent, easy to ignore—
consider this a reminder:

You don’t need a breakdown to change.
Sometimes it’s enough to notice what
makes everything harder than it needs to be.

And choose differently.

With quiet gratitude for this shared rhythm.