Ten weird things my alcoholic brain still does in recovery — and why none of them run my life anymore.

I've been in recovery since 2015. I relapsed around seven and a half years in, and I'm back — a year and a half sober again. This is a solo one: just me laughing at my own brain out loud, because I'm convinced it works differently than someone who doesn't have this thing. For me, alcoholism is a disease of perception — I'm the center, everyone else is just orbiting, and I only ever get my own lens.

So I made a list of the patterns I still catch myself running. The arguments I win against strangers who have no idea we're fighting. The "must be nice" my brain mutters when I clock someone else using. The full movie of every possible outcome it insists on screening before anything's even happened. Some of it's funny. Some of it is the exact thinking that used to drink at me. Most of it, I'd bet, you'll recognize.

Here's the part that matters: today I can watch all of it happen and just go, "oh, I'm doing that thing again" — and let it pass. The space between the thought and the action gets bigger. It gets quieter. That's what showing up does.

If you're in it right now and can't stop drinking or using: keep showing up. Find someone in recovery who has what you want, and do what they did. Simple, not easy.

If no one's told you today — I love you. Recovery is simple, not easy.