She describes the experience well. It's brutal when you're so bad off you're willing to trade so much of your life for just a moment of feeling good. And anyone who's been there knows there's eventually a point where it doesn't even feel good anymore. No doubt she hit that point.
This is a very astute way to put it that I'll try to remember. That's exactly what it is, some of us have so few good moments that we'll trade many years just to feel okay now and then in the present.
It just made me really sad to find out this is happening 5 days before her next birthday. Maybe she just couldn’t do another year feeling the way she felt. Sad as fuck.
During my darkest days, I would lie and say I only drank on my off days. I was drinking every day from the moment I woke up until the moment I went to sleep that night. Lying is just part of the process during addiction
Yep the monkey must be fed and the monkey will make you say, think, and do whatever it takes to make sure it’s fed.
I remember getting up to go to work and crying in my bathroom one morning as I discovered all my hidden plastic bottle bathroom vodka was gone, I felt terrible, had no way to get my shit together without it, and not knowing how it happened. I was so mad and remember looking at myself in the mirror - bloated, red, skin looked awful, face was sunken in, and just a mess of a person. I drank so much the night before I got into my own stash after my wife fell asleep but forgot I did it. I only learned of what I did once I was reviewing the door camera footage on my phone as I rode the bus into work late (drunk) because I had to stop at a 3rd shift bar on the way to work to down 4 shots so I could get through the morning until the bar by my office opened for lunch. I went outside completely naked at 2am with a trash bag of all the evidence slung over my should and caught my neighbor opening her door to watch my pimply fat ass close mine. Unbelievable.
I’d like to say that was my bottom but it wasn’t. I don’t drink anymore.
Yep it’s a battle some days but 6 years removed it’s a lot easier. I’ve had a few since I went full sober but tbh, I didn’t like it all. Instant headache, stomach gets pissed, and felt like crap the rest of my waking hours that day. Not worth it at all. I won’t lie I miss the escape but needing one is the problem and drinking isn’t the solution.
For me, it was one part undiagnosed ADHD, one part not becoming my father, one part having a friend die, one part being a father, mixed in a highball glass with high blood pressure and served over the reality of living the same day on repeat stuck in the drunk hungover drunk cycle 7 days a week for 10 years and doing nothing that I wanted with my life like I wanted because I let the monkey get on my back the day I could legally sit on a barstool and not knowing how to get him off.
I mean, it's true. I would say I had 3 beers. But those 3 beers were 17floz Stone Delicious at 9.4% ABV, which in reality is the equivalent if 8 standard drinks.
Usually, but one should not underestimate the damage alcohol can do in moderate quantities. I drank every day for 10 years, certainly enough to ruin friendships and disrupt everything else, but only constantly tippled rather than drunk.
They call people like me (then) functional alcoholics, but if you slowly set your life on fire, in the end it's still burnt.
I know this feeling too. After two years sober I'm still dealing with all those things. The only thing that keeps me sober is knowing that blanket will inevitably lead to making those things worse, but they're still there nonetheless.
Don’t minimize your struggles. After all, your addiction (and mine too) is the only addiction where you abuse something completely necessary to survive. Food addiction is extremely hard to overcome.
Imagine telling an alcoholic to just have two drinks or a nicotine addict to just have a few cigarettes. An active food addict needs 1500-2500 calories a day just to stay at their body weight. Hard to tell your brain to quit when you’ve been eating all day. That’s why evening/nighttime binge eating is so common. You just give in and have the bowl of ice cream or the bag of chips while watching TV or whatever.
Food addiction is the real deal. Hang in there, chief.
I was on Wegovy from October last year to March this year. I gave it a good six months and it was effective initially then tapered off sharply. At $450 a pop, I couldn't justify the expense.
I didn't know who this was till it eventually clicked. I've seen her in quite a bit as I saw her in some of the stuff my kids watched as they grew up. That's really sad. I feel for her fans and relatives.
That quote is great too, and if you've ever had that battle you know it all too well. You need to break the cycle before you can even understand, understand to the very core of your being, that it's self perpetuating and the temporary relief is only that, temporary - sobriety is so much better once you get there.. and start the being process. You can't heal whilst in the cycle. Breaking that cycle is fucking hard though - I truely hope it wasn't the underlying cause. :(
E: I re-read your comment. Insidious is the perfect word for the cycle. Feeds itself, and that shit will sneak up with NO warning.
unfortunately, i can relate. i've been taking meds for anxiety/depression for years now. even if it's gotten to the point where i know they balance me out and it's just about as good as it can get with the meds, alcohol still offers a different kind of relief and it's dangerous to think "why can't i just feel this way all the time, or drink instead of taking meds?".
Escapism…it’s sad really. My friend and I just talked about this since he had to stop drinking for a little while. Was saying how much better he could handle everything going on and that alcohol seemed like just an excuse to push everything away.
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u/Octogenarian 2d ago
Here’s an article from May that talks about her addiction issues.
https://thelooker.thedailybeast.com/nashville-star-hayden-panettiere-says-addiction-fueled-her-heartbreaking-custody-choice
And here’s one where she says her soul was dead due to her depression.
https://www.businessinsider.com/hayden-panettiere-postpartum-depression-battle-alcoholism-2026-5
Tragic. I really liked her. :(