Jamie Lee Curtis was brought to tears by this quit alcohol concept
Actress Jamie Lee Curtis has been vocal about past opioid abuse, and she recently lent her name to a new quit alcohol book that targets the underlying issues of addiction.
Curtis, who is friends with author Elisa Hallerman, was actually brought to tears when she first heard the name of the book.
Soulbriety: A Plan to Heal Your Trauma, Overcome Addiction, and Reconnect with Your Soul came about after the author realized five years into her sobriety that she still had a lot of work to do.
The book poses an important question, and one I haven’t really had to face. I’m just approaching just four months without booze in my life and I’m still in a honeymoon phase with this new lifestyle.
What happens when you reach your sobriety goal and you’re still deeply unhappy?
Alcoholism as a symptom
In an interview with People Magazine, former entertainment industry agent Hallerman describes hitting a wall despite quitting alcohol.
“I was sober for five or six years at that point,” she’s quoted as saying. “I was successful and had all of these external things that I believed would make me happy.
“I was feeling a lack of purpose and I was not happy. And I was forced to really look at that and go deeper.”
Hallerman made the bold decision to leave her entertainment career, go back to school, and train as a psychologist.
That process, she told People, led her to understand addiction as a symptom of deeper problems.
“Something isn’t right. We feel a lack of meaning and purpose. We feel suffering, we feel pain, we feel anxious or depressed.
“And if we don’t look at what lies underneath, if we don’t really take time to look at that, I believe that is what goes on to cause chronic relapsing because we haven’t really gotten to the root.”
Lasting trauma and recovery
Evidently, the concept spoke to Jamie Lee Curtis, who admitted she cried when she found out about the project.
The actor, who also has a history of substance abuse in her family, has long been a vocal supporter of the sobriety movement.
She once told People that she’s lucky to have survived a 10-year addiction to prescription pills.
She calls achieving sobriety her single greatest accomplishment.
“I’m breaking the cycle that has basically destroyed the lives of generations in my family,” the magazine quotes her as saying at the time.
“Getting sober remains my single greatest accomplishment … bigger than my husband, bigger than both of my children and bigger than any work, success, failure. Anything.”
What’s next?
I’ve written about why I decided to quit drinking many times.
Sure, I was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired, but I always considered the main reason to be that I felt I wasn’t living up to my potential and I was continually disappointing myself.
Quitting alcohol has freed me of that, and I sincerely believe I’m on the right track.
Yet I know intrinsically there are deeper reasons underneath my own past with addiction, past traumas that always made me feel worthless and inadequate.
Those are what led to the deep depression that initially triggered my problem drinking (I wrote about it at length here).
At the moment, I am happy. I’ve gotten really good over the past two decades at putting the past in the past.
My sister laughs when I describe how I deal with old traumas.
“I just put them in a box, and I put the box on a shelf, and don’t think about it. The only time they bother me is when someone knocks the box off the shelf.”
Will that dam break at some point?
I don’t know, but I may just have to pick up this book if it does.
I’m curous to know if any of my readers have encountered the experience described by Hallerman. After reaching sobriety, did you realize you had a lot more work to do?
If you’re comfortable sharing that, I’d love to hear your story.
Friends, thank you so much for reading this post all the way to the end! If you enjoyed it, please give it some claps so others can find it!
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