I Thought was Strong Then i got Well

I Thought I Was Strong… Then I Got Well

A spiral story of numbness, awakening, and the sacred unraveling of false strength

By Tina Chabot January 14, 2026

Part 1: The Myth of Invincibility

What seems like a lifetime ago—another cycle, another self—I used to wear a strange kind of pride:“I never get sick.”That was my mantra.  I said it often. I believed it.  I clung to it like a badge of resilience.And it was technically true… if you didn’t count the hangovers.  Even after nights of drinking too much, spinning too fast, collapsing into sleep and waking with a mouth full of regret—I didn’t get colds. I didn’t get the flu. I didn’t miss work.I thought I was strong.  But now I know—My body wasn’t thriving.  My body was protecting me the only way it knew how.It couldn’t afford to get sick.  It was already under siege.Allowing me to truly fall apart would have required a level of presence I didn’t yet have.  So my immune system went silent.  My grief stayed buried.  My body held it all.

Part 2: When Yoga Found Me First

Somewhere along the way, I started to feel it.Not the sickness—  but the tiredness beneath the armor.  The ache of carrying what I couldn’t name.  The slow, quiet knowing that the way I was living was dimming something sacred in me.And there, like a soft hand reaching through the fog, was yoga.It wasn’t just a workout.  It wasn’t just a class.It was a beckoning.  A remembrance.  A moment of clarity in a life that had become too loud.After practice, I felt like someone had rinsed the static from my soul.  My heart would soften.  My breath would come back.  And for a brief window, I would remember:This is what it feels like to be grateful.  This is what it feels like to be alive.And yet—there were still mornings I didn’t make it.  Nights I drank instead of slept.  Days I chose numbness over presence.Those were the worst days of all.Not because of the dehydration, or the migraine pounding behind my eyes—  But because I had missed the one holy thing that made me feel human again.I carried that guilt like a stone in my chest.  It wasn’t punishment. It was grief—  for betraying something sacred.Yoga had become my sanctuary, my thread of light—and when I turned away from it, the absence was unbearable.Because the truth was:Every time I stepped onto that mat,  my suffering loosened its grip.  My negativity began to dissolve.  The noise quieted.  The light got in.Yoga wasn’t just healing me.  It was inviting me to stop hurting myself.

Part 3: The Collapse and the Choice

By Christmas, I had two months sober.  It felt fragile, but real.  I was doing it.And then—on Christmas Eve—I slipped.I poured wine into a cup my kids wouldn’t recognize, and I sipped it slowly, carefully, as we played cards.  Pretending.  Smiling.  Hiding.And then George Michael died.It hit me hard—his voice, his ache, his brilliance—and something broke open.  I got emotional, too emotional.  And when I looked up, I saw it.That look on my children’s faces.  Suspicion.  Disappointment.  That quiet grief that comes when someone you love isn’t keeping their promise.I couldn’t hide it.  No one can.  Drunkenness always tells the truth.That night stuck with me.  Not just the shame—but the awareness. I wasn’t fooling anyone.A week later, it was New Year’s Eve.I had promised myself that this was it—  That I would step into the New Year clean, honest, whole.But when I sat down, someone had already bought the bottle of wine.  And then came the tall, cold Blue Moon—my favorite.It slid across the table like an invitation from the past.In the corner of my eye, I caught Chris’s shoulders slump.  He didn’t say a word, but I knew that look:He knew.  He was bracing for another night of caretaking.  Another promise postponed.  Another morning after.I tried to justify it—“But it’s New Year’s Eve!”  The old script, ready on my tongue.And yet—something shifted.Halfway through my third drink, I felt myself float.It was like I was watching myself from above,  seeing the story unfold:  my empty chair at tomorrow’s yoga class in Huntington,  my name not on the sign-in sheet,  the spiral starting all over again.Then I went to the restroom.Two friends followed, laughing, chatting by the sink, calling to me through the stall.I said quietly, “I’m supposed to go to yoga tomorrow… I don’t know if I should go to the next bar.”One of them said: “Fuck yoga tomorrow.”And that sentence struck me like a stone to the chest.It landed hard.Because yoga had become the only light in my life that was pulling me out of the darkness.  Not just from alcohol—  but from the way I spoke to myself.  The way I abandoned myself.Yoga wasn’t about poses.  It was my one holy thing.  My thread of grace.I walked out of that bathroom, sat back down at the table,  pushed the beer away,  looked at Chris,  and said,“We need to get the bill.”Chris doesn’t surprise easily. He’s steady like that.  But later, as we sat on the couch watching Jennifer Lopez perform,  I was rehydrating with water,  and he turned to me and said,“You surprised me tonight.”It was the first time I had ever stopped drinking after three drinks.  It was the last time I ever drank.That was the first day of my true sobriety.  Nine years ago.

Part 4: When the Body Finally Spoke

Six weeks into my sobriety, I got the flu of a lifetime.This wasn’t a sniffle.  It wasn’t a fever you sleep off.  This was violent, full‑body illness — the kind that makes you wonder if you’re going to survive the night.I remember calling my best friend at the time and asking her to take me to the emergency room.  By the end of the conversation, I told her I didn’t think I could even walk to the car.My legs felt like they were made of wet cement.  My body was shaking, purging, unraveling.I got a glass of water.  Canceled all of my appointments for the next two days.  And laid down on the couch, unsure if I would be able to get back up.I decided to try to sleep through it.It was that intense.A month later, my back went out.Not a tweak.  Not a soreness.It went out with such velocity that I was terrified I might never walk again.  I remember lying there thinking something was deeply, fundamentally wrong with me.And the thought that followed was sharp and bitter:I quit drinking… and now my body is falling apart.As if sobriety had broken me.  As if choosing health had triggered some kind of punishment.Before that first year was over, I had two more sinus infections.  Throat infections.  Illness layered on illness.This was my first year sober.And at the time, it was baffling.I didn’t understand yet.I didn’t know that my body had finally been given permission to speak.  That the numbness had lifted.  That what looked like collapse was actually release.But back then —  all I knew was that I had stopped drinking,  and my body was asking me to feel everything.

Part 5: I Wasn’t Falling Apart — I Was Thawing

In the deeper rhythms of yoga and healing, I began to see what all that sickness was really about.It wasn’t a breakdown.  It was a stirring.  An awakening of truth that lived inside my body—quiet for years, finally rising.I had been suppressing sickness for most of my adult life.  Holding it back with alcohol, overdrive, and dissociation.  I thought I was strong because I didn’t get colds.Now I know: I wasn’t strong.  I was just numb.And once I got sober, my body no longer had to protect me from the truth.  It could finally begin its purge.We tend to see sickness as something going wrong.  But I’ve come to understand:Sickness is a release.  Sickness is a reset.  Sickness is the body’s way of finding its way back to wholeness.That year—what I now call my sacred unraveling—was vital.Because I began taking true care of myself.  Not just the surface kind. The real kind.I hydrated deeply.  I shifted to plant-based foods.  I flooded myself with yoga—practice after practice, three to four times a week.My social life became my sadhana.I traveled to Columbus and Huntington for classes, immersed myself in continuing education, met people who were obsessed with vinyasa in the best way possible. I began to feel seen.And softly, slowly… the friendships that had been built only on drinking began to dissolve.It was bittersweet.Losing friends was hard—really hard.  But I couldn’t unsee the truth: if our bond only existed at the bottom of a glass, then it wasn’t a bond I could carry into this new life.I held compassion.  I held non-judgment.  I prayed not to become self-righteous.I didn’t want to lose the people I loved—  but I was no longer willing to lose myself to keep them.For the first time in my life, my days were centered around one thing:Knowing myself.I began clearing old programs.  I stopped pretending life was supposed to feel good all the time.  I realized that joy and pain both have their place.But drinking?  Drinking was only ever causing pain.And I was done with pain that came from my own hand.I wanted to heal.  Not just for me.I wanted to be a better partner to Chris.  A better mother to my children.  A better friend—not just to the old tribe I had outgrown, but to the people I hadn’t met yet, the ones I was finally aligned with.And most of all—I wanted to become someone who truly understood  what healing actually means.Not perfection.  Not performance.  But presence.  And willingness.  And the deep, quiet courage to begin again.

Part 6: This Is What Love Looks Like

I think the hardest thing a human can do is truly change.Not just rearrange the furniture.  Not just switch habits.  But change at the root—at the soul level—where the stories were first written.That kind of change asks everything of you.Because when you pull the thread of addiction,  you don’t just let go of alcohol.  You let go of an entire energetic line.People.  Places.  Hobbies.  Rituals.  Conversations.  Entire social identities.It’s not just the drink that dissolves.  It’s the world that formed around it.And that can feel like turning your life upside down to shake out what doesn’t belong.  But it’s also the most courageous act of love a person can make.Because you don’t just lose things when you get sober.  You gain time.When I let go of drinking, I inherited hours I didn’t know were mine.Hours I used to spend nursing hangovers…  or checking out at the end of the day…  or numbing the silence…became hours of devotion.Dinacharya — Ayurvedic daily rhythm — became my sacred scaffolding.People look at me now and say, “You’re always working.”  And yes, that’s true.But I also have hours before work.  And hours after work.  And those hours are mine.They’re full of love.This is what love looks like, now:• Moseying. Unapologetically slow.  • Reading before the sun rises.  • Dry brushing. Warm oil.  • Prepping nourishing food, not just for health—but for pleasure.  • Writing poems in the notes app.  • Laying on the floor with music, eyes closed.  • Pouring tea slowly.  • Stretching just because it feels good.  • Praying to no one and everyone.These are the hours I used to give away.  These are the moments I used to miss.This is what healing looks like when it’s no longer a performance:  It’s rhythm.  It’s stillness.  It’s truth with nowhere to hide.  It’s letting yourself be slow enough to feel your own soul again.Sobriety didn’t give me a perfect life.  It gave me back myself.And now, every day, I wake up not just to a body I trust,  but to a self I’m still discovering.This is what love looks like.𓁿