I had someone once call me the day after nearly taking their own life. They told me I should be proud because they didn’t drink. I paused, then said the thing no one else had the guts to say: I’d rather you be drunk than dead. That might sound backwards to some, but not to me. Not when you’ve seen what it costs to strip someone of their only coping tool without giving them something solid to hold onto. We get so focused on the behavior—on counting days and marking chips—that we forget to ask why the hell they needed to drink in the first place. Sobriety at any cost isn’t healing. It’s just silence with a ticking clock.
Taking away the bottle doesn’t erase the pain. It just exposes it. And if we’re not ready to meet someone in that exposed space—with real tools, real truth, and real connection—then we’re just handing them an empty plate and calling it recovery. I don’t glorify drinking. But I also don’t pretend that white-knuckling your way through agony is something to be proud of. I want you alive. I want you here. And if staying here means you stumble, then stumble. If it means you relapse, then we pick you back up. But I’ll never celebrate a sobriety that almost cost you your life. Because you are not a trophy. You’re a human being. And healing doesn’t come from taking things away—it comes from digging into why you needed them in the first place.
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