actually, i CAN Blog

  I used to think change came with some big, defining moment — a grand victory — or that failing came with some catastrophic collapse you could see coming from miles away. In reality, it’s the small, almost unseen moments that decide who you will become. Regret isn’t always about what we’ve done—it’s about what we failed to do. Every choice, every behavior, every breath is a swing of the blade toward one side or the other. The war isn’t somewhere out there; it’s in me, in the split‑second decisions no one sees, in the whispers I choose to listen to or turn away from.

I didn’t drink to feel better—I drank to feel less. To carve out a void where my fears couldn’t reach me, to build a bunker brick by brick between me and the world. It wasn’t escape; it was erasure—a slow dismantling of the parts that hurt, and the parts that still hoped. In the stillness, the whispers grew louder. Each swallow sanded down my edges until I barely recognized the shape of me. And when I buried my pain, I buried myself beside it.    Workbook

Real work doesn’t happen in meetings. It doesn’t happen in programs. It happens in moments—small, unremarkable choices that no one else sees. Standing alone in a parking lot, deciding whether to walk into a liquor store or keep driving. Sitting in the quiet of my own mind and not reaching for a distraction. The quiet, personal decisions. Yet for some reason, we’ve turned sobriety into an obstacle course—a process so overburdened with requirements that it feels impossible before you even begin. The alternative to using isn’t complicated. It’s not drinking. It sounds simple. But the moment you decide to stop, the world makes sure you don’t feel capable of doing it on your own. You can pick up a beer whenever you want—no questions asked. But the moment you want to put it down? Suddenly, everyone has a prescription for how you should do it. Call yourself an alcoholic. Admit you’re powerless. Commit to a program. Follow the steps. Surrender to the process. The more rules they handed me, the...

“As a child, it wasn’t the loud moments of conflict that scared me most; it was the silence that followed. The shouting, the slammed doors, the angry words were chaotic, but at least they were predictable. In the noise, I knew where I stood. I could brace myself and anticipate the next move. But the silence afterward? That was different. It was thick with unspoken tension, like the calm before another storm. Chaos, for all its turmoil, had a rhythm I could follow. Silence, on the other hand, stripped away any sense of control, leaving me alone with my thoughts. Over time, I learned to find comfort in the chaos, and it gave me something to hold onto and brace against. Silence never offered that.” - 2bits The survival instinct of a child’s nervous system is all about learning to adapt. Chaos, as painful as it is, can feel safer because it’s known—it gives you something to anticipate, something your body can prepare for. Silence, though, is unpredictable. It forces you inward, face-to-fac...

Shame doesn’t just shape your thoughts—it rewires your nervous system. It doesn’t live in your head alone; it burrows into your body, tampering with your baseline functioning. You might think you’re just overthinking or shutting down, but it’s your system bracing for judgment before a word even leaves your mouth.  Shame trains the brain to anticipate rejection, so your choices start revolving around who’s safest to be around, not what’s most true to you. It hijacks your prefrontal cortex—the part of your brain that helps with clear thinking, planning, and regulation—and pulls you into survival patterns: fawning, freezing, appeasing. Over time, the words you never said, the truth you swallowed, the reactions you held back—they don’t disappear. They get stored in muscle tension, gut issues, migraines, and tight chests. You don’t just lose your voice—you carry its echo in your body. And when that shame goes unspoken long enough, it becomes the lens through which you see yourself: brok...

Some days, the pain is sharper than memory. You bend, reach, move just slightly wrong—and there it is: the ache. The throb. The burn beneath the skin or inside the joints. It shows up without ceremony, like a ghost you’ve learned to tolerate, not fight. But here’s the thing no one talks about: sometimes, that pain feels weirdly functional. Almost like it’s doing something important. Not good, not pleasant—but vital. Like it’s carrying a message the psyche couldn’t hold without cracking. Because when you’re the kid who had to swallow what should have been screamed, when you were taught early to tuck your instincts behind your teeth and wear “I’m fine” like armor, your pain doesn’t just disappear. It relocates. What couldn’t be expressed verbally, gets encrypted into flesh. What couldn’t be named emotionally, gets stored in the joints, the gut, the nervous system’s circuitry. That’s not dysfunction. That’s survival. And in a world where your soul wasn’t allowed to protest, your body did ...