What it was really like to quit drinking

Spoiler: like drinking from a firehose of your own feelings

There are exactly 5 years and a thousand lifetimes between these 2 photos. 

It seems so obvious now that I was walking through life wearing someone else’s shoes, trying not to wince through blisters with every step. All I could sense was constant, creeping discomfort, and it shows in those dead eyes and that half smile that I held like a stick of dynamit…