I thought the hardest part of recovery was getting sober.
Turns out, learning to rest – and not apologize for it – might be even harder.
I grew up believing it didn’t matter how I felt on the inside, as long as I looked good on the outside. Sit up tall. Shoulders back. When life gets hard, work harder – preferably in heels and with lipstick – because no one wants to hear about the messy stuff. And never, ever let them see you cry.
Well… I did not get a passing grade in the crying part. I do it all the time now, and I own it.
Still, those early lessons stick. They sneak into boardrooms and relationships and whisper that vulnerability is indulgent, that struggle is private, and that the best way to prove your worth is to hold it all together.
Sounding the alarm
Recovery gave me everything I dreamed of: a career with meaning, a home filled with laughter, children who are thriving, a marriage built on love and respect, and a peace of mind I once thought was impossible. It is the life I built out of the ashes – the one I prayed for, worked for, fought for. And I love it. I truly do.
In my first piece for The Honest Talk, “Recovery is Not Weakness,” I wrote that choosing sobriety was my bravest move. At eight and a half years sober, I still live by the credo that anything I put before my sobriety, I will eventually lose – most of the time. Except when there’s a really important work meeting, or the kids need to be somewhere, or my doom pile of laundry gets so big I have to choose between burning it or putting it away.
I do not want to lose any of what I have worked so hard to create. And that is the problem.
I have found myself in a familiar, desperate, and lonely scenario; only this time, I am being celebrated for it. Praised for working hard, staying late, logging on early. I am finally in a place where I am not just “the help.” Except, in some ways, I still am. I am still in service to others. Service keeps you grounded, but it also blurs the edges of who you are serving. That is where the loneliness creeps in – when people see your productivity but not your pain.
The blurring of my boundaries was slow, almost invisible. I told myself I was being dedicated, responsible, and grateful for my beautiful, busy life. In truth, I was running on approval and adrenaline. As a chronic migraine sufferer – the full kit and caboodle: aura, numbness, vomiting – I pushed through with caffeine (my one remaining vice), less and less food, and almost no sleep.
I know better. I preach boundaries. I tell others to rest, to breathe, to stop saving the world. But when it is me, I call it leadership, commitment, gratitude.
It is really just burnout in a better outfit, with Chanel red nails and a really great colourist.
Another physical test
After my fourth abdominal surgery in just a few years, I was back at work three days later, smiling on Teams and pretending I was not still stitched together. Everyone told me to rest, but resting felt like failure – like admitting I was not superhuman after all.
And then my body decided to join the conversation.
The brain fog arrived first, that quiet reminder that I could not keep up with the story my ego was telling. Was it hormones? Burnout? Both? I could not tell anymore. What I did know was that my body was waving the white flag I refused to raise.
Eventually, I did not have a choice but to listen. The migraines became constant, the panic attacks stopped me mid-sentence, mid-step, mid-thought. It felt like standing still while traffic moved a hundred miles an hour around me. I was not just tired anymore; I was hollow.
The fatigue this time was different – not just the tiredness I had come to expect from surgical menopause, but an exhaustion of the mind, body, and spirit.
On the nights when anxious thoughts about perceived failures kept me up, I would scroll endlessly, frantically searching for miracle cures: serums for my thinning hair, hypnotherapy for jaw clenching, supplements for focus. Anything to avoid confronting the truth: I was careening toward another ledge, and the rocks at this bottom somehow felt sharper.
No amount of hormone replacement therapy advice or wellness reels could prepare me for what happens when hormones and depletion collide. This new version of myself – the one living in medically induced menopause with a nervous system on high alert – feels like a dream I can’t wake from; showing up, exposed and unprepared, trying to pretend I’m fine while my whole system quietly short-circuits.
No one warned me about the intrusive thoughts, the dizzy spells, or how small and fragile I would feel in my own skin while still trying to manage work, family, a stressful commute, and an aging parent.
And under it all, this quiet voice: Smile. Keep it together. No one wants to be inconvenienced by your sticky life. Oh, and above all else, don’t drink.
As someone who says the Serenity Prayer in the grocery line – or in traffic, often – I know how to ask for help. But I couldn’t. Because somewhere along the way, I started believing that slowing down meant giving up – that if I stopped moving, everything I had built might start to unravel.
Learning to slow down
So here I am – 45, a little more rested, grateful, and learning the hardest lesson of all: you can’t outwork your humanity. I am working on a holistic treatment plan and, like anything worth healing, I am learning patience for things that take time.
The life I built is still beautiful. But it needs boundaries to stay that way: care, not perfection. Burnout does not mean I failed at recovery; it means I broke one of its simplest promises, to keep showing up for myself, too.
And the gift of desperation has saved me again. Over lunch with a friend who has walked a path so much like mine, I saw what recovery from work-aholism looks like on the other side – steadier, softer, whole. I left that lunch with another familiar feeling: I am going to be okay.
One day at a time.
Annie Wiggins
