You Smell Like Alcohol
Before honesty felt safe, it felt unbearable.
“You smell like alcohol.”
A sentence that sounds like a simple sensory observation, especially when it comes from the mouth of a child, can land like a siren when you’re carrying a secret with the potential to turn deadly.
Recently, I had a moment to myself and decided to mindlessly scroll through what was available to watch. The title If I Had No Legs I’d Kick You came up. The image showed a woman looking up, and I immediately built a story around it. That she was on the ground, staring up at someone hurting her, maybe finding the strength to fight back.
That wasn’t the story at all.
What I found instead was something that resonated deeply with me. Something that made space for compassion toward the character and then, unexpectedly, toward myself and anyone who can relate.
I won’t give any spoilers. But there’s a scene where the main character is lying in bed with her daughter, trying to connect, to offer comfort, to be present. And her daughter turns and says something like, “Mom, you smell like wine.”
Immediately, I was back in my classroom years ago.
“Ms. Dueñas, you smell like alcohol!”
Zavion’s grin caught me off guard. My stomach clenched. I turned away quickly, pretending not to hear him, focusing instead on the noise of the room, chairs scraping, kids talking over one another, waiting for something to pull his attention elsewhere.
It did.
For the moment, I was safe. I knew he didn’t mean anything by it. By the next period, he had probably forgotten he’d said it at all.
But I hadn’t.
I carried that moment with me for days, then weeks, replaying it every time someone stood too close or spoke to me unexpectedly.
That’s what life feels like when you’re consumed by shame in active alcohol addiction. Your body is constantly scanning for exposure. Every glance feels loaded, and even innocent comments feel like threats. You’re terrified that if someone discovers you don’t meet the standard of success you’ve been taught to perform, you’ll be cast out.
When that’s your daily reality, asking for help doesn’t feel like relief. It feels like exposure.
It’s easy to watch someone from the outside and count their missed chances. It’s harder to understand what it feels like to live inside a body that believes being found out would cost you everything.
For me, before honesty felt freeing, it felt fatal.
So now, when I see someone still drinking, someone stuck, someone not “ready,” someone who has had chances and hasn’t taken them, I try to remember what it felt like to live inside that fear.
There was a time when I wasn’t “ready.” Not because I didn’t know better. Not because I didn’t have resources. But because being found out felt more dangerous than continuing. I know how easily I could get back there.
The safest places for me in early sobriety weren’t the ones that shamed me into change. They were the ones that held space without superiority. My sobriety grew in softness. In kindness. In being witnessed without being reduced to my worst moments.
Even now, when I catch myself wanting to judge a movie character (or a real person), I have to remember that at one point, I would have done no better myself.
My recovery didn’t begin when I finally had enough consequences. It began when I felt safe enough to tell the truth. That’s what I try to offer now, with the students I work with, in recovery spaces, and in conversations that feel unbearable.
We invite you to share.
Who or what helped make sobriety feel safe for you?
What made it possible for you to choose honesty over hiding?
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Jessica Dueñas is an educator, sober life coach, and TEDx speaker who writes about self-worth, the cost of success, and recovery. Her work explores how shame keeps people silent and what makes honesty feel safe. She is currently working on a memoir about achievement, secrecy, and the courage to live without hiding in a world that asks us to stay quiet. You can find her newsletter at Bottomless to Sober and her website here.
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I got chills reading this, Jessica - the sinking dread of shame and the fear of being found out feel so familiar. But I especially love the deep compassion and shared humanness you convey so beautifully.
This reminded me of all the little "protection rituals" I did when I was in deep and had to dip out half way through the work day to keep myself steady.
Coat the inside of my mouth with peanut butter. Hurriedly swallow it. Brush my teeth. Then more peanut butter but only on my tongue.
Make sure everyone at work always sees me using hand sanitizer just in case they can smell it coming out if my pores.
Too much body spray.
And still, all the rehearing of what I would say if confronted. Confess and beg for help? Act afronted and deny? Act surprised?
It was all very tiring. But, as you said, it is treated as a necessity of survival. On some level it was.
For me, the exposure has lasted far into sobriety. Alcohol sunk its claws in to some foundational part of my self concept, so that when it was taken away, that part of "me" was ripped out as well.
I'm well into sobriety but that wound keeps bleeding - it hurts and it's dangerous but it also reminds me to give everyone a little grace. We can't know the inside workings of someone's heart or mind, but we can give them grave and maybe that is more valuable anyway.
Thank you for sharing this and the movie recommendation. I keep hearing great things about it!