It’s remarkable, really, how quickly I can forget the come down. One minute I’m swearing off everything stronger than herbal tea, and the next I’m fondly reminiscing about the “good times” like some unreliable narrator in a Netflix docuseries titled How Did We Get Here Again?

Recovery amnesia is sneaky. It doesn’t just erase the carnage—it crops it. It edits out the shakes, the shame, the hospital visits, the texts I shouldn’t have sent (all 42 of them), and replaces it with a gauzy montage of euphoric nonsense. Wasn’t I fun? Didn’t that run end with a sunrise and poetry? No. It ended in the ER with my pants inside out and a half-eaten granola bar stuck to my forehead.

But still, the forgetting happens. Like emotional dry rot. You remember the glitter but not the cleanup. The rush but not the crash. You forget the way the silence felt afterward—how cold it was, how alone you were, how your soul felt like it had been evicted from your own body.

That’s why recovery needs anchors: meetings, journals, awkward honesty, and people who will lovingly remind you how incredibly horrible you treated yourself.

So today, when the highlight reel plays, I’ll hit pause. I’ll remember the full story. Not to punish myself, but to stay free.

Because the come down wasn’t just a bad night. It was the thing that nearly ended me. And I didn’t crawl out of that pit just to jump back in because nostalgia suddenly showed up in a leather jacket.

No thanks. I’ll keep the herbal tea—and my dignity.