Do You Want To Do This All Over Again?

2 days agoLast Updated: September 24, 2026

0 1 6 minutes read

Repeat

I want to talk to the person who hasn’t quit yet.

Not the person who has everything figured out. Not the person who woke up this morning full of determination and threw everything away.

I’m talking to you.

The one shrugging your shoulders.

The one who knows you’re addicted but has a hundred reasons why today isn’t the day.

I know you.

Because I was you.

For decades, Copenhagen was part of my life. And for a long time, I didn’t really see it as the problem. In my mind, it was helping me with my problems.

Stress? Copenhagen.

Anxiety? Copenhagen.

Marriage problems? Copenhagen.

Something terrible happened? Copenhagen.

Something wonderful happened? Well, Copenhagen could come along for that too.

I had convinced myself that this little can somehow helped me cope with life.

My first husband degraded and ridiculed me because of it. But humiliation didn’t make me quit. Being embarrassed didn’t make me quit. Someone else wanting me to stop didn’t make me quit.

Because there is a difference between being ashamed and becoming accountable.

The decision eventually had to belong to me.

On January 4, 2007, I quit.

And if you’re sitting there thinking, Yeah, but you don’t understand what I’m dealing with…

Oh, my friend.

Life did not become easier because I stopped using Copenhagen.

I had family problems.

Health problems.

Financial problems.

Hospitalizations.

Relationship problems.

Grief.

Fear.

Depression.

Stress.

Anxiety.

There were times I didn’t know how we were going to make it. There were times my health frightened me. There were hospital rooms, family crises and moments when I felt emotionally beaten into the ground.

And do you know what I discovered?

Copenhagen wouldn’t have fixed a damn one of them.

It wouldn’t have paid a bill.

It wouldn’t have repaired a relationship.

It wouldn’t have healed my body.

It wouldn’t have taken away grief.

It wouldn’t have cured depression.

It wouldn’t have stopped the next frightening thing from happening.

All it could do was become one more problem I had to carry while carrying everything else.

And that is something I desperately want the person who hasn’t quit yet to understand.

Stop waiting for your life to become easy enough to quit.

It may never happen.

There may never be a perfect Monday.

Your family may still drive you crazy.

Your bank account may still scare you.

Someone you love may disappoint you.

You may get sick.

Someone may leave.

Someone may die.

Your heart may break.

You may become depressed.

You may become afraid.

You may wake up one morning and wonder how in God’s name you’re supposed to handle one more thing.

Those things are called life.

And addiction has a remarkable way of convincing us that it helps us carry life.

It doesn’t.

It climbs onto our backs with everything else.

⸻

For years after I quit, I wrote about my addiction online under the name mylilsecret.

I wrote about cravings. I wrote about withdrawal. I wrote when I was strong, and I wrote when I was scared.

I admitted things I wasn’t particularly proud of.

I had hidden Copenhagen. Lied about it. Dug it out of the garbage after it had been thrown away.

I bargained with myself.

I’ll quit after this.
I’ll quit when things settle down.
I need it right now because I’m going through too much.

And after I finally quit, the bargaining changed:

You’ve been quit long enough.
You could have just one.
You’re in control now.

Different words.

Same addiction.

My quit community taught me something else, though.

Accountability.

There is incredible power in saying to another human being:

“I’m struggling.”

Not once a year.

Not after you’ve already convinced yourself that you’re fine.

Not after you’re standing at the counter buying the thing you swore you’d never use again.

Sometimes we need to say it while the thought is still just a thought.

I’m struggling.
I want to use.
Talk to me.

There is no shame in those words.

There is courage in them.

And somehow, as the years passed, I forgot how important that was.

I was quit.

Life moved on.

One year became another. Then another.

Copenhagen stopped controlling my thoughts.

Eventually, I had thousands of days behind me.

I thought I had a pretty good relationship with my sobriety.

Until last month.

⸻

My physical pain has become unbearable at times.

Pain from my neck, through my shoulders, down my arms and into my fingers.

Throbbing migraines.

I also live with a rare neurological condition called hemiplegic migraine disorder, which can cause paralysis-like symptoms.

I haven’t been able to drive since October 2025.

And one day, I had simply had enough.

I wanted Copenhagen.

Not twenty years ago.

Last month.

The old voice showed up like it had never left.

You’re going to die someday anyway.
Why not today?
Just take the edge off.

And this wasn’t some fleeting little thought that disappeared five seconds later.

I started getting money together.

I remember thinking I didn’t want to put it on a credit card.

There’s a gas station on the corner.

I can’t drive there.

Fine. I’ll walk.

I got my cane.

Read that again.

After nearly twenty years, I had gone from thinking about Copenhagen to making a plan to get Copenhagen.

And somewhere in those final moments, something inside me woke up.

Maybe it was the woman who wrote all those quit posts years ago.

Maybe it was every miserable craving I’d already survived.

Maybe it was every person who had held me accountable.