The Hangover You Don’t Feel: Grieving the Person You Used to Be
Halloween used to be my Super Bowl.
Our neighborhood goes all-in — haunted houses in driveways, fog machines, skeletons hanging from trees, and those infamous spooky Jell-O shots at every corner. Adults in costume, kids with sugar highs, music thumping from portable speakers. If you were looking for the perfect excuse to drink like a college kid with a mortgage — this was it.
And yeah, I loved it. Not just the alcohol, but the feeling that came with it — the loosened shoulders, the confidence, the easy smiles that came after the first drink. Halloween was my annual permission slip to not care.
The Ghost of Good Times Past
We’d hand out candy and Jell-O shots from our driveway before making our rounds — laughing, clinking cups with neighbors, pretending adulthood came with extra lives. It wasn’t about getting drunk (well, not only about that). It was about belonging, about being in on the joke.
It’s strange to admit, but sometimes drinking did make things more fun — or at least, it made me believe they were. The drink didn’t just take the edge off; it blurred it. And for a few hours, the noise in my head faded under the buzz of laughter and bass.
Now, I stand on the same driveway, a non-alcoholic drink in hand, watching everyone else chase that same temporary magic. And there’s a quiet ache in realizing I can’t join them — not because I don’t want to, but because I know how that story ends for me.
The Hangover You Don’t Feel
Grief in sobriety is sneaky. It doesn’t hit like a hangover — pounding head, cotton mouth, regret checklist. It’s quieter. It’s nostalgia mixed with a pinch of anger.
Anger that I can’t be one of the “normal drinkers.” The ones who can stop at just a few. The ones who get tipsy on a Friday and call it funny, not dangerous.
I used to look at them and think, “Why not me?”
But every time that thought sneaks in, I remember what it really cost me to play that game — the self-loathing, the lies, the mornings spent hating my own reflection.
So yeah, tonight I’ll miss the glow of the streetlights, the sound of corks popping, the familiar warmth that used to come before the crash. But I’ll also wake up tomorrow without shame, without fog, and without the need to piece together another lost night.
That’s the hangover I don’t feel anymore.
Learning to Mourn Without Resurrection
Here’s what I’ve learned: grief doesn’t mean you want to go back — it just means you remember. You can love a version of yourself and still let them rest in peace.
The old me shows up every now and then — in a chill October breeze, in the clinking of bottles down the street, in that moment when everyone’s laughing and I feel just a step outside the circle. But instead of fighting him off, I nod. I let him pass by.
Because the person I am now is worth missing a few parties for.
WRITE YOUR OWN SONG:
What version of yourself are you grieving? What traditions, events, or habits do you still feel tug at you — and what would it mean to let them go without guilt?
Jeremy Stein is the author of Still Loud, Now Clear, coming March 10 2026. Learn more at StillLoudNowClear.com.