You Can Get Off the Elevator

They say recovery begins at rock bottom.

But what if that’s not true?

What if the bottom never comes, not as a crash, but as a quiet erosion. A thousand tiny compromises. A life that looks fine on paper but feels like it’s drifting farther and farther from center.

That’s how it was for me (sort of). And for many others I’ve come to know—like Dawn Winalski, a lawyer, yoga teacher, long-distance runner, and person in long-term recovery, who I recently spoke with on The Fully Mindful.

Neither of us fit the stereotype. No DUI. No jail time. No dramatic intervention.

While Dawn didn’t hit a dramatic bottom, I came a little  closer. And the truth is, there were screaming fights. There were mornings where I couldn’t remember what I’d said the night before. There were times when I looked in the mirror and truly wondered if I was losing my mind. There were moments—too many—when I felt like I was living in a fog, going through the motions, disconnected from the person I thought I was supposed to be.

But the world didn’t see that. The world saw my degree from a prestigious university, that I was on my way to law school, that I was married and happy. And I let people see this mirage. Because if they didn’t see it, maybe I didn’t have to either.

What the world also didn’t see—or understand—was my ADHD. My anxiety. The way my mind spun out at 1 a.m., rehashing every misstep of the day, planning twelve different futures, and trying to feel okay for just long enough to fall asleep. Alcohol slowed the spin, until it didn’t.

The impulsivity, the overstimulation, the shame of forgetting something important—I drank to soften the edges. But over time, it stopped softening anything. It just blurred me further from who I was. And there were consequences, not just for me, but for those I loved.

Dawn and I both got off the elevator before it crashed at the bottom.. But we weren’t riding from the same floor.

Dawn’s story is what many would involved what many in recovery call  a “high-bottom.”. She was functional. Outwardly successful. She made what she now describes as a thousand tiny compromises — barely perceptible in the moment, but ultimately corrosive. There was no explosive fallout. No headlines. Just an inner knowing: this isn’t who I want to be.

“It wasn’t bad,” she says. “But it wasn’t me.”

My story, on the other hand, was more volatile. More chaotic.

There were days I wasn’t sure I’d make it through. Nights I couldn’t look my husband in the eye because I drank one (or two or three) too many.. A persistent dread in the pit of my stomach—like I was waiting for something terrible to happen, or maybe already had.

And yet, still, I was "high-functioning" as things go.

I didn’t lose everything, but I lost enough to know I was at risk of losing myself.

Hitting  bottom isn’t always about consequences. It’s about dissonance.

It’s really that  moment when you can’t pretend anymore, and when your coping mechanism stops betrays you and just stops working– and when your anxiety, your shame, your sleepless nights start stacking up in a way you can’t ignore.

Whether you scream your way there or whisper your way there—it counts. You count.

I was lucky. I met Peggy, my 12-step sponsor the second time I got sober, before the elevator crashed. She didn’t shame me. She didn’t give me the speech. She just said:

“Melissa, the elevator only goes one direction—down. But you can get off at any floor.”

That line became gospel for me.

She also nudged—okay, insisted—that I come with her to a meditation at Spirit Rock. I had no idea who Jack Kornfield was at the time. I thought we were going to sit in silence for 40 minutes (which seemed like eternity). But I went anyway, because that’s what you do when you’re newly sober: follow directions.  Instead, I sat in the presence of someone who spoke to the aching truth in me. And something deep in me shifted. Not because I was broken, but because I suddenly had a glimpse of what a quiet wholeness might feel like.

It was the first time I understood that there might be some way of finding peace.. 

When I got off the elevator, I started running. Slowly. Awkwardly. I wasn’t trying to be fast—I just needed to move. My nervous system, my skin, my whole being felt like it needed an outlet.

I signed up for a local race in Marin called The Human Race. I remember the early morning fog as the summer sun burned it away,, the nervous energy, the strange relief of lacing up my shoes and doing something that didn’t involve numbing or escaping.

I didn’t hate the morning. I wasn’t ashamed. I wasn’t hungover.

For the first time in ages, I felt human. I felt alive. It felt like I was rejoining the human race both literally and spiritually.

Later, when I quit drinking for the last time (God willing!) 25 years ago now, running became my meditation. The rhythm of footfall. The steady breath. The grit it took to reach the top of Mt. Tabor. The joy of coming back down. The soft victory of returning home, lungs burning, heart beating. I wasn’t running away anymore. I was running toward myself.

I still run. Not for speed. Not for a medal. But for presence. For rhythm. For me.

Early sobriety wasn’t graceful. It was raw and awkward and full of discomfort and dysregulation. I remember feeling so nervous I thought I would come undone when I went to parties and actually had to talk–to people! I felt like I had to learn how to do the most basic of things again, to be human again.

My rituals saved me. Morning coffee with meditation. Writing out gratitudes even when I didn’t believe a word of them. Reaching for breath. Lacing up shoes and running off the excess energy, the too much-ness of everyday life.

What surprised me most was not the withdrawal, but the clarity. I started remembering things I’d forgotten. I started laughing again—real belly laughter that caught me off guard. I started seeing people. Connecting. Showing up.

Dawn had a similar revelation. When she was working in Arctic Alaska, she started running through sub-zero darkness and snow, wearing goggles against the wind. She taught trauma-informed yoga to students at a tribal college. And now, she volunteers with GTD (Go the Distance), a Portland-based movement recovery community.

“Movement became my medicine,” she told me. “It helped me process, connect, and begin again.”

Science backs her up.

• A 2015 Nature study showed that consistent aerobic exercise restored dopamine receptor availability in recovering addicts.

• A 2022 Frontiers in Psychiatry review found movement reduced cravings and improved outcomes across substance types.

• A PLOS ONE meta-analysis found more than 75% of people who integrated exercise into their recovery sustained sobriety.

So no—it’s not wellness-speak. It’s fact. Movement changes the brain.

It gives us back the reward pathways we once borrowed from alcohol and other substances and behaviors.. And it roots us in the body—something recovery requires but until more recently, has rarely taught.

Not all pain is loud.

Grey area drinking describes the pattern so many of us fall into: not addicted, but not okay.

It’s the two or three drinks that take the edge off—until they start eroding the foundation. And I imagine it’s no different for the other dopamine-seeking behaviors we might engage in: It’s the nightly gummy to go to sleep. The solace in a sleeve of cookies. The numbing out as we scroll for hours, for nothing.

According to a study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, even moderate drinkers face increased risks over time. Psychology Today defines grey area drinkers as those who use alcohol to manage emotions, but who don’t meet traditional criteria for addiction.

You don’t have to hit bottom to know it’s time for a change. Recovery can begin with a whisper: This isn’t working anymore.

There’s no one path. But here’s what saved me:

• Peggy – For the elevator wisdom

• Jack Kornfield + Spirit Rock – My first true experience with mindfulness

• 12-Step – The structure I needed when I had none

• Running – For rhythm, regulation, and relief

• She Recovers – A softer landing pad

• Quit Lit – Books like We Are the Luckiest and This Naked Mind

• GTD – A reminder that healing moves (in Portland, OR, but many other orgs out there)

• Mindfulness & Breathwork – What I now offer to others, because it saved me too

• Jeff Warren - An awesome meditation teacher

So where are you right now? Are you still telling yourself it’s not that bad? Still waiting for some mythical bottom? Still hoping no one notices?

You don’t need to hit bottom. You don’t need to prove your pain. You just need to want something different.

You can get off the elevator.

You can rejoin the human race.

You can come home to yourself.

It’s been a long time since I stepped out on that first run.

And no, it hasn’t been perfect. Sobriety didn’t make me immune to stress, grief, or loss. But it gave me a place to stand in the midst of it all. It gave me back a daily chance at presence, peace, and purpose.

It gave me moments with my daughter—showing up for her with clarity, with love. It gave me back evenings with my husband—cooking dinner, talking without fog between us. It gave me time with clients—guiding them not from theory, but from lived experience.

There are still moments where the old whispers return. When stress runs high, the ADHD rejection sensitivity is kicking my ass,  or when the to-do list feels monumental.  But I have tools now. I have breath. I have meditation. I have feet that move me. I have the memory of what it felt like to be lost—and the map I drew back to myself.

If I could go back to that younger version of myself running through Marin, blinking at the morning sun, not yet sure who she was becoming, I’d whisper: You’re not behind. You’re not broken. You’re just beginning. And you’re allowed to begin again.

🎧 Listen to the full conversation with Dawn Winalski: From the Arctic to Advocacy: Law, Sobriety & Movement

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