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It’s a very special day for Jessica Simpson as the singer celebrates 4 years of sobriety. On Monday Simpson shared a picture taken of her in the early morning of November 1st, 2017 with a candid and inspiring caption. “This person in the early morning of Nov 1, 2017, is an unrecognizable version of myself. I had so much self-discovery to unlock and explore,” she wrote. At the time Simpson was addicted to alcohol and taking diet pills and things got so bad she was even drinking at her daughter’s school functions. “I knew in this very moment I would allow myself to take back my light, show victory over my internal battle of self-respect, and brave this world with piercing clarity. Personally, to do this I needed to stop drinking alcohol because it kept my mind and heart circling in the same direction, and quite honestly I was exhausted,” the mother of 3 wrote.
Simpson released a memoir called “Open Book” where she talked about being abused for many years as a young girl. “I wanted to feel the pain so I could carry it like a badge of honor. I wanted to live as a leader does and break cycles to advance forward- never looking back with regret and remorse over any choice I have made and would make for the rest of my time here within this beautiful world,” she continued in the caption of her post.
“I can’t believe it has been 4yrs! It feels like maybe 2. I think that is a good thing. Ha. There is so much stigma around the word alcoholism or the label of an alcoholic. The real work that needed to be done in my life was to actually accept failure, pain, brokenness, and self sabotage. The drinking wasn’t the issue. I was. I didn’t love myself. I didn’t respect my own power. Today I do. I have made nice with the fears and I have accepted the parts of my life that are just sad. I own my personal power with soulful courage. I am wildly honest and comfortably open. I am free,” she concluded.
Simpson has been very open when it comes to her trauma and struggles with addiction in hopes that it could help others like her. Last year she told NPR, “For me, I was just trying to get through the day, I was spiraling like everything. I mean, I had taken diet pills for a very long time and I didn‘t ever think that there was anything wrong with them. Now that I do not take them anymore, I realize how on edge that it actually made me and how much anxiety that they were actually causing — and then how the alcohol actually wasn’t suppressing that, it was heightening that.”
The singer was even drinking at school functions. “I think that it really, like, in that moment of going to school and pouring a drink and having to have a drink to even get through a school function, that I was so insecure in that type of setting. It was a really shameful moment for me. And I really thought that those things were actually making me better when really they were destroying me, and they were taking me out of my life and not putting me in the moment,” Simpson said.
Congratulations Jessica!