Jessica Simpson is reflecting on an important day in her life. On Monday, Simpson posted about being sober for four years, after deciding to make a change on Nov. 1, 2017. Not only did the singer-turned-designer post on Instagram the story of how she realized to had to get sober, but she also shared a photo taken on that same day. She says it shows what is now "an unrecognizable version of [herself]."
In her Instagram caption, Simpson writes about how she feels now versus how she felt then, and shares what becoming sober means to her. Read on to find out more, and to see what the 41-year-old has said about alcohol use disorder in the past.
RELATED: Jessica Simpson Admits She Was Drunk in That 2017 Ellen Interview.
The photo shows a pivotal moment in her life.
Simpson remembers exactly what she was thinking in the moment the photo was taken four years ago.
"This person in the early morning of Nov 1, 2017 is an unrecognizable version of myself," Simpson writes in the Instagram caption. "I had so much self discovery to unlock and explore. 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."
For her, sobriety is about confronting personal issues.
DFree / Shutterstock.comSimpson explains that she chose to stop drinking because she "wanted to feel the pain" in her life "so I could carry it like a badge of honor."
She continues, "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."
She feels "free" now.
Amy Sussman/Getty ImagesIn her post, Simpson says that she "can’t believe it has been 4yrs! It feels like maybe 2." She adds, "I think that is a good thing. Ha."
Reflecting further on her journey and how she feels today, she writes, "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."
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Simpson has been very open about her journey.
Featureflash Photo Agency / Shutterstock.comSimpson has talked about being sober in interviews and in her 2020 memoir Open Book. In Open Book (via People), she writes that she hit rock bottom at a Halloween party at her and husband Eric Johnson's home in 2017, before the photo she just shared was taken. She recalls telling her close friends, "I need to stop. Something’s got to stop. And if it’s the alcohol that’s doing this, and making things worse, then I quit."
"I was killing myself with all the drinking and pills," she also writes in the book. "Giving up the alcohol was easy. I was mad at that bottle. At how it allowed me to stay complacent and numb." She explains that what was harder was twice weekly therapy session in which she worked through past traumas.
Her kids were also a motivation.
DFree / Shutterstock.comIn a 2020 interview with The Jess Cagle Show, Simpson shared that her kids were also part of the reason she wanted to get sober. Simpson and Johnson have three children: nine-year-old Maxwell, eight-year-old Ace, and two-year-old Birdie.
"I was at that point in my life where my kids were growing older and they were watching every move that I made," she said. "I just really wanted clarity. I wanted to understand myself, because I didn’t even realize how much I was drinking and how much I was suppressing. I thought it was making me brave. I thought it was making me confident. And it was actually the complete opposite. It was silencing me."
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