The singer and entrepreneur took to Instagram on Monday morning to reflect on how far she's come since deciding to become sober.
Jessica Simpson is celebrating four years of sobriety by reflecting on how far she's come since she decided to stop drinking. The 41-year-old singer and entrepreneur took to Instagram on Monday to share an "unrecognizable" throwback of herself on the morning she began her journey of self-discovery and sobriety.
"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. 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," Simpson shared, before explaining that in order to go on this journey, she had to first stop drinking alcohol. "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. 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."
The fashion designer opened up about the "real work" she's done to accept the "failure, pain, brokenness and self-sabotage" present in her life, adding that the real issue wasn't the alcohol, but her instead.
"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," she explained.
In the last four years, Simpson said she not only has gotten to a place where she loves and respects herself, but she's finally "free."
"I didn’t love myself. I didn’t respect my own power," Simpson continued. "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."
Simpson talked more about her decision to quit drinking in her memoir, Open Book, where she shared that a hazy Halloween in 2017 led her to quit for good.
"I'm very conscious in my mind even if I'm not speaking it. Like, 'Ugh I cant believe you have to do this.' I was disappointed in myself, but I would still pour the drink because I didn't know how I could make it through," Simpson told ET in Feb. 2020. "I didn't know I could be strong enough without it, and really I'm way stronger without and I didn't realize. I thought that that was gonna me help me through life. I didn't know that it was keeping me from living my life."
Once she came to that realization, her decision to quit drinking became that much easier.
"Giving up the alcohol was easy," she told People at the time. "I was mad at that bottle. At how it allowed me to stay complacent and numb."
What resulted was Simpson facing her anxiety and emotional trauma -- much of which came from the sexual abuse she endured as a child -- with a team of doctors, support from her parents and therapy twice a week.
"I found direction and that was to walk straight ahead with no fear," she said. "Honesty, it is hard but it’s the most rewarding thing we have. And getting to the other side of fear is beautiful."
And being sober, Simpson shared, has allowed her to be fully present for those big moments in her life with her husband, Eric Johnson, and their three children, Maxwell, 9, Ace, 8 and Birdie, 2.
"I had room for so many wonderful moments that I would have missed: sober for the first time ever in my studio and seeing Maxwell grab a guitar. Ace in pajamas he put on himself, proudly adding a sticker to his bedtime chart," Simpson added. "There’s just no better gift. There’s no better gift I can give my kids, there’s no better gift I can give my husband. More importantly, there’s no better gift I can give myself."
For more on Simpson, watch the video below.
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