Drinking to Numb Your Feelings: How Mailinn Survived End-Stage Alcoholism

By the time Mailinn was 28, she was drinking up to four liters of vodka a day, vomiting blood every morning, and writing letters for her family to open after she died. Her doctor had already told her, point blank, that they would not see each other the following year. Drinking to numb your feelings is one of the most common reasons people pick up a glass in the first place, and it is also one of the quietest ways a casual habit turns into a life-threatening dependency.

On the Sober Motivation podcast, Mailinn shared the full arc of that story: how a 12-year-old's first sip in the Norwegian countryside became a daily fight to stop her hands from shaking, how her body shut down completely, and how she woke up from a two-month coma into a second life she never expected to have. This is what her journey can teach you about the warning signs, the lies addiction tells, and what recovery actually looks like on the other side.

Why People Start Drinking to Numb Their Feelings

Drinking to numb your feelings means using alcohol to switch off anxiety, grief, stress, and self-doubt instead of feeling them. For Mailinn, that was the entire point. She was not chasing a buzz. She was chasing silence.

"It was numbing for me. I had a lot of thoughts, anxiety, things from my childhood, a lot of stress about the future, and I didn't feel good enough. When I was out partying, I didn't think about those. I just used it as medication to numb every feeling."

She had also lost several family members, and alcohol became the easiest way to avoid the weight of all of it. The cruel irony, as she put it, is that she drank to feel happy and ended up barely able to feel anything at all.

If any of that sounds familiar, you are not unusual. Drinking to cope is one of the most common paths into a serious problem, and it rarely announces itself. For more on that pattern, Mailinn's story echoes a lot of what we covered in Drinking to Cope with Trauma: Johnny's Story of Why Alcohol Worked Until It Didn't.

The takeaway: If alcohol has quietly become your tool for managing emotions, that is worth paying attention to long before it looks like a crisis.

The Warning Signs Were There for Years Before the Crisis

Here is the detail that should stop anyone in their tracks. Mailinn started drinking every day in 2013, but the warning signs were visible as early as 2010. She just talked herself out of every one of them.

"The warning signs were there from 2010, and they are such big warning signs that I just ignored."

At 18, she was already writing in her diary that she was drinking too much and should take a sober weekend, or at least a sober week. By 20 she was genuinely worried. By 21 it was every single day. The progression was slow enough that she could always find an excuse.

"I had a lot of excuses. I was like, what are you talking about, you're so young, you're a woman, everyone else is drinking, so it's nothing special, so stop worrying."

She believed the myth that an alcoholic had to be a 50-year-old man, so a young woman could not possibly qualify. That myth kept her drinking for years. The truth, as Brad pointed out on the episode, is that the label matters far less than the impact.

If you are trying to sort out whether your own habit has crossed a line, our guide to 13 Signs You Have a Drinking Problem (That Don't Look Like One) walks through the quieter red flags that are easy to wave away.

The takeaway: The early warning signs of a drinking problem are rarely dramatic. They show up as worry, excuses, and a private sense that something is off. Listening to that early voice is far easier than fighting the disease later.

How Daily Drinking Escalates Into Physical Dependence

Mailinn's drinking did not stay social. Over time it became a full-time job just to keep her body functioning.

She began drinking alone so her family would not see how much she was consuming. She switched between vodka and beer for practical reasons. Vodka was easier to hide and faster to get the job done, but it made her sicker. Beer kept her more stable but she could not carry 36 of them around. By the last four years, the math of her addiction was brutal.

"When I woke up, I had to drink at least 12 big beers to get the shaking to stop and to get my head working normally."

This is what physical dependence looks like. When her blood alcohol dropped below a certain level, the shakes started. She drank around the clock, slept very little, and threw up every single day for four years. In the final year, what came up was only blood, because her esophagus had given out.

She was consuming roughly 7,000 calories a day in alcohol and reached 165 kilos. Her doctors told her repeatedly they had never met anyone who drank as much as she did. At one point her blood alcohol level was 4.7, a number that would kill most people, and she still spoke and functioned normally.

The takeaway: Drinking to stop withdrawal symptoms, like morning shakes or nausea, is one of the clearest signs that a habit has become a physical dependency. At that stage, stopping safely often requires medical support.

The Lie That Keeps People Drinking: "It's Too Late for Me"

The most dangerous belief Mailinn carried was not that she could not stop. It was that she was too far gone to bother trying.

"At that point I was too far gone, I thought. I couldn't stop drinking. I would rather die than stop, because it felt so impossible."

Being told over and over that she was a unique, unsolvable case only deepened that hopelessness. She felt completely alone, which is exactly why she has spent the last four years sharing her story in the media. She wants anyone who feels like the worst case in the room to know they are not the only one.

When her family was asked why they never cut her off, their answer reframes the entire idea of "deserving" help.

"We wouldn't cut you out of our lives if you had cancer, so why on earth should we cut you off when you're clearly sick?"

That support never wavered. The same friends and family who were with her at her lowest are still in her life today.

The takeaway: "It's too late for me" is one of the most convincing lies addiction tells. Mailinn's recovery from genuinely end-stage alcoholism is proof that the voice insisting it is impossible is lying to you.

What Recovery Actually Looked Like

Recovery did not start with a clean, inspiring decision. It started in a hospital bed, in a coma, on a ventilator with 11 percent lung capacity, after a doctor convinced her to stay by promising she could drink there if she just did not leave. She never drank again.

She spent two months in a coma and four and a half months in the hospital. She had multi-organ failure and Guillain-Barre syndrome, a condition that left her paralyzed. Recovery meant learning to walk again, losing around 100 kilos, and rebuilding a life she had been certain she would never live to see.

What strikes you most in the conversation is not the trauma. It is the gratitude.

"My gratitude is my reward for the hell I've been through. When I get up from the toilet, I can burst into a smile because my legs work. I can do this by myself, without firemen. I'm grateful for everything, all day."

That physical rebuild has a name worth understanding if you are early in your own journey. Our day-by-day timeline of what happens to your body when you stop drinking lays out the recovery process from the first day through the first year.

The takeaway: Recovery is not just the absence of alcohol. For Mailinn, it became a daily practice of gratitude for ordinary things she once could not do at all.

Her Advice to Anyone Still Struggling

When Brad asked what she would say to someone who is struggling or thinking about getting started, Mailinn's answer was simple and direct.

"Don't listen to the voice in your head telling you it's impossible to live without alcohol. That voice is lying. It is possible, and there's a very good life waiting for you. When you get to this side, you'll wonder why it took so long."

She also wishes she had talked to someone with real experience while she was still drinking, instead of facing it alone. That single connection, she believes, could have changed everything.

The Second Life

There is a quote Brad shared at the end of the episode that captures Mailinn's story perfectly: everyone gets two lives, and the second one starts the day you realize why. Mailinn got her second chance at 28, written off by everyone, and she has spent every day since trying to earn it by helping others find their way out.

If you recognized yourself anywhere in her story, whether you are drinking around the clock or just quietly worried, that worry is worth listening to. You do not have to reach a coma to deserve a different life.

Listen to Mailinn's full conversation on the Sober Motivation podcast, and if you are ready to take a first step, download the Sober Motivation app to connect with people who understand exactly what you are facing. You are not the only one, and it is not too late.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does it mean to drink to numb your feelings?

Drinking to numb your feelings means using alcohol to suppress emotions like anxiety, grief, or stress rather than processing them. It often starts as a way to relax or feel happy, but over time the brain comes to rely on alcohol to avoid discomfort, which can accelerate the path to dependence.

Can you recover from end-stage alcoholism?

Yes. Mailinn's story is a real example of someone recovering after multi-organ failure, a two-month coma, and being told she would not survive. Recovery from severe alcoholism is possible, though late-stage cases often require medical care, and stopping suddenly after heavy daily drinking can be dangerous without supervision.

Why do people drink every day to stop shaking?

Morning shakes are a withdrawal symptom. When someone is physically dependent on alcohol, their body reacts when blood alcohol drops too low. Drinking first thing to steady the shakes, as Mailinn described, is a strong sign of physical dependence and a reason to seek medical guidance before quitting.

What are the early warning signs of a drinking problem?

Early signs are usually quiet, not dramatic. They include worrying privately about how much you drink, making excuses to keep drinking, planning your time around alcohol, and drinking alone or hiding the amount. Mailinn noticed these signs years before her drinking became life-threatening.

Is it ever too late to get sober?

No. One of the most damaging beliefs in addiction is that you are too far gone to try. Mailinn believed she was the worst case her doctors had ever seen, yet she has been sober and rebuilding her life for years. The voice telling you it is impossible is not telling the truth.