Valerie Bertinelli shares emotional struggle to maintain 18-month sobriety
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Valerie Bertinelli became emotional as she opened up about her battle to maintain her sobriety while experiencing “emotionally excruciating feelings.”
The 65-year-old former Food Network star, who has been sober since January 2024, recently took to Instagram to post several videos in which she candidly addressed fighting the urge to drink during a difficult time in her life.
“I’ve been going through some really intense, uncomfortable, sad, emotionally excruciating feelings the last few days, and I want to drink. I want to numb it. I don’t want to feel it,” Bertinelli admitted.
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Valerie Bertinelli cried as she admitted to battling with staying sober while experiencing “emotionally excruciating feelings.” (Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images)
She continued, “But my logical mind is like, ‘No, you don’t want to do that. You don’t want to numb it. You know what will help you feel better is to just feel the feelings. Get through to the other side. Have a good cry.’ And yet, I can’t cry.”
The “One Day at a Time” alum shared that she was also struggling with resisting indulging in unhealthy food as she dealt with her emotions. Over the past few years, Bertinelli has spoken out about her health journey and her decision to stop weighing herself.
“I want to eat it away too,” she said. “Like I want eat something that I know isn’t necessarily going to put a lot of vitamins and minerals and fiber and protein into my body. The things that my body needs. Because I just want to numb these f—ed-up feelings.”
Valerie Bertinelli first spoke about becoming sober in January 2024. (Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)
“So you know what I’m gonna do?” Bertinelli told her followers in another clip. “I’m going to come on the internet and slice a watermelon because I love watermelon.”
“It’s watermelon season, and a watermelon will make me feel better, but it won’t make me numb my feelings,” she added as she teared up.
The two-time Emmy Award winner proceeded to set a watermelon on a cutting board and began carving the fruit.
“Slice the watermelon with me, OK?” Bertinelli told her fans. “We’re going to eat watermelon, but I’m not eating too many feelings.”
“I’m going to feel my feelings while I slice the watermelon,” she added with a laugh.
In a follow-up video, Bertinelli began to cry as she sliced the watermelon.
“It’s gonna taste really good,” she said as she displayed the watermelon which she cut in half. “This is my favorite time of year. It’s watermelon season.”
The actress explained that she was also resisting the urge to eat unhealthy foods. (Dominik Bindl/Getty Images)
Bertinelli emphasized the importance of facing painful emotions in a subsequent clip.
“I have these feelings,” she said. “I’m not going to talk about why I have them, where they came from, but I do want to talk about feelings and how when we suppress them, when we numb them, it only makes them stronger.”
“And it doesn’t make us feel better about ourselves,” she continued. “What happens is when we numb them, we feel bad about what we’ve done to numb the feelings. So then that adds on to whatever shame that we may have about those feelings. And it just adds an extra layer of shame, which is what we don’t want. We just wanna be, like if we’re sad, we just wanna to be sad. We just want to be sad.”
Bertinelli explained that choosing to eat healthy food like watermelons made her “happy.”
“Because it tastes so good and it’s got vitamins and water and fiber and minerals,” Bertinelli said.
“And I’m not numbing my feelings,” she said while continuing to cry. “I just know that I feel sad and it’s just a feeling. It’ll pass. Because I’m strong, and I’m good. I just happen to feel sad right now, and I’ll get through it, and so can you. We don’t have to drink alcohol or eat food to numb feelings that we just need to feel, so that these feelings can then feel heard.”
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Bertinelli explained the importance of “not numbing my feelings.” (Getty Images)
“Feelings are information,” Bertinelli continued in the last video of her slideshow.
“So now, every time I want to wallow in my sadness, which I don’t want to do — I’m just going to have a bite of watermelon and ask my feelings what they want to tell me,” she said as she lifted up a container of sliced watermelon.
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“Hope this was helpful,” the actress concluded with a laugh.
Bertinelli reiterated her message in the caption of her post, writing, “Feel your feelings. Do your best not to numb them. Feelings are information. Ask them what they need. Feel them. Get to the other side.”
In a follow-up post, Bertinelli shared a more cheerful update as she expressed her gratitude to her followers for their support. She noted how she felt less alone after fans posted their own stories of struggling with painful feelings in the comments.
“Hey, just a quick thank you,” the TV personality said with a smile. “I sometimes am incredibly surprised and reminded and and being reminded of how many amazing people there are out there So I just wanted to say thank you and thank you for sharing with each other in my comments section, supporting each other, supporting me. I support you.”
“It’s just a really great feeling when you don’t feel alone in feeling something,” she continued.
Bertinelli later shared a more cheerful update and thanked her fans for their support. (Nathan Congleton/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)
“And I ended up eating the whole watermelon that day and I’m not ashamed of that,” Bertinelli added with a laugh. “Because I still felt all my feelings. I got to the other side and I’m in a better place and I am just grateful.”
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“And even for those of you that wrote how offended you were, you know that you don’t have to actually watch my videos and you don’t have to comment that you can just keep going. It’s OK. I’m not going to disturb your world if you don’t want me to, but to all the rest of you, thank you. I just love that we’re doing all this together.”
