I was a drunken mess. Completely lost my brain and my feelings were owned by the drink. Then, all of you helped me see that I didn’t have to do it anymore, or alone. I’m so very grateful for the fellowship of AA, my HP and all the folks here.
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Congratulations on your days, that’s incredible, huge well done 
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That’s what’s up. 3 years on the greener grass. Keep trudging friend
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I had to pull the calculator for that.
3 YEARS !!! You the Boss!! Great job you!!
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That’s amazing be so very proud of yourself 
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Thanks so much everybody. Time for my old ass to get some sleep! Hugs
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Amazing, congratulations!
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Thats they way to do it well done
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Well done!!! That is some solid work!!
Amazing!! Congrats on all that hard work and dedication. You are a role model!
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So awesome. Congratulations on 3 years!
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Congrats man. I know that all of those days haven’t been easy peesy.
Also - are there any official rules on leap days and counting anniversaries? Seems like us drunks would have that figured out now… (and made a mess of it). Lol
Much love 
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That’s amazing numbers! A true inspiration 
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Thanks man! Yeah, in my booze guzzling days I lost track of all kinds of time… shit if I know. So glad for this sober day.
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Huge congratulations to you!
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Since you started the thread… I’ll just jump in here (there are no leap days for Goat!) From early this morning:
09 October 2017, Columbus Day, I walked into my first AA meeting. I’ve told the story a number of times here and the twists of fate that had to happen to get me there.
The speaker that day was nothing like me. There was nothing in common with me except that we were both drunks and he had experienced the same physical, emotional, and spiritual bankruptcy. Yet in telling his story, there was a peace despite of the consequences he was paying for to that day from his using. I went back the next day to the meeting I was supposed to go to and that corner chair became mine until the Church shut down for Covid.
All around me at that point, my life as I knew it felt like it was falling apart. When I left the city, I grabbed the important things my stuffed Goat, my Hulk, and a few things people had written me. Not only was I concerned at what I saw on the news in those early days, my salary was slashed 40‰ with no warning the day before payroll and I had no clue how that would pay the bills. A job offer that I had accepted precovid was put on hold. Given my commute, I expected to fall sick at any point. I didn’t even eave my yard for over a monthish bc I was so concerned. Everything that I had worked for…including my health seemed to be on the verge of being gone in a moments notice. (see Goat… Lay not up your treasures where moth and rust doth corrupt, and thieves break in and steal. )
I honestly had no idea what my HP had in store for me even after the spiritual experiences I had in the prior few months. All I saw was the wreckage around me and in front of me.
Today, I haven’t been to an in person meeting since mid-March and have struggled with virtual meetings, at first bc my anxiety was ridiculous and we drunks get the job done, but are a chaotic bunch doing it. So my anxiety skyrocketed.
I also am someone that absorbs others energies and I was just overloaded from others drama. Meetings were free for allls with the most technologically inept running things. Pillars of my AA community died, others were openly bat shit, and that was being spread all over. And no this wasn’t Salerno Beach.
At that point, either I had to stay wrapped up in that anxiety, or I had to follow that inner voice that told me to the inconceivable and let go of the thing that I thought was the main driver in keeping me sober, meetings. I had made a meeting pretty much ever day except for a handful. So I did what seemingly felt right, but so wrong logically. I would hit a meeting here or there when a friend or squirrel was speaking, but they have been few and far between.
I say this not to put AA down or to down play the importance meetings, but for me it was neccesary for perspective and growth. The only way I can articulate it is that I had to spend the time in the desert, before being permitted to spend time on the mountain.
So I got some spiritual materials together, and worked them into my routine. Kirtan reccomended by a friend for the dog walks to keep them brisk and then some reading on the porch after the walk. Through this and some light meditation, I was able to make the connection with whatever my HP was and my anxiety receded pulling back the curtain on certain relationships with my job, people there, and elsewhere in my life.
As spring came forth, there was another experience that signaled the disruption that was to come in my life. The job offer was largely rescinded and a much lower salary was offered, which I found was in part to someone else’s lies, greed, and dishonesty. I was attacked ruthlessly by people closest to me such that i found myself at that point we hear about… Where the only thing that stood between me an a drink was my higher power. No human power could have kept me from a drink at that point, not even my own. For the first time that I can remember, I didn’t wallow in the pain and hurt, I didn’t think about how I was garbage, that same voice that told me to let go told me that I wasn’t that person anymore. It was that voice, the same one that I heard when I hit bottom and told me that to drink again was to die and that I could not do this alone. (I find the use of this so interesting as this can be what it needs to be).
Things began to change rapidly after that… I no longer had to allow myself to be a door mat. Another opportunity opened up job wise and it somehow worked out. After a couple decades, I was starting over in another place with another colleague…in a pandemic. A new job in a pandemic. As the layers continue to peel back, certain people and relationships are not what I thought they were, showing me there is still plenty more work to do and things to learn.
What all this means for tomorrow, I don’t know. But for today, I am sober and so very grateful for the people trudging along with me and for my HP and his guidance and markers on so many things in my life in this last year.
Much love.
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My friend, so much love and congratulations to you, too! You are welcome to crash, steal, jump, etc. on any thread I’ve got because this is a team approach to the simple truth; we are alcholics and our lives were unmanageable. Hugs from afar.
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Congratz !!!
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