Still can’t believe it’s been over a year since that frightful night. I was drunk on my way to pick up and hit someone. They were airlifted and survived thank God. I was arrested for my third DUI this time with GBI. I was looking at prison time. The DA offered me one year county jail with 6 years prison term suspended. 5 years formal probation with no ER. I took it knowing the risk of relapse and my lifelong history of it. Due to COVID-19 I served only 19 days of that one year county sentence. God has been merciful to me. I cannot take that for granted. I need to stay sober. The violation is not worth going to prison. I was given a chance at freedom and I need to make good choices. This disease, or illness, I don’t know what it is, is strong. It wants to bring me down and ruin my life. I need to stay sober for myself and my family.
248 days
Quick check in, starting then 8 day covid testing at a school today, nice to earn some money whilst waiting on other jobs.
Have a good day all
Checking in, still sober and nicotine-free. It’s good to be back, I missed you guys.
Checking in at 39 days sober.
That’s good to hear claartje!!
Here a tired check in. I went to try out working yesterday for the first time alone on the job and had to put in 10hrs to finish the flooring. My body really objected after like 5 hours and that Was to be expected… in fact the doctors said that work was pretty much not really good but I have to with my income couse the holes in the refrigerator want filling aswell.
Plus I can’t afford the healthy food diet without the extra income .
But the feeling that the body really is exhausted and you want or need to do more sucks.
With the wrong diagnosis for over a year and the sitrep atm it’s all but certain what future brings but basically the insurance won’t pay for my progressive other diagnose, witch they will pay for when it progresses and I collapse… So the doc is trying to get the paperwork a bit altered so I can be operated shortly couse the way this goes is waiting on a tikking bomb while operating now even would be cheaper in the end.
Enough bout that,
To everyone a good morning
@Dniz big up,
@Its_me_Stella , love your post
@Tomek , sup champ? Missed you 2
@Iwebt looks to be going the right way isn’t it !
@M-be-free49 I guess you’d have at least the rest of your life to do right. The flashbacks can really trigger and suck thoug but you got it under control, keep ya head up, mind straight and heart strong
@mno good morning friend ! Sending positive vibes
@lisa07 keep us posted
@DLS how’s it going over there
@Alisa , you ok today ?!
@Girlinterrupted , my mind thought of you yesterday and really hope you are doing and going strong! Just guess wanna say , you’re a great person
Love you clannies , bless
- Second coffee. One late shift till my weekend. I feel some old fashioned procrastination creeping in. I really don’t feel like going to the gym this morning. But got to do something. Some retail therapy instead maybe. I’ll go the the jeans and sneaker outlets on the other side of town and see maybe there’s something there for me. I can do with some. I’ll go on my bike so I’ll have done something good for my body too. Have as good a day as you all can friends. Sober and clean. Love from my balcony on this first day of autumn (congrats on spring @apes2020)
@Tomek Great to have you back! And just as great you’re still booze and smoke free!
@Dniz Not important what we call it, important is we recognize it for what it does to us. It destroys us. Congrats on your continued sobriety.
Sending strength, that really is a lot. I am glad u found the strength to share, hope u got some relief from it.
It’s nice to see you with Nala and posting. Hoping for the best for you and your body, hope the paperwork will get done in your favor and you’ll soon be restored to good health. Lots of positivity from here for that.
I’m fine, thanks for asking. If you thought I was in the hurricane, I’m not. I’m not near at all. I was just grateful for the help that the people got prior to and would get after it went through.
Have a good day @050Nl and thank you.
Day 8 once again….
All is fine, enjoying some emotionally balanced day.
I’m sorry that you have such rough time with the medical issues though. Hang in there!
15 months today! 
Hey everyone, checking in on day 444. I hope everyone has a good one!
Wowsy! 11 months today!!!
Furthermore, my application has been processed and I’ve been granted an advanced employment course to help me get back into working life. Got a message this morning! Yay!
Not to mention that I just got on a train heading West to see my folks and friends!
Follow up to last night’s post because I was a bit too ready for bed to reflect on hitting 30 days. Thank you to @Dazercat and @M-be-free49 for acknowledging this milestone.
Long post below… TL;DR I’m happy to be sober 
As I think of reaching 30 days, I can’t help but also think of the other times in my life where I have reached 30 days. My intention was different at these previous points. The first time I hit 30 days was several years ago. After a particularly rough New Year’s Eve “celebration” I was faced with a terrible hangover and that lingering uncertainty of what exactly had happened the night before. Did I have something to be ashamed about? I couldn’t remember my actions. I was coming off a 10-day solitary meditation cabin retreat in which I had consumed no alcohol at all, and the contrast was so striking. I was also already in a very contemplative and reflective space because of the retreat and it prompted me to take an intentional break from alcohol. So I was sober for the month of January that year. One whole month. It was a huge accomplishment. I was astonished at how much I desired sweets. After a stressful day at work, I remember taking the subway home (I lived in NYC at the time) and just fantasizing about stuffing my face with cake, which I immediately went to the grocery store and purchased. I was proud of myself for not drinking. But looking back at it now, I can see how the addict mind was still at work in me. I was still trying to fill a void even as I was abstaining from alcohol. And I couldn’t wait for the month to end so I could start up again. The goal at that point was just to take a month off, and afterward I was back to my regular drinking habits, though they took some time to ramp back up.
At other points since then I drank way less due to life and work circumstances, but then it always started to increase heavily again. About halfway through September 2019, I had another incident that prompted me to stop. When I hit 30 days during that break from alcohol, again, my intention was different than it is now. In fact, my intention was unclear. I approached it just as a break. Would I drink again? Probably. I didn’t want to make any big decisions or proclamations about moving away from alcohol. I made it a month a half and then kept the drinking fairly minimal for a while after that until the pandemic hit, then oh boy, did I use that as an excuse to get bombed.
This caught up to me quickly and June 1, 2020, I stopped drinking and began tracking my sober days. But again, intention is everything. I still thought I could just manage it. Yes, I’m proud of the times I hit 30 days between June and November that year – those were big steps for me and having that many long gaps between drinking was a huge accomplishment, but I was still lying to myself about my relationship with alcohol. I was still wishing it could be something different than what it was. I was drinking about once every four to six weeks – sometimes just one drink, sometimes two. I didn’t really get very drunk during this time, but I was still giving in to alcohol.
The next full 30 days started right after Thanksgiving of 2020. During the holiday, I thought, this is vacation, I can indulge. Each night the drinking increased until I woke up Saturday morning, once again, feeling horrible. Wait, backtrack – I have to admit something and I don’t think I’ve ever shared it here. About a week before Thanksgiving my boyfriend was out of town for a couple of nights on a hunting trip. The first night I drank a little bit and thought I was being fun and sneaky. The next night, I drank literally everything in the house, seeing how far I could go. I woke up the next day, and I know the alcohol was effecting my body and mind, but I didn’t even really feel hungover. I felt somehow like I had “beat” alcohol. And then I had to go out and spend a shit ton of money to replace the booze I had consumed. I felt gross spending the money but I was too embarrassed to admit or explain to my boyfriend what had happened. I also felt like I wasted an entire evening by myself by getting drunk. I could have taken a bath, enjoyed a nice dinner, watched a movie, danced around, done late-night restorative yoga before bed. But no…again I tried in vain to fill a void instead of just feeling what I was feeling and being myself.
Anyways, after Thanksgiving, I thought it was for good. And yet, my intention, as I reflect back, was still unclear and unformed. It was in my mind that I didn’t want to drink anymore, but I wouldn’t fully articulate it to myself or to anyone else. I still had some notion that maybe someday I could drink again “normally,” some desire to sneak that alcohol back in my system once I had paid my dues with abstinence.
As we know, that got me in trouble when I began experimenting with sips earlier this summer. “Sipping is slipping.” Is that a saying? It should be… at least for many of us here, I think that’s the truth. Sipping is slipping. And I slipped right back into a gin martini that made me puke in the middle of the night. Not even a full drink, and it poisoned me.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again – I’m grateful for this relapse. I’ve chosen to use the word relapse here instead of reset because I think it better reflects my personal relationship with alcohol. I relapsed. I wanted to be sober and I broke that commitment. It showed me so clearly this time what I don’t want. It showed me alcohol’s true colors. Other times I slipped up and was able to drink heavily, it tricked me into thinking I could somehow manage alcohol. This time there were no games, no lies about what it really was and what it was doing to me and my body. I thought that I was enjoying the tipsy feeling…that lasted for about ten minutes before I could feel what the substance was really doing to me, and that was not enjoyable at all. I knew the next morning that I had to hit the reset button on my timer and reconfirm my commitment to sobriety and embrace myself as a non-drinker, that I had to truly celebrate abstinence from alcohol and get rid of any lingering thoughts that maybe someday I could just have a glass of wine or a cocktail. I don’t want it, I don’t need it. I don’t need to escape from who I truly am.
My intention now this time around is clear – more clear than ever before. I don’t drink. I am a non-drinker. I’ve got my non-alcoholic beverage choices in mind and on hand for when situations arise and there is alcohol present. I prefer these beverages over alcohol. I don’t need to sip a wine or drink on occasion “for taste” – no thank you, I’m pretty sure I know what it tastes like anyways. I am celebratory of my sobriety. I am not embarrassed or ashamed in my choice to not drink. When I see alcohol at the store, I now think “poison.” I have 30 days, and my intention is that this is the last time I will ever have 30 days again.
Thanks for listening to my story and reading my very long reflections this morning on what 30 days means and how this has changed for me over time… thanks to everyone here for witnessing one another on our individual paths. We are each going through our own situation, but I’m glad we can still do it here together and be honest and open with each other as we figure it out. XOXO
509 today. Day 590 without tobacco. Still one day at a time. I think I see a pattern here. Lol
Day 446 clean and sober today. Have a great day everyone, love you guys!!! 
Yay!!!
Missed you so much!
Your post brought tears to my eyes, although I can not imagine what it would be like to have reached 30 days that many times( I was a 1 day wonder), I can relate to the above quote. I understand being finished with poisoning my body. Congrats on the past 30 days of freedom you have found.
