I drank for 40+ years…existing the only way I knew or thought possible…hungover, or waiting for my next drink, or wondering how I could cut down or drink normally or just ‘get a handle on my drinking.’ By the end of my drinking career, I was depressed, anxiety ridden, suicidal and filled with guilt and shame. This was my life.
I had tried for many years to get sober and March 16, 2017 was another morning like any other…hungover, filled with guilt and shame at fighting (again) and horribly with my husband (on his birthday of course…celebrations!). I had to stop drinking…so I did, again, like 100s of times before.
A week later, I went looking for a day counter and found TS and this community and so began a new and very unexpected chapter.
I signed in here and I read and read and read, I tiptoed out and learned to take responsibility for my sobriety…that it didn’t matter what was happening around me (a wedding, a funeral, a holiday, a bad day, a good day) or who was drinking near me (my husband, my friends) or how I felt inside (shitty and worthless)…drinking was a choice …it was my choice to pick up the bottle…or not.
Sounds so simple…but somehow this had eluded me all those years…but this time, miraculously, it all started to make sense. After all those years of trying, some switch flipped and I remained sober. Day after day after day…how was this quit any different than all the others?
Was it this app and community support and knowledge base? Was it all that time I had invested in trying and working toward and dipping my toes in sobriety, in building my sober muscles little by little… all the reading that added to my toolbox, all the pain gathering, knowledge gathering, strength gathering? Did I grow out of it, like I grew into it? What the hell was the key?
It was all of it. It was every bit of struggle that made me defeated and stronger, this app, this community, this support system…every book I read on sobriety and recovery…every bit of exercise and health(ier) food and yoga and mindfulness that helped heal my body and mind …every bit of knowledge on how to rewire our brains and bodies and heal…every other app and online community I participated in over the years before I arrived here…every damn time I read ‘my list’ over and over…it was all of it.
So here I am …5 years later…still sober.
5 years, 1,826 days of waking sober and going to bed sober…of continuing to be here now…to choose sobriety and recovery, to choose not to drink…to choose my self each and every day.
Never, never in all of my 40+ years of drinking and drugs did I truly believe I could get here and feel this incredibly strong, clear and proud …I thought living sober would be a slog…and it was…til it wasn’t.
So…thank you TS family for holding me up when I needed it most, for always being here, for helping me learn how to be and live sober. You are a huge part of my sobriety and recovery and I am grateful, every day, for you.
@robin, I am not sure you truly understand how important what you created here is and how many lives you have changed and helped heal…but I am so grateful and thankful you chose to create this app and community.
Thank you Robin. 
Thank you TS.
For those struggling, please know sobriety is possible, even if the drinking life is all you have known. Each day is a new beginning, a new opportunity to love and care for your self. To rebuild your pride and self esteem and confidence.
Life is not perfect, my anxiety is still with me (less, but here), some days truly suck, hell, last year sucked. But drinking would not make anything better or easier to handle. And I refuse to hide from my feelings anymore…they won’t kill me…they come, they go. Life for me is less complicated, simpler, much more content on the sober side.
Never ever give up on your self.
List of the many sobriety related books I read over the years, my recovery process and my list of why I no longer drink can be found in this topic…
(A lifelong drinker hits 1200 days sober)
Let go, or be dragged.
5 years is an amazing achievement! Thank you for sharing your story, such an inspiration! 
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