What it was like then and what it's like for us now. For those with a year of sobriety

Thank you for sharing @Leximooncat. Inspiring to guy on day 50-something.

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Thank you.

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Thank you @SoberWalker!

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Thank you too @Forged!!

@Forged asked me, so here you goā€¦it is long!

I wake up, my head weighs 10,000 lbs and is throbbing, my eyelids are stuck together, my mouth is like sawdust and I can tell I have been grinding my teeth down. I have no idea how or when I got to bed. I am in the spare room or an unknown hotel, most likely means another fight with my husband. The shame, pain and anxiety that I feel every morning envelope me. I know I fucked up again. I stumble up, I see I am covered in random bruises from god knows what. No surprise there. Maybe I puke, maybe not. I better check social media, texts and phone calls to see what I posted, who I called, how I humiliated myself. Again. I feel like shit. I am shit. Nothing new there.

Another morning like so many throughout my life. Years ago it would be wake up in some strange bed with some strange guy or wake up in a car or in the woods or at a friends. Always the mental anguish of how did I get here? What did I do? Check to see if I had sex consensually or not. Check out my car and see if new dings or dents or if I wrapped it around a tree and walked awayā€¦again. Another night driving black out or with one eye open trying to concentrate.

For 40+ years I soaked my brain and body and soul in alcohol (and drugs, but that is another story). Drinking to party and have fun, to celebrate, to drown sorrows, to fit in, to escape, because I didnā€™t know any other way to be. I didnā€™t know how to feel without alcohol or drugs to tamp it all down.

Sure I had plenty of years where my drinking was normal-ish and I functioned-ish. But in my head, my inner voice spoke to me in anguish and turmoil ā€¦knowing I was slowly killing myself, soul first.

How is it possible to spend every night making the promise to yourself that you were done drinking. And then drink yourself to oblivion the next day or the day after or both? How can you keep letting yourself down over and over and have self respect? You canā€™t. My soul was crushed. I was stuck in a cycle of drinking with no end in site. I couldnā€™t string together more than a few days without drinking to blackout.

I totalled 7 cars when drinking, 2 when I was still in high school. I dropped out of high school to have more time to drink and trip. I lied to everyone who cared for me. I stole from them and from jobs. I lied to myself. I cheated. I lived in my car, in camps I broke into, in a cemetary. I couch surfed. I traded parts of myself for shelter, alcohol, drugs. I left my daughter with people I shouldnā€™t have. I lost jobs, friends, lovers. I let everyone down over and over. I married my drinking partner who beat me and tried to kill me, but killed himself insteadā€¦yeah, he was drunk. I treated everyone who cared for me shabby, myself even worse. I lived on the streets. I sold drugs, my soul and more, all so I could feed my addictions. Thereā€™s more. You pack a lot of crap into 40 years of using.

And yet, I kept at it somehow thinking that because I made money, kept house and raised up my daughter I was normal and I could get my drinking under control.

I tried moderating and bargaining. Only drink on weekends, have water every other drink, no whiskey, no martinis, only martinis, only red wine, only white wine, on and on. I tried every trick I could think of to make my drinking normal, but it can never be normal. No amount of bargaining, no amount of moderating was successful. Sure, I could string together days, weeks of not getting blackout or over the line, but eventually I would again and my hopes for moderation would die.

But still, I was ā€˜funā€™ a good time party girl! Everyone loved drunk Sassy, until they didnā€™t. On the outside, I looked like everyone else, just another single working Mom or later in life a married working woman trying to unwind and have fun with some booze!

In my heart though, in my soul, in those late night talks in my head, I knew I was fucked. The dark thoughts were getting louder as the years and my drinking progressed. And by the time I knew absolutely knew I HAD to stop drinking, the dark thoughts were taking over.

Once I started ā€˜trying to cut down, maybe stopā€™ I found myself quitting and relapsing over and over and overā€¦how the hell could I stop drinking if my husband was still drinking? Geez! He was so unsupportive! I canā€™t quit if he drinks around me!!! So I would ā€˜tryā€™ and fail over and over and blame him or the party or friends or whatever. How can I not drink at a wedding? In summer at the Cape? After a hard day at work? How else do you unwind?

But the truth was, I was way past unwind. I was way past ever having a normal relationship with alcohol. I could tuck in 4 bottles of wine a night easy.

The last few years before the quit that stuck were bleak. My marriage was a mess with constant drunken fights. We were barely hanging on. I looked like hell, bloated and eating crap to soak up the alcohol or assuage my hangover. I was either drunk, hungover or wondering when I could have a drink. Working out was torturous. I was always dehydrated. I was fat. I was miserable. I was drunk around my new grandson. But I was the life of the party!

Desperate. I was desperate. My thoughts were veering toward suicide. My daughter would get some $ which she needed. My husband could find a wife who didnā€™t fight with him. My interior pain would end. Every hangover brought me back to these thoughts. What was the point if I could not stop drinking?

My husbandā€™s birthday I got smashed and we fought, locked myself in bedroom, called him horrible names, threatened divorce (none of this for the first or 50th time) and blah blah blahā€¦all that shit. I woke up horrified and broken. Again. Something had to give. I went to google to look up apps for quitting drinking and found TS. I had gone about 5 days without a drink when I logged in here.

And I read threads. A lot of threads. I found other people who were like me. I found tips on how to live with someone who drinks. Tips on how to get thru those first days and weeks sober. I kept coming back on here and reading.

I learned that I am 100% responsible for my sobriety. It sounds simple, but it wasnā€™t, at least not for me. But wowā€¦this hit home for me. It doesnā€™t matter if he is drinking, I donā€™t have to.

I also learned to make and keep a list of why I donā€™t drink and how I want to live my life and to look at it when I was thinking I needed that ā€˜just oneā€™ because it was never just one. That list has saved me, a lot.

And somehow, those days became a week, a month. My dark thoughts werenā€™t there so much. And you know, I felt kinda proud of myself. And 30 days turned to 60, then 90. I spent a lot of time in our bedroom by myself reading, sleeping, eating, watching Netflix in those early days. Anything to avoid my husband when he was drinking. I walked a lot, worked out more (hey, who knew working out without a hangover was so fun!!). I spent a lot of time going to bed early to avoid cravings. Took a lot of warm epsom baths. Ate a lot of ice cream and potato chips and chocolate, glorious chocolate. My baking skills were in demand by my sweet tooth. And I didnā€™t drink and the weeks and months added up.

My heart and soul lightenend. I felt self confident and proud of what I was doing. And I was astonished that all those years YEARS of trying had somehow led to thisā€¦meā€¦sober. WTF!

There is no better feeling than waking up hangover and regret free. Regret freeā€¦just writing it makes me sigh with happiness. So many blessings when sober. After 20 years, my marriage is the best it has ever beenā€¦yeah, it was ME all alongā€¦my husband is (close to) a saint. My skin, hair and eyes are bright. I feel healthy and energized. But mostly, my anxiety and dark thoughts have lifted and I have hope and love in my heart again. Life isnā€™t perfect, neither am I, but I am honest, trustworthy, respectful and compassionate. And a good wife, mother, daughter, friend and grandmother. I love myself and my life. I am proud of myself.

I started drinking in 8th grade in 1974. I drank for 40+ years (time off for baby and breastfeeding, but I couldnā€™t get back to my bottle fast enough!!). I had my last drink March 15, 2017, 954 days ago. I am 58 years old and I am finally sober.

Never give up, never surrender. :heart:

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Thanks for the tag, @SoberWalker.

Some of my story is here: 365th day of sobriety
And here: 11 months and what it was like

What it was like: I grew up in an upper middle class home, with no alcohol, except that my parents drank a couple Manhattans on Christmas. That said, I later about some family secrets of drug abuse. My alcoholic behaviour manifested itself before I started drinking. When I was 13, I started shoplifting compulsively, which resulted in an arrest. It was jarring to be just 13 years old and in handcuffs, a police car, finger prints, and mugshots. I remember being locked in a room and banging my head on the cement wall wanting to die of the shame.

The first time I drank, I was 16 or 17. I drank vodka cranberry juice to blackout. At the time, I was taking an anti-depressant and I put the blackout down to the mixing of alcohol with the meds. I wanted to be able to drink, so I stopped taking my meds and lied to my parent and psychiatrist about it.

I then just carried on drinking. I was underage so I did all sorts to get alcohol, convincing men at gas-stations to buy it for me (I mean, who does that?!) and later making fake ids. I started snorting whatever I could get my hands on - usually other kidsā€™ prescription drugs. I also started smoking pot daily, from waking up. A few instances stand out: eating mushrooms by myself first thing in the morning and then becoming so paranoid that I locked myself in my room and thought about calling 911 because I thought I was dying. Drinking a huge amount until early in the morning, then getting up for work, taking bong hits, and then having a seizure in a coffee shop on my way to work, resulting in a hospital admission (where I lied to doctors, work and family). After a night of drinking and ecstasy, I was paranoid that I barricaded myself into my room and wouldnā€™t come out for two days. By this time, I had moved to the UK and was studying a Masters Degree. Despite all my alcohol and drug use, I always did exceptionally with school.

I continued daily drinking and drug use. I married someone that drank and drugged too. I was always drawn to people who drank and drugged even more than I did. I could drink and drug how I wanted, whilst feeling like and looking like ā€œthe good oneā€ of a pair. My marriage blew up in an alcoholic mess - he got violent when he drank and I was on the receiving end of physical and emotional abuse and death threats, followed by sincere apologies the next day. That whole situation is another mess for another day, but the interesting piece is that after we split, he got sober and I did not.

I was living in London and carried on developing my career and drinking how I wanted. I always excelled at my professional career and received several promotions. The culture was such that we could go out to lunch and drink over lunch. Sometimes I would go back to work drunk, sometimes I wouldnā€™t go back to work except to clock out. I was taking naps in the archive room to sleep off hangovers. I didnā€™t drink in the mornings, but I had a period of about 6 months of taking codeine in the mornings and afternoon to take the edge off until I could drink again in the evening.

During this time, people thought I was highly successful. I was working 60 hours a week and putting myself through law school part time. I qualified with distinction as a barrister and then started practising law. I realised I needed to reign it in as a lawyer, so I kind of did for a bit. I didnā€™t drink on evenings before going into court. But I made my world smaller and smaller and stopped going to court on Mondays and Fridays, and then I didnā€™t care if I drank on nights before court.

I didnā€™t drink everyday and I kept these weird calendars to prove that I wasnā€™t an alcoholic. I had a sticker chart with days that I didnā€™t drink because I figured that if I didnā€™t drink 2-3 days in a week, I couldnā€™t be an alcoholic. But when I did drink, I would have a huge binge, drinking to blackout. I didnā€™t understand why I couldnā€™t drink in moderation. I would go out with the intention of drinking one or two glasses of wine, but would end up there until 2am drinking - I was always the last person at the bar or the party. I would have the intention of alternating alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, but once the first drink was in me, all bets were off.

I would black out, throw up, not know how I got home, make unsafe decisions (getting into cars with strangers, going home with strangers that I met at bus stops, etc), I missed flights, was kicked off public transportation. The next day I would wake up mortified and in shame and ask myself ā€œwhy do I keep poisoning myself?!ā€ but then go on to do it again.

Everyone thought I was so successful, but I was so miserable I wanted to die. I would go to therapy and then go home and drink. I thought the problem was the job, the boyfriend, the city, the friends, etc etc. But really the problem was me and was alcohol. I thought about asking for help, but the thought of acknowledging there was a problem was too overwhelming. Instead, I blew up my life and moved back to the USA. I thought I needed a ā€œresetā€ and didnā€™t drink for 37 days. It was awful, but at the end I felt good and then started drinking again.

I let alcohol rule my life. I said I would never drive drunk, but broke that rule. I was looking to buy a house and decided it was important to me to live within walking distance to a bar. I wasnā€™t drinking all the time, but if I wasnā€™t drinking I was thinking about drinking. Because I no longer lived in walking distance to a shop with easy access to alcohol, I started stock-piling booze in my house out of fear of running out.

What happened: In September 2018, during the Kavanaugh hearings, I had a mental breakdown. The public discourse being about actions that men took, when drunk, that were abusive to women triggered some long buried PTSD. I began obsessively thinking about my own experiences and trauma, much of which took place when I was drunk too, and fixated on trying to remember the details. If I needed to, could I recall and recount details? Would I be discredited for being drunk at the time too? My mental state became unstable and I started to feel unsafe and not trusting my own actions. I was having violent fantasies and seriously considering arson. My friends and family started to feel concerned about me and my safety. On the morning of 13 October, I woke up and thought ā€œI need to not be drinking right now, it is not safeā€.

I realised that maybe ā€œnot drinking right nowā€ needed to be longer than the immediate term, but the feeling of not drinking was starting to crush my soul. I white knuckled it through 20 agonizing days, before, with the kind support of people on this forum, walking into my first AA meeting. I introduced myself ā€œIā€™m Ariel and I donā€™t know what I amā€ and I cried and cried and cried. The women lifted me up and gave me their phone numbers and told me I was in the right place and to keep coming back. So I kept going back. I was surprised to hear people telling stories where I could relate to their feelings and experiences.

I didnā€™t think I was an alcoholic, but there were all these people that I could relate to what they were sharing about their deepest feelings. Many of them looked like normal, professional people. They looked like me. Even the ones that didnā€™t look like me talked in ways that I could relate to. I took what I wanted and left the rest.

I went to a lot of meetings, sometimes up to 4 in a day. I kept crying at meetings. In sobriety, I came to realise that I was an alcoholic. The feelings of abstinence were so hard that I could only focus on one day at a time. I knew I could not drink for one day, but the thought of long-term sobriety made me feel distraught. I didnā€™t think that was a sign of a ā€œnormal drinkerā€. It took me four attempts to finally get rid of all the alcohol and drugs stashed in my house. Each time it felt painful and I would cry for days. It felt like I was grieving the loss of the most important relationship in my life. I felt like sobriety was the hardest and most important thing I had ever done.

What it is like now: Today, I have 1 year and two weeks of continuous sobriety from alcohol and drugs. Never in my wildest dreams would that happen. I still cry a lot. In fact, I cried this morning about a conflict at work. But the point is that today, I feel things. I am not afraid of my feelings. I embrace those feelings and welcome them in. I have a capacity for joy that I never knew was possible. I thought life was to be endured and now I have a beautiful life with many things to feel grateful for. I am genuinely happy to be alive and sober. It is like my life turned from black and white to technicolour. Life isnā€™t always easy, but it is always beautiful.

I still go to about 3-5 AA meetings a week. I donā€™t go because I have to, I go because I want to. Because they make me feel better. Sober alcoholics can be the most open, kind, insightful and interesting people that I have ever met. I always learn from my fellows. Many of them have become my dear dear friends. I have friendships that are closer than any other relationship that I ever had before. We share our deepest feelings and laugh and cry together.

Iā€™ve also found a sense of peace, serenity and spirituality that I never thought was possible. I meditate with a Buddhist Sangha and find ways to connect with the universe, which brings me a lot of peace. Now people say things to me like ā€œI like being around youā€, ā€œyou have great energyā€, ā€œyou always seem so calmā€. No one ever said those things to me before.

I do things like go on vacations to yoga and meditation retreats. I do yoga. I read books about personal development. I think often about how to learn more about my true self and how to be a better person. Today, I am grateful to be sober, but I know I only have today, so I never take it for granted. The greatest act of self-love I have ever done was to stop poisoning myself. It takes a lot of work and commitment, but it is possible and it is worth it. :two_hearts:

Now I am going to tag @MandiH and @anon46927530 and @Dejavu and @Eke , should they wish wish to share their stories.

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SO MUCH that I can relate to in your story. :two_hearts::bird:

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Thank you everyone for going back, reliving and sharing some off your darkness days. I am sitting here in awe of your strength and courage. Please know you have given me much hope and I am inspired to keep on fighting the monster.

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@Leximooncat
@Forged
@SoberWalker
@RedDragon
@SassyRocks
@aircircle
Thanks for sharing guys.
@Forged, I think this come right now, for a reason.
That reason is for me to actually review my year as it draws to a close.
Iā€™ve kinda bumbled along, spotting things when they happen and make a mental note.
But now is the time to actually get something on paper for posterity.
See you in a week guys.
Thanks again. Great shares.

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Ariel ā€“ not only is your story a beautiful and inspiring one, but this is also so well written. Once you get to the ā€œwhat its like nowā€ partā€¦I could just feel the joy and true sense of peace you have, through your words. A stark contrast to the first part of your story. Thank you for taking the time to write it out.

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I can relate so much to this, beautiful story. Thanks for your share :pray::purple_heart:

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Wow. Thank you for sharing! I donā€™t know if someone has asked you to be a speaker yet, but you would be REALLY good at it. Or maybe H&I?
Just a thought after reading your story :wink:

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I chaired my homegroup for the first time and shared my story this week and I just recently signed up to be able to go into the jails to help facilitate meetings there so we will see how that pans out. Thanks for the encouragement though I appreciate that and I hope I can continue to help others by sharing my experience, strength and hope! Whatā€™s itā€™s all about :smiley:

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Iā€™ve been going to AA for over a year and a half now. Iā€™ve told my story a few times but never the whole thing. The reason is because some of my story involves drugs and just never felt comfortable talking about that part in an AA. Seeing how this is a mixed room Iā€™ll tell the whole thing. Here goes nothingā€¦

I really started drinking in middle school. It wasnā€™t everyday or even every weekend, but when I drank I went hard. Smoking weed become a pretty common thing as well. Once I got to high school I really started to party a lot and blackouts started to happen more and more. Then one day I was introduced to oxicottonā€¦ I loved it. It didnā€™t become a huge habit until I was in a car accident shortly after high school. I realized if I told the doctor I was in pain they would give me pills, and boy did they. Right off the bat I was given oxi and Vicodin every month. I became a full blown addict quickly. That when Iā€™d run out Iā€™d go get 80s. That lasted for a little about 2 years until I just couldnā€™t do it anymore. Went to detox and stopped using.

I started drinking again because I didnā€™t have a problem with alcohol ( or so I told myself lol) not long after I caught my first dui. Got a slap on the wrist. I knew the cop that pulled me over and heā€™d finally had it. Heā€™d pulled me over drunk 3 times prior to this but let me go. I told myself, ok no more drinking and drivingā€¦

Fast forward a couple years and I started getting back into pills, only this time I managed to start shooting dilaudid. I thought to myself I need to make a drastic change or Iā€™m going to die from this. So I did, I joined the United States Marine Corps. It was probably the best decision I ever made because it got me away from that shit. What I did however was go back to drinking heavily. Most Marines pride themselves on how much they could drink and I fit right in. Again I didnā€™t drink everyday but Thursday, Friday and Saturday I went hard. Things didnā€™t really start spiraling with a alcohol until I got out.

I got out got married and had a kid. Boy had life changed since my single days in the Corps. I started drinking more and more. I started to drink on my way home from work. I started to do that everyday. Then I started buying bottles of vodka and hiding those. I got away with it for a while. Then my wife stated to notice that I was way more intoxicated than I should have been since I had only had ā€œa glass of wine.ā€ I started drinking at work everyday. By the end I needed a minimum of a bottle of vodka. By the end I had become unpredictable, so much so that I broke down a door to our bathroom while my wife was giving our son a bath. The next week I got my second dui. That was the beginning of the end of my drinking. My wife had enough and my marriage was falling apart. I went to my first meeting the night after and said I needed help, that I couldnā€™t stop. The first 6 months were tough and I kept relapsing. But finally something stuck.

I have been sober since August 3rd 2017. Life is amazing now. I have another son. I have a great marriage ( She stuck it out, and I could never thank her enough for that) and a awesome new job. Lifeā€™s great! I hope someone gets something from this. If not it was nice to be able to tell the whole thing for once.

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Thanks man. The point is for someone new who thinks they cant make it to realize others are and you drove that point home perfectly.

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Thank you all so much for your amazing generosity. Sharing your heartbreaking, courageous, inspiring, and heart warming experiences here, is truly a wonderful gift to the forum. :heart:

Thank you @Forged for starting it. :pray:

Bookmarked :+1: and Bumped :heart_eyes:

PS: I might frequently ā€˜bumpā€™ this

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Iā€™m early in my sober journey, 75 days to be exact. Here goesā€¦ like most here I started drinking early. I was 15. Started with a six pack on weekends. Then it went up from there through high school. A perk here, a vicodin there to enhance the buzz. Graduated high school, I had to do a year at community college, and I had a free ride to Umass Darrmouth. Failed out and didnt get the free ride. Hit the bottle hard. Parents got divorced. Lots of starts and stops along the way. Failed out of community college 2 more times, finally got my associates in 2016. Unlike most, I didnt have DUIā€™s, nothing was court ordered but I knew if I didnt stop drinking it would kill me. The most I ever did was when I joined here I went 91 days in 2017. Deleted the app and went on a rampage. My gf of 11 years stuck by me through all the shit (I was verbally abusive etc just an all around asshole) May of 18 we got married. I was still drinking. Went on the honeymoon to Scotland got smashed the whole time. Came home calmed down a little but didnt stop. At my peak I was drinking a 30 pack to the face and a 5th of vodka or whiskey a night. My last drink was August 10th 2019. I just welcomed a son the middle of September. Things are brighter then before (although Iā€™ve been on a steady diet of peanut butter trail mix since my kid was born and currently tip the scales at a whopping 380) Iā€™ve been out of work on paternity leave for the past 6 weeks. Aside from taking care of my son I havent done much in the way of exercise or eating right. I go back to work Monday and intend on moving (I work in a print shop/mail room) and shedding some of this weight. I will never go back to the drunken asshole I was. My son and wife are my why. Iā€™m not blowing my paycheck on partying and booze. And at 40 Iā€™m finally ā€œgrowing up.ā€ I am happy and life is fantastic. I stopped drinking cold Turkey, I know thatā€™s not recommended but itā€™s working for me. Everyday I come on here, read and post as I see fit and take it all in. Iā€™m thankful for life and all of you push me forward daily. While my life isnā€™t full of a lot of the horror stories thereā€™s definitely enough to go around so Iā€™m thankful for this second chance and Iā€™m not squandering my opportunity make my life the best it can be. Thanks for reading and keep on everyone!

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@RedDragon I am giving you a standing ovation. WOW. Seriously WOW.

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I have so much respect and admiration for you and your journey @SassyRocks

Iā€™m trying to work out why I feel humbled. I do know that Iā€™m going to think about your journey a lot. Thank you x

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Ok, Iā€™m finally on my laptop. No way was I going to type this on my phone. I donā€™t think Iā€™ve ever told my whole story here. Most of it, but not all.

Sooooo, I didnā€™t really drink until I was 21. My older sister had a party when I was 16 and her friends fed me shots and got me drunk, and then I went to another party after graduating h.s. and got drunk there. Other than that I was just smoking cigarettes, drinking mountain dews and working on my mustang.

My parents divorced when I was 8 and my mom got remarried when I was 14. Step dad drank every day, but I never really saw him drunk. He drank coors light for fucks sake. Youā€™d need a 30 pack for a buzz.

My dad was an alcoholic, though I didnā€™t know it. When my sister and I were with him, heā€™d always bring us to these parties at a local forest preserve and got drunk there. He hung out with a bunch of people younger than him, and when we werenā€™t there, heā€™d usually take us to the bar by my grandparents house and we would play darts while he drank. He had gotten his second dui by the time we were out of h.s. but it didnā€™t slow his drinking down.

Fast forward to when I started to drink at 25ish. I was dating a bartender, so Iā€™d crawl up to the bar, drink and ā€œsocializeā€ with the other drunks there. I still had it under control for the most part. When I did drink, I didnā€™t stop til we left.

I was always binging when ever I did go out, which was often, and drinking at home which became more often too, but still not every night. I was fairly lonely after the bartender and I broke up, so I went to the bars with buddies and drank at home. It all revolved around booze though. Typical embarrassing shit. Puking in bar bathrooms, passing out in friends bathroomsā€¦real fun times there.

Once I got married and we had our first kid, I really got bad. I was on the way anyway, but one particular night when my daughter was a few weeks old I had switched to bourbon to try and ā€œcontrolā€ how much I was drinking and I blacked out after killing the bottle. My wife was pissed because I was supposed to have been getting something for the baby. I got all angry because she found the empty bottle and had caught me and I said some very, very awful things. She had a low tolerance for drunks since her ex fiancĆ© was a drunk. Many duiā€™s and just like us, but he refused to get any kind of help. She begged him, but he wouldnā€™t try meetings, a therapist, nothing. She broke the engagement off and he committed suicide.

So here I am, putting her through the same shit, but now with a kid in the picture. We then have baby #2 and I decided to step it up. I was at this point hidden everything. Empties, drinking vodka in Lacroix cans while she was out, drinking beers after work real fast so it didnā€™t seem like I drank as much when I got home and continued. I kept a 6 pack in my car to drink on the way to work and the way home. I could pound 3 on the drive and get more at the local liquor store before I got home. I bought beer by the highest abv I could find. Once she went to bed Iā€™d finish off that 6 pack, and continue on drinking whatever else I bought till I blacked out, and it was every night now by this point. Wake up in a panic on the couch either because I spilled my beer all over me and the couch or because I had to hide all my empties.

I kept a bottle of Visine hidden also so I could get rid of those bloodshot eyes while I showered every morning. I kept a water bottle on the night stand when I woke up with that cotton mouth to chug that.

She had a couple of talks with me and finally I realized she was right. I was killing myself and I was tearing the family apart. I downloaded this app after a few days sober. Relapsed after 53 days. Took me 3 months to get my head out of my ass get sober again. It was definitely worse when I started up again. I know I wonā€™t be able to get sober again if I do relapse.

A month after I get sober my dad goes in the hospital from complications from his liver cirrhosis. It was a super stressful time in my life taking care of him, trying to move him, and all the hospital visits. He had a few years sober, but went back out and thatā€™s what killed him. His drinking is what killed him 9 months after I got sober and I couldnā€™t have been more thankful that I was able to deal with everything with a clear head.

Nothings ever perfect but I could not be any happier that I am sober. It is the greatest gift I can give myself and my family. I donā€™t want my kids to ever see me drunk. I wake up tired, but not hungover. My thoughts are much more clear, my memory has improved soooooo much. No more blackouts trying to remember things I did or what people said to me, my liver values and back to normal. My marriage is better.

This is probably too long so Iā€™m cutting it short here. Thanks for reading if you made it this far. Iā€™m right at 662 days sober today. But today is the only day Iā€™m concerned about.

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