I seriously want to stop drinking for good. The longest I have had since I started drinking at 14 was 2 months sober from alcohol, and while it was a few years back, from what I remember I felt amazing. I have been physically addicted to alcohol in the past, tho I am not currently. Drinking affects my mental health horrendously even when drinking only a few times a month. I want some motivation so i’m wondering, what does it feel like to be 6 months sober ? A year? Longer? Thanks :)

I hit 100 days alcohol free around 1:30 A.M. this morning. Sometimes I still feel like I’m waking up with a hangover but I think that’s just waking up in your 30s lol

IWNDWYT

It’s a beautiful day, happy Sunday :)

I'm a 33 year old expat living in Thailand, I've always been a big drinker since I was about 15. The last few years my drinking has been becoming problematic to the point where I was missing days off work.

Ive tried numerous attempts at getting sober but I end up going back to the drink. I find it really hard because of the accessibility of alcohol and the drinking culture here in Thailand.

I'm a bit hesitant to go to AA meetings as my grandfather went to them for 40 years and my dad said they were a bit depressing.

Does anyone have any tips on where I should start? I'm a bit lost here!

I was almost 3 years sober and I drank yesterday I’m so upset I hurt my husbands feelings

Resetting IWNDWYT

hi! don’t know if this type of post is allowed here, if not, I’ll delete my post.

for context: I’ve (31F) been struggling with my alcohol consumption for about 3 years now and in those 3 years I’ve tried multiple times to get sober, the longest I’ve gone without drinking was 3 months, but usually my attempts don’t last a week. yesterday was my first day sober in a long time. my alcoholism is a huge secret in my life and no one around me fully knows how much of a problem it is. I’m too ashamed to reach out to friends or family or even admit to them that I’m struggling with this. however, given my previous attempts, I think it’d help to connect with people going through the same thing for support and accountability.

do you guys have any recommendations on where I can find people like that? I’ve tried some “sober” apps before, but didn’t feel connected with anyone there, but I’m open to any and all suggestions!

After a year and a half of using hydrocodone, I am now almost two months clean. (55 days) I feel so much less cognitively functional. I have to really think about what I say. I have a slight speech impediment, I can’t get the words I want to say right. And I most of all miss the feeling of bliss. it’s so frustrating. Sobriety is so much better. Honestly I wish I never started in the first place.

I’m November my partner joined AA. With many years of heavy alcohol abuse I was sick of him telling me he had quit only to find bottles of whiskey hidden away in the kitchen cupboard.. By December it had been 4 occasions alone of him doing a month of AA weekly meetings despite still drinking. By January I (stupidly) believed he had gotten sober. Yesterday I smelt drink on him and despite asking him multiple times to be honest he kept denying it, I waited until he was in the shower to find yet another whiskey bottle in the kitchen cupboard. Even when confronting him he kept denying it and said he must have left it there back in November (as if I’m stupid enough to not notice a bottle of whiskey in my cupboard for 7 months…) All together there has been about 15 times he’s ‘tried’ to quit yet I’ve found his stash.. My question is how many relapses is allowed before it’s clear that they don’t even want to quit? I’ve told him he’ll lose me, partner of 13 years and his 3 small kids under 5 and it doesn’t seem like he’s bothered. Thank you in advance for any advice

In two weeks it will be 1 year of sobriety. It's been one of the hardest years of my life, for many reasons, but mostly that I haven't had my not so trusty coping mechanism during it all. Without alcohol, my understanding of myself has really flipped. I've spent years behind the guise of being fun, spontaneous, flirty, and a good time. Now, I find myself with such a limited social capacity, I feel a sense of loss over the outward portrayal of myself I clung to thanks to alcohol.

I get overstimulated so easily now by things I never noticed when I was drinking (loud sounds, crowds, socializing for too long, etc.). I've never considered before this past year that I am neurodivergent, but the longer I am sober the more I recognize my sensitivities and particular needs around socializing, my environment and sensory experiences. I supposed I'm looking to see if anyone has a similar experience or any thoughts on this. Thanks xx

Hey y'all. I was in rehab for five months and gained 25 pounds. The clothes I brought with me stretched while I gained the weight but after I got home, I tried on my old clothes and they're all way too tight. It's making my eating disorder flair up because there's so many more mirrors in my house than there were in rehab. And a scale I have access to every day. Has anyone else experienced weight gain in recovery and how do you reverse it/get back to where you were before?

For me Asian food always means a beer with it. I returned to our Chinese food restaurant for the first time since I started sobriety and it was a real test for me. Almost got tempted by the glasses on other tables and thought of ordering just one beer to go with my food and quickly ordered a soup and a Diet Coke instead. I did it!! I never thought I’d sit there without a tall cold one but I DID IT! ✨ #iwndwyt

I'm new here but not new to sobriety. I celebrated 10 yrs yesterday. I'm full of experience, strength,and hope.

How many of you have quit drinking with willpower alone? What was your turning point? I have tried so many times with willpower alone and when the craving hits I can’t deny it and cave….. I KNOW if I don’t stop it will kill me soon…

I have been seeing SO much content online about casual alcohol and drugs use that is “funny” or “lighthearted” in nature and i can’t seem to escape it.

Maybe it’s because I am sober now but casual substance abuse is so deeply entrenched into the culture that it’s everywhere I look.

And as someone who had the predisposition to addiction it stresses me out A LOT. All those TikTok’s about drinking till you black out or smoking like 4 times a day are lost on me even as a joke because that was my reality. And even tho part of me finds them a bit funny it is HEAVY because going through active addiction is brutal.

I don’t know if this is a rant or what, but it’s driving me a bit crazy.

My journey began a little over a year ago, after failing a drug test for a job offer at a medical device company(THC) having already been 6 months unemployed. I live I Colorado and previously worked for a software company in the cannabis space, so I naively thought it wouldn’t be a big deal. I was a daily weed smoker and had been for 10 years, though it never affected my professional trajectory until that point. Having that offer pulled off the table fucking sucked, and made me question everything about my habits, more than I ever had before. Weed has saved my life from more intense addictions at a younger age (adderall/vyvanse and drinking) and always felt like a failsafe for my addictive personality. It was the perfect coping mechanism. In some of the most physical and mental healthy times of my life, it seemed to enhance my performance in ways that’s hard to describe. Giving it up felt like learning to walk again, because it had been a friend to me for so long - but I couldn’t stand the embarrassment and shame I felt losing that job offer.

I found a job pretty quickly after quitting cannabis, but still felt super depressed and anxious in my new job, and was drinking more socially as a result of not having weed to lean on, and avoiding processing my negative emotions about my new job and the professional roller coaster I’d been on over the past few years. I was experiencing intense imposter syndrome and felt extremely isolated in an industry that I was new to, working in advertising sales with people 20+ years older than me and that same amount of industry experience. 3 months into my new job, I decided to give up drinking all together and start therapy in hopes of addressing the depression and anxiety that seemed to worsen when I quit using cannabis. Coincidentally, I moved into an apartment in September of ‘23 and started living alone for the first time in my life. 2 months later, I quit nicotine, because if I’m already giving up all these vices then why not just get it all out of my system.

In December of last year, I took a leave from work because I’d been experiencing Suicidal Ideation, something that was completely new to me. I don’t believe I’d ever seriously do anything to hurt myself, mainly because of how sad it would make my family and friends. I’m just brutally hard on myself, pretty much all the time. I took part in a 12 week intensive outpatient program for adults who suffer with anxiety and depression, and feel like that gave me some great support at a really lonely time of my recovery. I still feel extremely lonely, and struggle daily with the idea that I’ve given up the only ways I know how to be social and connect with others in a meaningful way (going for a beer or sharing a bowl).

I don’t fully believe I have alcohol or cannabis use disorder, though that’s what all the professionals have told me, and I’ve gone this far so I’m gonna keep going, damnit. I know it sounds arrogant but I feel like the time I have abstaining is proof. And if I’m this depressed an anxious off of all substances, what’s the fucking point? I finally started a low dose of fluoxetine(Prozac) a week ago, after struggling for the past 6 months with the idea I might need medication, but wanting my sober brain to be enough. I’m worried about throwing this into the mix because everyone’s experiences are so different and I’m very skeptical of modern prescription medications. The list of side effects is excruciatingly long, and I’d like to avoid them with safer mechanisms I’m familiar with. I’ve had some very therapeutic experiences with psychedelics, but not in sobriety and I wish they were openly available to me through a doctor like SSRI’s are. After getting sober, I thought I was supposed to feel BETTER not worse, and so much worse if I’m being honest. But that’s when the real work started.

I have 209 days without any booze or cigarettes, 387 no cannabis, 216 no cocaine, 125 no nicotine (Zyn). I feel like a martyr or kinda pompous typing this all out, but it also feels like sometimes these benchmarks are the only progress I am able to notice and I do so to be proud. I know so many of you have gone so much farther and I hope to connect with you or hear if you’ve dealt with similar struggles. I’ve been white knuckling it big time, but struggle with the idea of going to AA because I’m not convinced drinking or smoking were my biggest problems. Depression and anxiety are, and those vices were my coping mechanisms.

I have started working two part time jobs at a restaurant and as a bartender. I am not worried about relapse in these settings because I know how guilty I would feel, and my sobriety feels like the only thing I have going for me at the moment. I’m motivated to work hard in fast paced environments because they keep my brain busy, and I like keeping a routine where I know what to expect. but having to explain to new people I’m sober is still triggering to me. I feel like a loser.

I’m hopeful as time passes that I will find more strength and confidence in my sobriety and have you all to thank for that hope.

Hi, I'm a 26 dude who is in a downward spiral of a recent weed sobriety. Sadly to say I was that stupid child growing up who started smoking weed young to feel cool. Unfortunately I never stopped till now. My friend and I took some of his brothers weed when we were 13 and 12 and went to find a place to smoke. After the first hit of his homemade water bottle bong I was hooked because my life faded away and I was happy. I grew up in a dysfunctional Hispanic house hold with a bipolar mother and a physical and verbally abusive father and a younger brother who blamed me for everything. Yeah I was given therapy when they saw I was cutting myself to try end myself so I didn't have to be around them anymore. After the therapist demanded me fine and no need to any further treatment my parents gave up on me entirely. My grades slipped and they hardly even bothered to look in my direction. So when me and my homie found his brothers stash I knew I had to try it. I grew up with a pothead coked out aunt. She told me the only drug I should try is weed because it's way safer than drinking. (Granted she is right, I ain't never heard of weed killing someone in their sleep or them overdosing on it.) I saw how it made her happy and relaxed and I wanted to be that way so bad. So I convinced him to do it with me and he did because he had his own family problems. We got high and stayed with it ever since. Yeah I tried other shit but weed was my only love. Fast-forward 13 years and I finally quit 3 weeks ago and it's been the hardest 3 weeks ever. I know to trust the process of day by day but man how do sober people do it. Me and my homie are no longer friends but he quit before me because of having a kid. I got engaged and I got sober to save up for my wedding. I don't really need advice I just words of encouragement so I know I'm doing the right thing. I should be able to do it myself but I no longer have that confidence in myself to do so. Sadly me and my family aren't really on good terms but I am only keeping them around for my niece. She is another reason why I want to be sober. But Jesus the anger is real and I know it's a genetic thing but God damn people are morons and annoy me so much.

Hello, everyone.

One of my best friends passed last month. I found him in his bedroom surrounded by a plethora of beer cans. He was a functioning alcoholic, or at least that was how he displayed himself to me and our other friends. We only ever saw him drinking beer, so we didn't know how bad it had actually gotten. When my roommates and I investigated his room following the departure of Emergency Services we found over 40+ empty vodka bottles hidden under his bed and an insanely high number of tall boys shoved into various parts of the space; behind the dresser, nightstand, in the closet, and under his computer desk. Cause of death was a massive gastro intestinal bleed due to wearing out the lining in his stomach from incessant abuse. He was 36 years old, the same age as me.

I was heartbroken. We were always asking him to slow down or talk to us about his problems, but he would brush us off or deflect any time we brought up his addiction. His mother had even offered to check him into treatment and pay for it, but he always refused. It didn't help that I am also an alcoholic, so the idea of me giving him advice, in retrospect, is patently absurd. If anything, I was enabling him by continuing to get as wasted as he did all in the name of "a good time" while hypocritically asking him to slow down.

In my grief, I started drinking even heavier than usual throughout April to the point I was throwing up stomach acid every morning because I wasn't eating, having bouts of involuntary reflux, dry heaving, experiencing the worst hangovers of my life, and being so depressed I could barely leave my room. So, on May 1st, I said, "ENOUGH."

I have had all of these symptoms before to varying degrees over the years, but this time felt different. I literally felt like I was dying. My muscles constantly ached, my jaws hurt from the persistent vomiting, nothing seemed desirable or interesting anymore, and my depression had hit an all-time low. The extremity of going from, "It's alright. I may not feel great every day but I'm not going to stop," to my body flashing code red at me, and finally realizing I was about to head down the same path as the friend I was grieving is what made me decide to quit.

I am now four days sober. The symptoms were the worst over the first two days, but I am feeling so much better than I have in years. I've started exercising again. I keep a huge bottle of water next to me at all times to stay hydrated. I started an alcohol diary to get out any thoughts about cravings and remind myself why I have stopped with memories of embarrassment, regret, and shame that came from my abuse. I am still experiencing some alcohol fatigue and a general haziness along with some sleep trouble/sweats, but from what I read, that's normal at first. I know the road to recovery is long, and it will take a lot of effort to stay clean, but I am proud of myself for having the courage and willpower to finally quit. I refuse to end up the same way as my friend; isolated, lonely even when you have friends, and drinking myself into a state of numbness and, finally, death. I'm excited to see how much better things are going to get after escaping from the bottom of the bottle. It's day five tomorrow, and I'm thankful for another day alcohol free!

Been sober for 6 weeks. I feel physically better but my social life has disappeared most of my friends mostly go to bars in their free time. Ive tried finding social groups or sober groups and references to where I could look for more havent been able to find any in my area.

Hey, so just looking for some support instead of answers, but this made me feel pretty bad.

So I'm mostly sober for health reasons these days and most of the time I just stick to water or something. Recently my best friend has been going through some things, so I went over to provide some emotional support.

Through that time they made their way through a bottle of wine and started openly processing things. And in the middle of it they stopped and said that while they're glad I'm taking care of myself, they hate that I can't get on that level of drunk where we're both on the same vibe. They mentioned that a few times and...it really hurt.

I don't know. Just needed to vent. I don't like the good parts of my personality tied to alcohol that way and it hurts that I wasn't providing the kind of support they needed at that time because I'm sober.

I had 8 days sober which is good for me… I want you guys to rethink next time you want to drink. I have a hangover from hell today and god only knows how much I drank my kidneys hurt. I’m almost 30 and if I can save one person from not making the choice I did last night I want to. ITS NOT WORTH it guys I promise you. The crappy feeling, the shakes, the remorse, the dumb decisions, the psychosis….

Stay sober friends

I can’t wait to die

Hey guys, got the day off, work tomorrow, didn't drink last night and on day 3. Feeling a pretty serious desire to pickup a case and playing video games back at home to kill the day. I don't feel like doing anything else ahhhh!

After almost 9 years, I'm celebrating my first sober week. Withdrawal symptoms included mood swings, fevers, and pains; it wasn't easy at all. But I already feel much better. Never going back.

I’m struggling to stay sober. When I manage to not drink for a week or two, I will wake up with a crazy anxiety. It’s almost like I have my stomach being twisted from the inside and I end up binge drinking to ease it. It can be over anything small, or just out of nowhere. Mostly during the day or after work… Do any of you have anything similar? Thanks

I’ve been sober for just over 3 months. This past month I’ve had a handful of dreams where I’ve gotten really drunk. I woke up this morning almost in a panic because my dream was so real. I had the moment in the dream of saying “I know I’ve been sober but screw it”.

Has anyone else experienced this? Did it pas over time? These dreams are messing with my head.

I just wanna leave smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol now I didn't touched alcohol from 5 days but I smoked ciggeratess.

I don't wanna smoke but smoking is something stronger than alcohol cravings.

Is anyone there who just quit smoking and drinking at same time.

Anyone in their first week? Struggling to stay sober from alcohol. Mom of 3. Would love some motivation or stories or someone who’s in a similar situation.

I’m in Amsterdam for work and went out with some (cool) co-workers. We did karaoke and then went dancing and I was out until 3am totally sober! I drank probably about 3 Heineken 0% alc beers and water.

While I obviously slept in late, I’m up the next day feeling fine and adventuring the city after last nights fun. My coworkers are all in sheer misery hunger AF in their hotel beds.

I share this because there is a strong assumption that you have to be drunk to be at these kinds of places and to have fun. Although I can see how the temptation may be too strong for alcoholics (I’m not drinking due to a medication I have to take).

So yeah, sober life is still cool and I feel amazing ❤️

Hey. I see a lot of you out there posting about a few days and a few hours and I just wanted to say you are doing a really good thing.

7 years might seem like a lot of time, and it is, but sometimes I meet newcomers with great stuff to say. I appreciate hearing everyone’s stories. Especially the bad ones.

I actually smoked marijuana before I ever drank, and if I’m honest marijuana is really my drug of choice. I get that like AA is centered around alcohol but I still attend. I think of it like this: I would rather have Taco Bell, but I don’t want to drive 30 minutes on a Thursday night, and Macdonalds is right down the street. So like many of us I just defaulted to alcohol for most of my life.

My first drink ever, I was 13 and my dad said if I got on the honor roll at school I could have a drink at the family Christmas party. I followed him around annoying him like hell because I wanted to drink so badly. He took his beer to his mouth, filled his mouth and spat his beer into my cup.

“There drink that.”

He thought I’d be deterred by this but it didn’t make me hesitate at all. I went for it. That’s how much I hated feeling like myself. I didn’t even have a clue what the alcohol would do to me and I was willing to drink my dad’s spit and bits of roast beef just to stop feeling like me. My refuge should have been in my music, and largely I lost myself in songwriting for hours on end throughout my youth, but the addition of substances let me fall deep into delusions of grandeur and let my ego inflate to the size of a zeppelin.

Throughout all my life, I largely didn’t have friends and spent most of my time practicing my guitar. Looking back I had opportunities to make friends but I hated myself so much that I didn’t want anyone to see the ugly truth of what I was. So I stayed in and diligently practiced guitar, but again, the addition of substances held me back from reaching my potential as a musician.

Now these behaviors evolved through high school, I bought and sold drugs, traded, and drank all the while. I even got caught selling my adderall in high school and by some stroke of luck, the school didn’t go to the police, and let me pass silently as this had happened in the final month of my senior year. I had so much going for me in an instant I got denied entry to the college of my choice and my world just started crashing. I had to work 8 hours a day landscaping my parents house as punishment while I waited to graduate.

Even the embarrassment of being caught and humiliated in front of every person I knew was not enough to stop me from trying to escape myself. I’d wake up, walk to my car and get a “rodeo cool” bush light from the trunk and just keep drinking every few hours until I had worked myself into passing out.

This pattern continued into college. Finding myself drinking in the morning, using drugs as much as I could during the night, and somehow all the while still passing through my college classes with ease.

I suffered a mental breakdown my sophomore year of college. The depression I was experiencing had me drinking so much that I’d be vomiting bile in the morning and unable to even hold water in my stomach for days at a time. Always swearing I would figure out how to hold my liquor. Snorting painkillers off the back of my guitar when I should have been learning new ways to play it. Spending my money on something to change the way I felt when I quite literally had a spiritual tool in my hands that could help cure my depression. Again the drugs and alcohol were just obscuring what I loved when I thought they were making it better.

I made a fool of myself on the regular, climbing trees in the quad, passing out and making snow angels, bursting into tears, wandering from dorm to dorm demanding cigarettes from unfortunate victims of those who simply existed around me. One of my worst nights, I killed a mouse for a friend, but rather than give the little girl a proper burial, I left the corpse in front of the room of a girl I had been scorned by.

I dropped out of that school and committed even more energy into getting high as much as I possibly could. I smoked marijuana like other people smoked cigarettes, first thing in the morning and on the hour every hour long into the evening. I lived this way for a while, much to the bands frustration. We’d travel and play shows all over and I’d blow the gig by being high during the performance. Then I’d turn around and blame others in the band for my own faults. One of those friendships, I sadly can’t even win back. It makes me sad that Greg doesn’t even want to talk to me, but I understand. I wasnt a very good friend to him, ever.

Upon touring the country for three weeks I returned home. A triumphant return from successful tour, we played a sold out venue in our small origin city. The second I got off stage I needed a cigarette. The thrill of performing was short lived and after just a few short hours I was back in my depression, alone in my father’s apartment. Even when I was nearing peaks of happiness, I let them slip through my fingers. The mistakes always overshadowed the highs. I let my anger and emotion control the rollercoaster, and it saw me drinking after every show.

I spent a year unemployed living off my father’s kindness and the occasional gig I could score. I ran an open mic once a week and I made 30$ in donations on a good night. The real reason I ran the open mic was because I got free drinks there, so I always had a whiskey sour in my hand for the entirety of the night.

My father lost his job and I had to move back with mom and steve, who demanded rent every week. 500$ a week to pay down my school loan interest and try and shovel myself out of debt. I worked for the roughest landscaping business you have ever heard of. No matter how hardcore your experience is with landscaping I promise it pales in comparison to the torture I underwent as an apprentice there. I remember my first day, I was set at the bottom of a quarter mile hill that rose at a 45 degree angle. Next to me, several ton of wet, soggy loam a wheelbarrow and a shovel. It was my job to hoof that loam up the hill for 10 hours straight.

My arms were so spent I couldn’t play guitar for months. The sick irony of it is that the foreman drove up with the bobcat at the end of the day and as he smiled at me, he loaded the remaining bit of loam into the front end loader and moved it with ease up the hill. The whole day had merely been an exercise in breaking my spirit, and broken I was.

Still, rather than try to play my guitar with my severely sore arms, I chose bushmills nips. Steve and my mother were both sober, and I circumnavigated the rules of “no alcohol in the house by parking my car out front, drinking my whiskey in the car, and then stumbling up to bed and passing out. I thought I was real clever, skirting the law by not driving drunk, and skirting my mother by not drinking in the house. The only true victim was myself as taking whiskey everyday after 10 hours of manual labor wracked me and made it even harder to wake up.

I worked 50 hours a week for about a year until I got laid off. My boss had just had enough of my forgetfulness and rather than outright fire me, (he was a forgiving man) he gave me a layoff so I could collect while I found new employment. I took this as my opportunity to remove myself from the suburb I grew up in and try my hand at city life on my own.

I moved into the nearest city from me and I was making enough off unemployment to pay the rent. So here I was, on my own at 24 years old and had all the time in the world. I roomed with friends which would prove to cost me my friendships since living with an alcoholic like myself would drive even the most patient friends away from me. Again, I repeated the patterns of blaming everyone else in the band for my mistakes as we played the city. It was always someone else’s fault that something was wrong, and I made a point of making my feelings known. Rather than looking at myself and realizing that I wasn’t playing the right notes because I was drunk, instead I laid into everyone else.

The anger inside me was so fierce that I would glow red with jealousy if anyone outplayed me, and I didn’t have the decency to realize it was an honor to play alongside the three lads that tolerated my drunken antics. Throwing up after shows, drinking myself into oblivion, one night I had held one of them at knifepoint in a blackout and had no idea I had done it. And still, I continued to drink.

Through my twenties I slept with as many women as I possibly could. You could easily make the case that I was a sex addict just as much as an alcoholic. I looked up different ways to seduce women and when I was on stage I wasn’t just making music, I was hunting for a girl who I could kiss after the show.

Despite my girlfriend’s pleas to stop cheating on her, I fell in love with multiple women at the same time. I would be explaining to one woman that I would be leaving my girlfriend shortly and then go home and try to patch it up with her. I thought I ate my cake and had it too.

I fell particularly hard for a blond from the Midwest. I had never been so infatuated with someone, herself riddled with addiction problems and I, a perfect companion to writhe in pain with. We drank, fought chaotically, hit each other, made up, had rough sex for hours on end, snorted lines of Ritalin and devoured each others hearts. She ran mine through the mill and I hers. I’d go back to my girlfriend at the end of the day and she would go out with guys just to get back at me. I would lose myself in jealousy and smash my hands against walls until they were bloody. Again, a moment where I should have turned to my guitar from the onset of this and avoided the infidelity entirely.

She moved back to the Midwest and I spiraled out. During that time the band was doing very well. Had it not been for the small successes we had, I wouldn’t have had a single reason to live. The three lads who propped me up at every gig, I wouldn’t have had a single reason to live. I owe my life to those gentlemen and I feel like they might never fully appreciate that. I didn’t learn my lesson, I remained unfaithful to my partner and continued to break her heart on a monthly basis.

I decided to take a break from the drinking on my own. That summer I gave up drinking and smoking entirely on June 21st after making an idiot out of myself in front of the biggest producer we’d ever worked with. I liked this sobriety but I knew I wasn’t making the most of it. Something was missing.

The depression I felt left me thinking about that blond everyday for years. Suddenly she contacted me that she was back in the city after 2 years gone. She told me her apartment number and I asked me to come. That night she got admitted to the hospital for an overdose.

I showed up at a later point outside her apartment and called out to her. By chance she was there. On the phone, with her boyfriend. The way she cussed me out hit me so hard I felt more suicidal than ever. Threatening to have me arrested for stalking, I turned tail and retreated. I burnt all the postcards she had sent me over the years and tried to let it finally leave me. My partner was confused and didn’t understand any of the pain I was in. Despite her being the most stable, loyal and kindest person I have ever met, I remained unfaithful still.

The ache persisted into the freezing cold of February and I knew I wasn’t doing sobriety the right way. I finally walked into a church basement with my head hung low and accepted that I would have to sit in this room and listen to these people talk. It was either this, or return to the drink, which at that point I rather would have died.

I got tight with my sponsor. He was a drummer and we automatically clicked like fate. I spent many afternoons crying in his apartment as we read together. His concern for my well being was like no other human being I have ever met. I will never forget about having a mental breakdown over that blond girl, calling him panicking and he relaying to me “hey, I ❤️ you and I will help you but I just found out my mom died, so I need a little time to take care of that.”

His words stung, not by anything he’d said to me, it just held up the mirror and showed me the selfishness I still lived in despite making it to a year sober. I worked through the pain, swallowed it and tread on. Still I never could let go of that blond.

4 more years would pass before she contacted me again. I thought about her every day. I would sometimes make it to lunch without thinking about her and suddenly something would happen and I’d be back in my depression. Daily reminder to myself of “the one who got away.”

I was employed at this point, sober for almost 5 years and I had been making more money than ever in my life. I had started a new relationship with a different partner and remained faithful to her. I was doing everything right, I even had a car, but when I saw her name flash on my phones screen, it shook me to my core and I couldn’t help myself. I called her back.

Our romance reignited and I had a full on spiritual relapse. I broke up with my partner and flew across the country to see the other woman. I was flushing my life down the toilet on that blond girl, despite the fact that she treated me like garbage.

I was back in my state and the blond had a particularly abusive conversation with me the day before where she had broken up with me. I’d started to grow numb to her abuse despite being addicted to it. She had me as her emotional slave and was ready to have me up end my life to be with her, as her servant, only to caste me aside and claim she was going to have sex with her ex boyfriend because she was mad at me.

The band played its last show. A small wedding in a neighboring state. The staff had not set aside a meal for the band, so while the guests ate and the others waited, I decided to take a walk on that posh golf course. Everything was about to change and I had no idea.

My heart was heavy with pain, I was still living with my ex girlfriend and trying to do this long distance relationship with someone who was blatantly emotionally abusive. I couldn’t get any of it off my mind. I walked deep into the golf course, miles in to a wooded area where I came upon a small duck pond.

I took a seat and stared at the pond, an in that moment a mallard held my gaze. Time stood still and the mallard spoke. The sounds he made melted the earth around me. I was suddenly in the duck pond with the ducks, I was suddenly in the earth with the pond, the ducks were suddenly in me. Everything melted, I took a breath out like I’d never felt before in my life. My body was suddenly more relaxed than I had ever been in my life.Inside my head the duck spoke.

“Her? Or her? Or her? It doesn’t matter. You are a lovable human being. You have always been a lovable person because you are capable of giving love. You are a man and you stand on your own two feet. You will never walk alone in life as a human being. There will always be people who love you and you will always be able to love other people.”

I felt in that moment that I wasn’t in love with her, but I’d been trying to get that approval from my mother that I never received. I realized in that moment that the duck was right. My tear ducts opened up just as thunder cracked across the sky and I cried out metric tons of grief, melancholy and longing. I had finally found the missing part of my life, that mallard put all the insecurities and self loathing to bed. I was a lovable human being, just the way I was.

I walked back to the ceremony, dripping wet, reborn, baptized by those holy fowls, and ever since that moment, I stepped from being a boy into being a man. I finally felt my boots land on the path of recovering and not just on sobriety. I was so permanently changed that within a year I started a new career path.

Despite having taken this long road, I now have a job I love. I work in a hospital dealing with a high risk population. I work with addicts regularly and I make a difference everyday. I could not be happier. My partner forgave me, and we are going strong years after my manic episode.

I am happier than I have ever been in my life. I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t have had the mallard exorcism, I wouldn’t be able to live if it were not for being sober. Sometimes changes happen quickly.

Sometimes it takes 4-5 years but if you stay the course and don’t drink/use your life will get better. It took forever for me to get that pain out of my heart- it was there from age 8-34 but it stopped. I’ve finally found self acceptance and I want that experience for all of you.

Stay the course, do the next right thing, whatever the situation, staying sober will only help make things better.

Say a prayer I make it to June 21st to celebrate 8 years! God willing and the creek don’t rise and I’ll make it!

If you wanna hear what it sounds like when I play every instrument in a band and sing and record it all myself here:

https://open.spotify.com/album/6u6WfNF4WSBzfcxR3TU734?si=tMrHa1OwQpWcm4rbHFXtZg

I would ❤️ it if my songs or my story can help you through. Hold on and you’ll make it.

Thank you for reading.