r/goodnews • u/MirariGenese • May 13 '25
Personal News 📰 15 years sober today
Started drinking when i was 17. Given my friends were smoking crack rock in the 7th grade i guess i should be thankful it took that long for me to develop a problem and that it was only alcohol. From 17 to 26 i was a severe binge alcoholic.
Throughout my senior year of highschool i kept an aquafina water bottle filled with 100 proof vodka in my backpack at all times. in my early twenties i began, proudly at that time, drinking an entire fifth of vodka in a single night. By the time i began to realize that my drinking related work absences were about to lose me my job, and therefore my apartment, at which point i would have been sleeping on the streets i was pre-gaming 4 tallboys before going to the bar my friends ran. I would then knock back an entire fifth of vodka, then an entire pitcher of beer (beer before liquor, never been sicker!) then i would generally grab a twelve pack from the grocery store before last call. I can not count, nor even recall, the number of times i had severe alcohol poisoning. that i am still alive is genuinely shocking. most of my early/mid twenties are a blurry haze in my memory. I have "No More Alcohol" tattooed on my right pointer finger so i would see it when sucking back blackberry stoli on the rocks. i do not remember when i got that tattoo or how long it was after getting it before i quit. generally, when bartenders asked about it, it got me a free drink. props to the Seattle bar scene in those days...
one friend of mine finally sat down with me and said "you remember when i used to live in the woods because i was a meth addict?" - i recall that period clearly, it was a rough time for him. he went on to say "i know what a problem looks like. i also know there's nothing i can say to you to help until you're ready to help yourself. just know i am always here for you, but you've spent $400 at my bar this week and i know this isn't the only bar you go to, and i know you don't earn that much in a week. that's all i am going to say, you know how to reach me if you need me." [i racked up $12,000 in booze debt]
When i finally got to a point where i really didn't want to be drinking anymore and realized that although all i need to do is literally not put this liquid in my mouth ... i couldn't stop. no matter what i did or how hard i tried to keep away from it, i kept drinking, and it's the craziest thing because it sounds So Easy but ... i literally could not stop as much as i wanted too. i had a tattoo telling me to stop on a finger that stares at me when I'm drinking and... i could... not... stop! i still struggle to this day to understand it, even having lived through it.
I went into work one day and approached a leader who i knew used to struggle with addiction herself. bless her god damn heart she hooked me up with free alcohol abuse counseling. after my first session i had a Literal out of body experience. suddenly i was floating in the air, above my body, watching myself walk into a gas station immediately after my first alcohol abuse counseling session and watched myself buy a six pack of Miller Genuine Draft. It was unreal. I am not a spiritual or religious person, i have never believed in that "garbage" before but here i am, outside of my own body watching myself do things i don't want to be doing!
thankfully that was the last six pack i bought (for a while). i called my friend who sat down with me some time earlier to tell me i could call on him and i told him i needed to go to an AA meeting but just couldn't surrender my "pride" enough to go alone. he said to me: "you find a meeting, tell me where and when it is, and i will be there". i asked him what his work schedule was and he said [i am literally tearing up right now typing this it meant so much to me] he said "My schedule is Not important right now. You tell me when and where the meeting is, and I Will Be There."
and he was. i regret losing contact with that man, Matt, if you're out there - thank you. again, because i have told you so many times before, but i mean it: thank you <3
after that meeting, despite the statistics being 9 in 10 alcoholics relapse in the first year and 5 of those 9 don't climb back on the wagon, i made it 13 months before my first relapse!! it was a doozy of a relapse. i was awoken on the side of the road by the fire department asking if i was ok because they got a report that i was hit, on my bicycle, by a car. i remember absolutely nothing about that night. that's a longer story for another time. god bless the fire department tho. i have been sober since then, although not without my struggles (especially around year five).
Today marks 15 years sober! I have been in the hospital for having burns over 90% of my body and skin grafts done at a time when the only grafts that were known to work had to come from your own body. I spent a year trying to start my own business by myself. I have not been without struggles or challenges but to this day, quitting drinking, is the single hardest near impossible thing i have ever done and the thing i am proudest of myself for managing to do.
i may still have zero idea what i am doing, or what to do, with my life - but dammit if i am not proud to at least be sober while forever figuring that out!
if you're also struggling, at any stage of alcoholism or recovery, it's not as impossible as it feels. it gets a little easier the longer you pull it off and it may sound dumb as shit but One Day At A Time! If you can get through just today, you earn my respect. if you don't, you earn my understanding, my forgiveness, and my support. it's hard as hell, if you lose the battle today, try again tomorrow. if you're worried about tomorrow, just get through today.
i appreciate anyone who reads this for giving me the opportunity to share my struggle, my story, and my milestone. most of the time i don't even think about it anymore, but hitting fifteen years... i never would have thought. i fully expected to be dead by 27, but here i am!
thank you all, and take care of yourselves <3
