10,000 hours.

GL to all in their own journey.

Just passed 9 months a few days ago, doesn't feel like that long at all

3000 days today. One day at a time.

Congratulations, don't drink, go to meetings.

aggiejim70 said:

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Congratulations, don't drink, go to meetings.

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I am taking your advice. Going to a meeting at lunch.

This has been one of those weeks where success is measured by the hour.

1 month today. That was quick.

Officially 11 months sober today. Wasn't difficult at all

I wanted to share a story. It's related to the subject of the thread, but is about my cousin. I suppose I'm somewhat looking for some space to just pour my brain/heart out as I struggle to make sense of things.

One of my cousins is ~5 years younger than me. Sometime around COVID he started drinking pretty heavily, somewhat out of the blue. Prior to COVID he would drink socially and nothing ever seemed out of line, but fast forward to COVID and he seemed to turn into an alcoholic almost overnight. I will share that his uncle was an alcoholic that eventually died in his late 50s from liver failure, so there was family history there.

My cousin has been struggling bad for the last few years, going in and out of rehab, having some run-ins with the law, destroying his marriage (arguably the source of some of his motivation to drink, but that's a whole additional long story), burning relationships with his family, and losing his career. He'll go for 1-3 months of sobriety and then stop by a liquor store on the way home from an errand and go off the rails....and go back to square 1.

Well after one of his recent binges, he got kicked out of the house again and went to his parents' home. This was the normal cycle of things. Get drunk, get kicked out, go to parents, stay there for 1+ months, get sober, go back home, live normally for some period of time, get drunk, and repeat.

Well, this past Saturday, while staying at his parents, got drunk and had some sort of discussion with his dad (my uncle). He was recently served divorce papers, which has added a whole additional ton of weight to his mental state. He told my uncle that he was going to go down to his room to take a nap, and he never came back up from his room. After 3 hours, my uncle went down to check on him and found him dead on his bed. The early theory is that he took a sleeping pill and drank the rest of a bottle of vodka he had stashed and that was enough to shut down his CNS. There weren't signs of an OD (i.e. taking 10 sleeping pills), but of course we can't rule it out just yet. However, there were no other signs that pointed to this being suicide as much as an accidental/unintentional act. I think it was just the very abrupt conclusion to what has been a downward spiral that he just couldn't pull himself out of, despite the resources everyone tried to deploy to help him.

He leaves behind a (estranged?) wife, a 5-year old son and 3-year old daughter.

As I said initially, I'm not sure what my purpose is for sharing all this, other than to just commend those of you that have managed to wrestle and succeed over this addiction as well as implore you to continue fighting the good fight. And if you haven't been able to get/stay sober, implore you to start that journey today.

His life had value and so much potential and the addiction just destroyed him piece by piece until it took his life. Now his kids will grow up without a dad and my aunt and uncle will have to bury their son.

Thank you for sharing your painful story and add my condolences to you and your family. You could have been one of my cousins talking about me any time up to the night of 2/26/91 when I made my first AA meeting. Alcoholism, as defined in the Big Book of AA is a terrible disease. It has symptoms, it's progressive and it's fatal. Army if you or your loved ones are having trouble with booze, get some help. If not in AA, find it somewhere else, but get some help.