Or one thousand and one days, depending on whether you count the end date or not, but today, I do not. What follows is some musings about the whole thing. It will be crassly worded, so if you're the sensitive type, you might stop here. If you choose to continue, please know that it is my way of taking an unflinching view of myself, deflating my zeppelinesque ego.

One thousand days ago today, I drank all morning and into the afternoon... and at 4:40pm, they took my intake photo at a thirty day inpatient rehab. They also had me blow into a breathalyzer - my first time ever, despite many thousands of hours driving drunk - and blew a .28 while fully functional and cognizant.

They call it a recovery center. I like the harder term of rehab, though. It tends to evoke imagery of celebrities sitting doing yoga, weaving baskets, or painting a desert landscape at a $30,000 a day facility with water features and Zen Buddhist rock gardens and a client list that reads like an IMDB page. My experience was not that. It was incredibly degrading to walk in there. I made eye contact with nobody. It was like the time I got arrested and booked into Brevard County Jail (of all things, for not having a light on my bike and Black & Milds and Tylenol III in my backpack that I actually wasn't abusing, I shit you not) - I was actively hoping nobody would notice me.

I hated every second of it for the first two weeks... I think. I can't recall too well because I was in really bad shape, physically and mentally. I was 320lbs on the nose, and I was feeling good about myself because I had lost 80lbs in the preceding month by trying to limit what I drank. I was having brownouts, which is to say, not fully blacked out, but conscious and just aware enough to be along for the ride. It was like having your consciousness inside someone else's body, and watching, hearing, and feeling all the breathtakingly stupid things they do at every waking moment, silently screaming at them to stop and wishing they could hear you. I also say brownouts, because while I still had blackouts (coming to in strange places and having zero memory of everything between then and some random point, like a sicker Tyler Durden), I also hadn't drawn a sober breath in probably five years out of the prior twenty's worth of drinking.

At some point, every alcoholic crosses over to a place where they lose all control. It looks different for different people, but there are some common factors. I hadn't thought about it in a long time, but last night a lady at a meeting said something about being a functional alcoholic and telling herself for a long time that was ok. I did that, too. In my sick mind, as long as I could work, keep my family safe, and keep the car between the lines and not plowing into someone or something, I was doing alright, no matter how miserable a shape I was in.

In 2010, I had pains in my side and couldn't take a normal shit. I went to the doctor, and lied my ass off. Of course she had an ultrasound done on my liver, and told me it was fatty and that I should stop drinking for a month and come back for a followup. I convinced myself that I didn't like her dismissive attitude, but tried to quit all the same. I made it a day and told myself I didn't need to quit, the doctor was full of shit.

Nine years, two hundred pounds, countless opportunities and relationships lost and ruined later, I went to a different doctor because I was having really bad pains in my side and couldn't take a normal shit. This doctor did bloodwork and told me for starters that I was type II diabetic and that I should go see a gastroenterologist about the blood I was shooting out of my ass. She would also be the one to talk to about the blood I was projectile vomiting on occasion. Somewhere in there, she asked what I did for work and to my utter shock, the truth fell out of my mouth and I told her "I haven't worked in about three years. I got fired from my job and went from being a functional alcoholic to a non-functional alcoholic. I sit at home and drink." This doctor has probably heard it all, and somewhere on that list is what I told her because her eyebrows went damn near up to her hairline.

I went to the gastro, who had me do some more bloodwork and then asked me to come back in to talk about the results. Thankfully, this was about two months before every doctor would forevermore hide their face behind a mask. Had it been a few months later, I wouldn't be typing this, because of the very simple fact that while I had no clue what she was trying to explain to me about bilirubins and numbers she hadn't seen before, the look on her face told me everything I needed to know. It was a mix of pity, sympathy, and sheer disbelief. My liver was failing, and I was dying. If I did not quit, I would not live another six months. I can still see her face. Very nearly three years later, I am friends with this doctor and we trade emails to keep up, because of the many patients under her care with whom she has had the same talk, delivered the same news, I am one of the very few to take the news as it was intended, and do what she asked... a month and a half later after coming out of a blackout with a King County Sherriff deputy on my back bumper with an open tallboy of 12% malt liquor in the center console, and a bag full of a half dozen on the passenger seat. He followed me for about ten minutes through the back way into the neighborhood. I finished the can because my drunk ass figured it would be better to at least not have the add-on charge of open container, meanwhile every conceivable crevice in the car had an empty stuffed in it. The last stop sign before pulling into my driveway, I turned right and watched in the rearview as he turned left, visions of me being cuffed and stuffed in my driveway slow to dissipate. I called Lakeside Milam for an assessment that day, I believe. I went to rehab, I got sober, I work an imperfect but earnest program of recovery, and I help other men take the same steps.

A friend of mine said something once that I have shamelessly stolen, re-purposed as my own, and will share with you now: I regret the past, and I wish I could shut the door on it, but I can't. Because I can't, I have to take a head-on view of it, of all the things I've done, and all the things I've failed to do, but thankfully in my story is a turning point. Somewhere in there, I know not when exactly, I asked the guiding spirit of the universe, the unseen mover of all things for his protection and care with complete abandon. Somehow, whether I really believed or not, the desire to drink completely left me. Me, an utterly hopeless, degenerate, black-out, fall-down loser of a drunk who lost nearly all, me who wished countless days that I were dead, prayed countless nights to the same unseen force to take my life while I slept for being too cowardly to eat a gun and finally end my misery. My misery was ended and peace gifted through no virtue I know myself to possess, no quality I feel in myself. I was given a gift I often feel I don't deserve, but accept willingly and gratefully.

Telling these things is painful. I did not enjoy writing this. I know some will read this and think less of me, and I tell myself that what others think of me is not my business in order to complete this to one end only - if you are reading this and you wonder if you're an alcoholic, or you know that you are and you cannot stop and have given up trying, I want you to know that you don't have to drink anymore if you don't want to, you don't have to drink anymore even if you want to, you don't have to drink anymore even if you're drinking without your own permission. I promise you there's a way, and it works, but it requires honesty with yourself, it requires work, and it requires a strength you don't currently possess, but can if you ask for help. If you want, you can email me to talk privately away from the forum, even if it's to tell me I'm an asshole and you don't want anything I have to offer in the way of help. You don't even have to talk to me, there's other sober drunks here who have made themselves known who I know are willing to help a fellow brother who's suffering. You don't have to talk to any of us if you don't want to, just know there are people who are willing to help you. For a long time, I was paranoid that if I said anything to anyone, the first thing to happen would be that all my guns would be taken away or I'd go to prison. I went to rehab with a homicide detective, my sponsor went to the same place, and he gets a government check to kick in doors, so just know that if you seek out help on your own, you're probably going to be fine. Get cuffed doing something in a blackout and it will probably be a different story, but it doesn't have to be that way.

If you read this and you agree that I should be in prison or have no rights, or you wish some general or specific ill on myself or other alcoholics, I'd like to respectfully ask that you keep that opinion to yourself or voice it elsewhere. If we can save one life by letting qualified drunks have a frank and open discussion, then it will all have been worth it.

Congratulations on making the right decision.

It is a very hard life choice to get back on track under your circumstances and you are to be congratulated. I commend you for seeing what it was doing to you (and those around you) and you have all my respect for making the change. Keep up the good work.

Congratulations on turning your life around and sharing with others. I cannot imagine how difficult a journey it must have been.

Well written, appreciate your sharing, no guilt from me, we should all be so strong, enjoyed reading about your journey, and congratulations on making day 1001...

Great decision. I'm very happy for you and those around you.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
I know some will read this and think less of me, ...

Not at all. Just the opposite, in fact.

Congratulations on making that decision. Many can't bring themselves to quit even though they are in the same situation or worse. I include my younger brother in that group. He tried but he didn't make it. Like you, he was on the path to liver failure but instead had a massive heart attack at 60 years old. A troubled soul to be sure. Glad you made the decision you did.

I stopped drinking about 2 years ago. Not due to alcoholism per se or anything like what you went through just because I drank too much and figured it had to stop so I stopped.

I say this because I stopped on my own with really no muss no fuss and even with that I’ve had days where all I can think is “I picked a bad day to quick sniffing glue” if you will.

So what I am saying is what you have done is monumental and you should be amazingly proud of yourself. Hard to think less of folks who are able to fuck up, realize it and actually make efforts to fix the problem. If anything I think MORE of those people.

Point is awesome job, keep it up and take care. Posts like this WILL inspire somebody, somewhere, someday and that matters.

congratulations on a big milestone. I am very familiar with alcoholism and recovery from a close family member, saw her through more than one rehab and attended many many meetings over the years as support. Its been three years now, pretty close to you, and she seems to finally have gotten it, she is now active as a leader of meetings and with her extended sponsor/sponsee family and has accepted many requests to speak at meetings to share her story. I have met a lot of very good people who are recovering from this disease and sadly many who have not yet been able to achieve sobriety, and by that I mean both abstinence from drinking and emotional sobriety. But the ones who have are now truly living the life that exceeded their wildest expectations, as they say in the meetings. I have nothing but the deepest respect and admiration for what you have achieved.

Congrats on the amazing milestone.

Not easy being a quitter.
Dec 24 will be 3,650 days for me.
Still think about having one now and then.
But there is no such thing as "one" for me.
Unless one after the other till it's gone counts.

Got my first DUI when I was the designated driver.
Hadn't been drinking either, just still had that much in my system a day later.
About 20 some odd years more of that before I shut it down.

Congratulations!

quote:

Originally posted by marksman41:

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
I know some will read this and think less of me, ...

Not at all. Just the opposite, in fact.

Same here. Not in the least.

Congratulations.
I had a good friend who I did not know how bad he really was. When he tried to quite it was to late.
The damage was already done and unfortunately it was not reversible.
A few weeks after he quit drinking he got sick and we lost him.
Some of the signs were there but we never picked up on them, I wish we had.

Again,congratulations and keep up the good work.

Can’t imagine anyone thinking less of you for your post. Many are in the position you were but aren’t strong enough to make and follow through with the decisions that you did. Hats off to you. May you and your family have a blessed Christmas.

Great work, keep it up!!!

Congratulations.

Congrats on the 1000 days! Now you can pull rank on all those sissies in the hundreds.

I've known a lot of people on both sides of this. Close friends who are in the ground and relatives working the program and living an extremely blessed life, a complete 180 from who they were.

Keep kickin ass!

Also, the firsthand details are what matter the most to me and I think others too. Generalizing or minimalizing things only serves to allow justification. The truth, no matter what it looks like is what makes the difference/ what really matters. Much obliged to you on that front.

Best wishes for your recovery!