1,000 Days Without:
- running away from friends
- hangxiety
- drunk injuries
- working while hungover
- having drinks to decompress from work
- projectile-ing booze
- believing I’m only fun with liquid courage
- talking to sketchy strangers in bars
- drinking because I’m sad
- drinking because I’m stressed
- drinking because I’m angry
- drinking because I’m happy
- having a celebratory drink
- participating in an Irish funeral
- peer pressuring people into taking shots
- playing drinking games
- ignoring my body’s pleas for help
- using alcohol to repress feelings/memories
- willfully ingesting poison
- sending embarrassing drunk texts
- being a person I’m not proud to be
- carrying on generational and genetic curses
- ignoring the truth that I’m an alcoholic
- ignoring the truth that my chronically ill, chronically medicated body that’s missing a few organs just can’t handle alcohol
Sobriety taught me that some people I thought of as friends were just drinking buddies. I haven’t done it the AA way so I’ve done this journey mostly alone. I don’t have a sponsor or a mentor, just sporadic statements of support from the loved ones who’ve remained. And I’m truly grateful for every grain of support from every true friend I have.
I tried to quit drinking for a few years before I finally did, and I can’t say the difficulty ended there at all. These thousand days have been a mixed bag, but many were not easy. I still get offered drinks sometimes, and I wonder when that will stop being difficult — when the scent of wine won’t almost sway my core beliefs. I pray I keep making the right choices for my body and soul, in every similar future scenario, but I know the reality of sobriety is often less linear than that. All I can do is believe in myself and hold onto hope, regardless — even in the moments I have to grip on more tightly.
If you’re in the same sober-curious place I once was, I urge you to give it a try. Even if it’s just a few weeks or a month to start, what could you really stand to lose?









