Today is a day!! (Sobriety)

I am not one to make excuses but I am back to 42 days and grateful to be here. Life shows up sometimes in the most unexpected ways. But I have to remember I am never given more than I can handle at one time. I’m sick so I’ll keep coming back. Thanks to everyone who hasn’t given up on me and not given up on themselves. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
 
Congrats to you and to all those recovering - never underestimate your achievement improving your life and the lives of all those who love and care about you too. STAY STRONG ... YOU'VE GOT THIS!!! :thumbsup:

The struggle for sobriety is one of the toughest things I've ever lived through ... not even my own struggle - but my wife's. I lived with all the drunken antics for 12 years (countless lies, abuse and 3 totaled vehicles) until she finally did the unthinkable very early in the morning on 23 Aug 2023 - she committed suicide. Well ... she tried to anyways.

After realizing she wasn't in our bedroom at 5:30am when I woke, I found her on the couch in our finished basement gray-skinned, unresponsive and doing the death gurgle. I called 911 immediately and "winged" CPR the best I could remember from training learned in the military. The 911 lady led me through CPR and had me run upstairs quick to unlock the front door so the response teams could enter the house and get back to CPR. It seemed like a couple mins later I heard a voice hollering and I hollered back so he could track me. A sheriff's deputy responded that was a mile or so away when contacted by dispatch. He directed me to go upstairs and wait on emergency response while he took over CPR. 5 mins or so later - the fire department and paramedics arrived and I directed them to where my wife and the sheriff were. I was instructed to stay out of the way so I didn't interfere. It felt like I was in the twilight zone and there was nothing I could do. They had her out of the house and heading to the emergency room within 10 mins. The sheriff and I went through the house looking for clues for what she had done to herself. He found a couple empty bottles and boxes of nyquil that she had ingested, on top of who knows how much alcohol. WTF - I never would have thought an over the counter medicine could ever be dangerous - how naive I was at 58 years old. There were no clues that she would've ever resorted to anything like suicide. An upper middle classed woman that wants for nothing - I thought this wasn't supposed to happen to people like us. I learned the hard way that it can happen to ANYONE! The meds she ingested have tylenol in them and it doesn't take much to overdose. My wife had 30x the safe level in her system. The sheriff told me he couldn't feel a pulse when he started his CPR, then he brought her back and lost her again and brought her back once more. She died twice. Luckily, the paramedics had all the equipment and meds to keep her alive for the trip to the nearest ER. That ER ended up being a smaller ER that was not equipped to help her so after 30 mins of doing what they could ... they moved her to a larger hospital. 3-4 hours later they had her breathing with the help of machines but induced coma to help keep her calmer and aide with healing. They told me and our daughter she had a 50-50 chance of surviving and even if she did that she may have damaged her brain from her heart stopping a couple times. It was one of the worst days, if not THE worst day, of my life. She started to slowly show improvement the next day and on the third day she awoke from coma with no brain damage. Two additional days later she was recovered enough to be discharged. We requested that her attending physician admit her to the psych ward after discharge for evaluation/counseling, but were told that it had to be a voluntary choice of her own. She did not want to go and was in denial of the severity of her actions after almost losing her life. We were finally able to persuade her to be admitted into the hospital's psych ward.

She stayed in the psych ward for a week. After she started counseling she was able to comprehend she could not do this on her own. After being discharged she started attending AA meetings - I went with her for support the first time. AA helped her realize she was not alone. She met neighbors not far away she never would have known of their addiction until meeting them at the meeting. They were her support group

She has stuck with it and even quit smoking cold turkey after 30+ years. I am so proud of her for such great accomplishments. She has not only made her life better ... but all those around her. In 6 days she will be 1-year sober. I bought her a plane ticket to spend time with our daughter and grandchildren in San Diego she has been missing, and gave her enough spending money to have fun and celebrate! Her sobriety is the best gift she's ever given to me.

The link below shows my wife's and my hero. Deputy Dickerson was first to respond and saved my wife's life. Words will never be able to express the gratitude we both have for him. Thank you sir!

https://imgur.com/5U043XJ

My wife is 4'10"/120. Deputy Dickerson even made me @ 6'1"/210 feel like a shrimp. During CPR he unintentionally broke several of my wive's ribs while restarting her heart with compressions. The 6-months of pain she went through waiting for her ribs to heal is nothing in comparison to the alternative.

Thanks for letting me talk about my experience - I still have flashbacks to this day but it's better to open up about it vs harboring it in.
 
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Just to add a bit of encouragement to others here that battle these demons and take it one day at a time. I hit about 12,055 days last Sunday, or in normie terms 33 years of not taking a drink or getting loaded.

I was a 6-time drunk driver in the 80's, not sure how I avoided prison or another six convictions, I was a tweaker and a coke fiend as well. If you met me now, you wouldn't know it unless I told you, I am no longer that guy and haven't been since August 18th 1991. No matter what you are going through, no matter how bad things are... they can always get worse and they can always get better. If you have a drinking or drug problem and prefer the latter, put it down now and don't take another dose of whatever your poison you prefer may be. Just don't do it, one day at a time. Reach out, get help, we are here and we've all been through whatever it is you're dealing with, and we have all done the terrible things you've done, I know I have.

Do this and it will get better, I promise.
 
Ten years clean and sober.

While this isn't something that 99% of the people in my life even understand or acknowledge, it's still something I think about every year. The people closest to me still understand.

Bought an expensive knife to celebrate, of course. Still have that collector mental illness with watches, coins and knives. I was gonna finally get the 1914-D cent but couldn't pass up this nice Demko. Lol!

If I can do it anyone can. Failure isn't falling down, it's refusing to get back up.

I have two awesome kids, last one just graduated high school. They are doing well and neither one remember me being a sloppy mess. Thank God. It is just nice to see them doing well.

Peace is a gift I do not take for granted.

Addiction doesn't go away, it just hides and waits for your guard to be down. Don't let it fool you. Even ten years later I still catch it, every once in a while, trying to get me. Sneaky bastard.

Keep on keeping on everyone. Today is a day. 3654 days one at a time.

IMG_20250613_084332915~2.jpg
 
RickHuf said:
Ten years clean and sober.

While this isn't something that 99% of the people in my life even understand or acknowledge, it's still something I think about every year. The people closest to me still understand.

Bought an expensive knife to celebrate, of course. Still have that collector mental illness with watches, coins and knives. I was gonna finally get the 1914-D cent but couldn't pass up this nice Demko. Lol!

If I can do it anyone can. Failure isn't falling down, it's refusing to get back up.

I have two awesome kids, last one just graduated high school. They are doing well and neither one remember me being a sloppy mess. Thank God. It is just nice to see them doing well.

Peace is a gift I do not take for granted.

Addiction doesn't go away, it just hides and waits for your guard to be down. Don't let it fool you. Even ten years later I still catch it, every once in a while, trying to get me. Sneaky bastard.

Keep on keeping on everyone. Today is a day. 3654 days one at a time.

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Well done. Keep coming back!
 
Good on all of you.
8+ years sober. I was drinking 1/2 a fifth of bourbon along with 12 beers, every day. Pneumonia fight, overweight, poor sleeping habits, a deteriorating relationship with my 10 year old daughter all capped off by a DUI that left me with only my ex wife to come bail me out. It was time to wake up and grow up. So I did. They say prayer helps, but when you are in that hole, it’s just you and the darkness of the addiction left to fight it out. Make no mistake, it’s a life and death struggle for most of us. Through persistence and an unwillingness to give in, I made it to the light. I’ll never go back. I’m a better man for it, and a better dad.
 
All of you, thank you for sharing. After over three decades, my mind still tries to tell me it's okay to go have a "craft beer" or two. You know, just one or two.... right? Well, just for today I think I'll pass and add today to the collection of days since my last drink, lest I add today to the next DUI since my last arrest.

It is an insidious disease, I understand I cannot be cured, I can only remain in recovery and therefor keep it in remission. One day at a time guys.
 
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