Congratulations, Hawkeye! I can't express enough how happy I am for you!!! Please, any time, let me know if you need a word or hug.
Sleepie, why are you keeping those valium around? Reminds me of when I quit the first time, which was a serious quit, more than 1 year, but still it didn't take, and one of the things was there was alcohol in my house, and I flirted with it in my mind and physically -- even taking it out & looking at it, smelling it. These are obviously not forgotten pills of yours. Why don't you flush them now?
As for drinking, being over with drinking and using is the first intentional and sane decision I've ever made in my life, and I have the ability to make the same decision every day. Why do you who keep making the wrong decision -- why do you think you do it?
Lately, I consider it partly a question of who I give power to. The world can be a ratty, abusive, mean and vile place. The worst often rule through ruthlessness and brute force. We can be sheep, or resist but weakly -- either way we end up nursing ourselves through a miserable existence with television, cheetos, gin, and weed.
Or we can live as well & kindly & beautifully as we can, independent of all of that. There's a lot to be said (channeling Lenina) for folding something properly, or cleaning a gutter. Create order, simplify, leave something straighter than you found it. And sleepie, you may disagree, but I think there's something moral about drawing. Maybe if you draw again, no matter what it is, you'll feel better about your sobriety?