I quit because I was dying—and not slowly or peacefully. I can’t drink like a normal person. When I start, I can’t stop, and to say that it caught up to me is a massive understatement. I got sober the first time at 35. I had been an around-the-clock drinker for a while, but the withdrawal was terrible, and the amount ai needed to drink just to not hallucinate was ridiculous. I detoxed at a hospital and had about 3 1/2 years sober before I moved across the country and decided that I could start drinking again like a normal person. After a few months, I was back where I started, and I had to leave graduate school because I was drunk 24 hours a day and physically falling apart. I had a final bender that almost killed me, and had to have my sister fly out to stay with me while I tapered (shockingly, successfully) at home. 3 1/2 years later, I graduated from graduate school and stopped taking care of my mental health (and I’m a Psychotherapist) and relapsed once more. I had friends staying with me to try to keep me alive, but after six days, I ended up in the hospital with a .556 BAC and no expectation that I was going to survive. I told myself that if I survived that day, I would do anything that I had to in order to stay alive to help others not go through what I put myself and my friends and family through. In that hospital bed, I realized that I like being alive. I’m not overly attached to this body, and I’m at peace with the fact that I can be taken off of this planet at any time, but I’m not going to make it happen any sooner than it has to.