So I wake up this morning and realize that one year ago tomorrow was my first meeting. Its hard to read this thread, its actually been an emotional morning for me I really just randomly remembered this was "the day". One year has gone by yet it feels like a lifetime ago that I was laying in bed this morning at 330 AM.

It was dark and snowy- I was wide awake with that early morning alcohol wake up withdrawal thing. I felt like I was way overdosing on coffee unfortunately it was a regular thing for me. I was hot and sweaty despite the heater being off (I turned it off every night about 2 hours before bed) My thermostat was probably reading something in the low 50s as it usually was by then. I drove to White Castle- where else can you get a tiny greasy burger at 4 AM the day after Christmas?

I didn't get sober because I was sweaty though- it was the fear that did it. I was terrified- I felt like I had been buried in a coffin like in one of those creepy old stories about people being accidentally buried alive because the "doctors" of the time thought they were dead. It was too painful to continue drinking, but I couldn't imagine life without it. Not drinking was not an option for me anyway- I quit every morning and was drunk every night. I had no way out- I can't drink, but I can't not drink. What happens when an unstoppable force hits an immovable object?

So I post here to force myself to do something different- anything- even an internet forum. It was a touch of accountability- there were a few people who said "hey yea we are here, we've been there" and it was enough to push me into a meeting where I met a face to face version of that same thing. One alcoholic helping another just like in 1935 but with a twist- it was through a computer, the internet, wires and cables that no one could have dreamed of in depression era America. Joseph Stalin opened the Moscow Subway, Amelia Earhart was flying around the Pacific, the Nazis passed the Nuremberg laws, FDR was president and a couple of old drunks figured out that something happened when they said "Hey yea we are here, we've been there".

78 years later it broke me out of that coffin- I wasn't buried anymore.

Ohio

So glad you got sober. It's hard reading back on earlier times, I know. Hope the rest of your day goes well :)