Keeping on keeping on!
 

I'm still around and just want to thank everyone for being such a lovely group and such warm support. I'm on day 196 sober and it's everything I hoped it would be and more and WOW has some of it been brutal.

My ex-husband cut off all contact with me and our son because he was infuriated that I'd gotten sober.

I'm losing my job - the same job I showed up to hung over every morning for YEARS - because apparently sober I stand up for myself when people get snarly and start pointing fingers.

I've had several friends drift away because they don't understand that I can't have just one nightcap with them. Ever.

My mom is tentatively prouder of me than I have ever seen her in my 46 years. She's still worried that I will mess it up, and quite frankly, so am I, but I think I'm going to have to be vigilant on that front for the rest of my life.

I feel better than I have in pretty much all my accessible memory. I'm smarter, more capable, healthier, stronger, all the things I intellectually knew would happen if I managed to put the darn bottle down, but so often convinced myself didn't really matter that much.

My kid is proud. He knows I'm sober. He knows he can count on me to maintain it for him and for myself. I can barely type that without my heart exploding. My kid can count on me.

The struggle remains. Some days suck way worse than others, and I spend ten minutes or an hour reading posts here and it means a lot that even in my tiny apartment out there in the world I'm not alone on here. Thanks.

Congrats on over six months sober! :)

Keep going and the future is bright!

Day 196 is pretty awesome. It will keep getting better, keep working.

Onward to 200!

What a wonderful post, Flawed. Thank you so much for sharing the positivity & hopes for the future.

A similar thing happened to me at work. I didn't get fired, but people were constantly asking what was wrong - saying I wasn't 'myself' anymore. (No longer an easily manipulated pushover.) I also had friends insist it was ridiculous that I couldn't have 'just one' with them. I've found it impossible to explain that there can never be 'one'.

Day 197 - congrats! :)