12+ Years No Booze

 You read that right! 12 years off the sauce. I cannot express my delight and relief of not drinking. Life did not get too mundane to write about. Instead, so much of life just piled up and I could not keep up with it. What with wondering what I should say here or there, or who would even care. But then I have been working on a new website and I see the hits to the old one, and it shows that there is traffic viewing my work from the past 12 years. I have received some royalties from Kindle on the books that I have there. That means to me that my work is not finished quite yet. Like waitaminute! I have a lot of things left to say.

Besides all this, I cannot be the only one that stares at my phone. It keeps me company and what would I know without it. Just kidding a little there, but in all honesty, I did what I needed to do and that was quit drinking. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. I post on social media sometimes. I even opened a Tik Tok account and I have one follower. Sometimes I think about getting serious about posting social media and then I post something and the system shows a lot of viewers but no likes or shares. If I were selling a car, those views (to me) would be considered tire kickers. But anyway, the point is, it takes a lot of diligence and responsibility to stick to posting long term, especially when there is so much competition. Everyone wants to be an influencer, amirite? It is not my goal.

What I want is for people to get sober if they want. My son passed away in the height of addiction. There was much I did not know about him until after he was gone. My niece is hoing through addiction now, she is young and recently told me she had an overdose on fentanyl. Sure, I did drink, I did coke, mushrooms, LSD, weed, E & just off the top of my head, this list, but I think not fentanyl. I do not know this drug, it is beyond my scope. However, that being said, I think it probably comes sometime after drinking alcohol. I have been away from the scene, gratefully, for a long time. But I can see the destruction. I pray I do not find out my niece is deceased. I just do not know how I could handle that. Or she, for that matter, I do not know what goes on in her head. I cannot imagine why she would choose to go down that road after all she knew ahead of time.

For many, the world can be a scary place. One minute, one is surrounded by a sea of faces and the next, one is all alone. The loneliness can take a person out. For all the people on the planet, how a person can be so alone and lonely just blows my mind. Even I, with friends, and family, still walk pretty much alone. It is fine by me, I enjoy being alone, but when I was first quitting drinking it was enough to make me feel sad. Now I can be alone with my thoughts (my phone), and it is peaceful and I can enjoy my life. Although, this is rare, for me to be alone, because like I said, I have family amd friends. But if you see someone struggling and alone, an alcoholic, or if you are one, just know there is help!

When I first quit drinking, I struggled with quitting smoking too. I went to meetings. I went through the 12 Steps more than once. I had sponsors, but none that stuck. I lived in the countryside far away from anyone back then and I did not drive. In fact, I am still using an interlock box on my vehicle. That is supposed to be off soon, this year in 2026. However, iykyk (Smart Start) I will believe this when I see it. To be sure, I do not drink alcohol nor do I smoke cigarettes. I highly recommend quitting both, as I am sure this has been partial lifesaver for me. Every time I drank, I needed a smoke and every time I smoked a cigarette I needed a drink. So, for myself, I had to stop both. I did this with the help of my personal higher power and I also was at Lander Treatment Centre in Claresholm Alberta. 

The people there, and being stripped of my dignity and right to make choices for myself, actually was the beginning of the end for me. Which, in effect, was kind of strange because I lived in a time when the drunk tank was a thing and there were few things less humiliating than that. But that is in the past. Now I just keep going forward one day at a time, hoping for the best.