Thirty days. Then sixty. Then ninety.  That's when I stop counting. This go around, I am on day twenty-nine. Fuck. Here I am, sitting in a place where I don't know anyone. Staring at nearly bare white walls. No phone to make phone calls. Surrounded by people who have no concept of what I am going through, just that they don't want to ever go through it and they will keep me prisoner here until I get that through my own head...sounds all too familiar right? Well, no, I'm not in rehab. No, I'm not in prison either. I am in the San Luis Valley in Colorado...at my family's home...and I chose this. Yes, that's right. I chose to come here to get sober. Now, at almost thirty days, I am nearly clawing the walls to get out and go do something. Anything. Fall of the wagon, who cares...

But, then what was the whole point of coming out here? And yes, my immediate void would be filled...with regret, disappointment...and there goes the vicioius cycle all over again...

Everyone says, "Well done, I'm so proud of you" when you say you got clean and sober...but do they proudly answer the phone at 3am when you are having cravings up the wall? Do they sit with you when your emotions are so out of whack that you don't even know why you're crying anymore? Do they even reach out to check on you to see if you're okay or help you celebrate your milestones? No. They don't. 

And you know what, they don't have to. I chose to get sober for me. So I only have to be accountable to me. And it is no one else's duty or responsibility to make sure I stay that way, or to ensure that I FEEL okay about it ever. 

This has literally been the MOST difficult foray into sobriety I have ever attempted. And holy fuckballs do I feel lost. Stuck. Like I forgot how to do life. Fuck crawling, I went all the way back to needing tummy time and swaddles. Wouldn't even dream of trying to walk right now...

I guess that's why they call ilt getting clean...because...well...sobriety is fucking messy. No, its not freaking messy, its not messy. NO. IT IS FUCKING messy. Sticky, slimy, moist, greasy, scuzzy, snot-filled, tear jerking messy. And that, my friends, is why it takes so long to get it right. Have you ever noticed that when you clean up, sometimes the mess has to get really big before it begins looking like more than just Hiroshima in the livingroom? Same goes with life. And cleaning up this oil spill is gonna take a whole lot more than dawn...

So please, for those of you who got brought in to help clean up the spill, try to remember that. We are raging bulls bucking around the most fragile of bone china collections, just waiting for one head thrust to wreck it all (which is inevitable). And man, let me tell ya, being thirty-one years old and atttempting to suddenly, "do life" is a motherfucker. It sucks. I spend more time pissed off and paranoid or crying for no reason than I do anything else...

I seem isolated and distant...to normies, I'm just an intorovert with resting bitch face, but inside I am a bundle of nerves begging myself not to go out and look for just one quick blast, and throwing everything away. 

I literally have not left my house in weeks for more than twenty minutes at a time to ensure that I haven't been fucking up...but dammit, that's no way to live. 

So, here I sit. Day twenty-nine, praying I make it through the day without using. And, unless you have been in these shoes yourself, you'd have no clue what that means. And to those of you who do...I love and appreciate you and I hope that you keep up the good work. I hope that I can bring you some laughter and smiles to your day, and I hope that together, we can get through this...one day at a time.