Team 180 Pledge

Team 180

 On January 29, 2014 I had my last alcoholic beverage.  Soon after that I signed up for Belle's 100 Day Challenge.  I completed 100 sober days on May 8th.  I'm signing up for Team 180, which is 80 more days sober.  I edited the pledge to fit me.  This is what I wrote...

 (p.s.  I don't know why this weird margin thing is going on.)

“I have completed 100 days of sobriety.  At first I didn’t know if I could pull it off.  I wanted this to be the time I quit for good.  I was sick of the hiding, the embarrassment, the lies, the blackouts.  But what about my friends and family who expect me to have drinks with them?  I can’t disappoint them!  I’m a people pleaser!  I always give in to peer pressure, just like the timid little mouse I was in Jr. High.  Fuck that!  Guess what?  When I quit my perspective changed and I began to feel better, healthier.  Not all the time, of course, that’s some tough shit to do, but every day it became easier.  I rewarded myself for sober days. I took time for me and read or sewed or baked muffins.  I remembered that I liked to run.  So I started running again.  Now I’m running about 20 miles a week.  I like this new feeling of freedom (and “me-dom”) and I want it to continue.  I pledge to not drink for 180 days.  Not even if my husband drinks, not even if my in-law family members drink, not even if my daughter calls me “lame” for not drinking, not even if my visit to the doctor to see about that damn irksome pain in my side turns out to be something more than an annoyance.  Not even if…anything. I will not drink.  Because you see when the fog cleared after those first few days, I remembered that there was someone inside me.  Someone who wasn’t the person that I had become.  We became re-acquainted and she’s pretty damn amazing!"

So I raise my mug of tea in a toast...Here's to 80 days more!  Here's to sobriety!  Here's to me!