Is This Forever?

I apologize in advance for my writing style. It’s meant to captivate, but I’ve always preferred letting the words flow naturally. I may not use fancy vocabulary or perfect punctuation all the time, so please don’t crucify me. I hope this blog helps both of us. Connection is key.

Tuesday, March 31, 2026, is my new sobriety date.

I should mention that I’ve been sober before. Yes, I’ve relapsed before. If you don’t fail in life, are you really living? This is my third attempt at sobriety. My first was my longest, lasting two years. The second lasted a short eleven months.

Addiction is a bitch.

According to the American Addiction Centers, between 40 and 60 percent of people relapse within their first year of recovery. If you make it to one year, your odds of maintaining long-term sobriety increase to fifty percent. Those numbers seem encouraging, yet here I am, starting over from scratch.

The life-altering situations I’ve found myself in because of alcohol are astonishing. So many moments should have been my wake-up call. Those holy shit moments when you realize you somehow cheated death and should probably change your life.

More on those stories later.

Whatever your poison is, I hope you find peace.

Grief is another subject we don’t talk about nearly enough. If you’re still getting phone calls from both of your parents, consider yourself lucky. Losing a parent, a spouse, a best friend, a child—even a beloved pet—can change the course of your life. It can be especially devastating to your sobriety.

The National Institutes of Health reports that survivors of sudden, traumatic loss experience significantly higher rates of substance use as a coping mechanism than those who experience natural losses or no major loss at all.

I know that reality all too well.

For three years after my mother’s death, I numbed myself with alcohol, convincing myself it could temporarily distract me from the pain. It did nothing but isolate me, deepen my depression, and add weight to both my body and my heart.

Even with therapy, grief can feel impossible to navigate. They say time heals all wounds.

I’m still waiting.

Mental health is another conversation that’s finally becoming more common, and for that I’m grateful. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, more than one in five adults in the United States experiences a mental illness each year.

Having lived through one myself, I can tell you firsthand how consuming it can become. Each trip to the hospital was worse than the last. Yet somehow, those experiences taught me more about humanity than I ever could have learned on my own. It was terrifying. It was humbling. And, strangely enough, it was also gratifying.

These topics beg the question….Is This Forever? 

Will sobriety, grief, and mental illness last forever? 

Does anything REALLY last forever?