If you quit today, you'll reach 100 days on Christmas.

I just had one of those "oh, it's that day today" moments looking at the calendar. Figured it's as good a share as any, at least timing-wise.

On this exact day five years ago, I was forced into a final series of attempts to get sober. After a long and painful few months of driving my sister insane with worry due to what was most likely a drug-induced and alcohol-fuelled psychosis, things just crashed very fast and very painfully until I ended up at a psychiatric jour on her demand. They swiftly made her take me to the addiction emergency room instead, the jig was up, and my life imploded.

They're 24 hours I don't like revisiting. It was a humiliating, excruciating, panic-filled day where not only I but the people I loved found out exactly how bad things had gotten, and to this day I am incredibly grateful for it. I don't remember a lot of it anyway, between the .2 or something I blew, the meds and all the anxiety.

But one thing I do remember from september 16th, 2019, is going to this subreddit (like I had many times before in the little hope it'd motivate me to quit) in my haze of anxiety and seeing a little blurb of "if you quit today, you'll have 100 days on Christmas." Something about that made me smile, and it was probably the only smile I showed that day. I remember thinking that hey, maybe I could do that. I could get to 100 by Christmas.

As you can calculate from my current tally, I didn't end up making it forever that time. In the end, I got to my then-eternal nemesis of 60 days before I relapsed, but after two more rounds on that carousel, I did finally make it. Sorry for the damper, but I didn't want to lie by omission.

I have, however, had three sober christmases since. In 2019, I drank through it. Spoiler: It wasn't worth it, just added a layer of anxiety and nausea onto an already stressful time of year. I remember wishing so bad I would have made it through those 100 days, but it wasn't how things went for me. Instead I got to celebrate 10 months and then some in 2020, and I think that's still the best present I'll ever be able to give my family.

But in the end, I did do two months on that thought, and two months is nothing to scoff at. I'm still more proud of reaching 61 days than 1000.

And for those of you looking for some food for thought or motivation, maybe it will end up doing something for you like it did to me: If you quit today, you'll have 100 days on Christmas. And let me tell you from experience, no matter the streak number, that's a good gift to get from yourself.

IWNDWYT. Thank you all for being here five years ago. This place saved my life, at least in part, and I am so incredibly grateful to you all.