I wanted to say some thoughts about tonight in hopes maybe it can help even one person. I’m a year sober off of drugs and I’ve had my drinking under control for that time as well. For awhile I also battled serous depression. I’ve been good for over a year but tonight I had I guess what you’d call a depressive attack. Out of no where I got hit with an extreme sadness and everything came back like I was in my prime of my drinking days. I went out and I bought some alcohol. I was able to stop though. I had two drinks and everything felt like how it did in the past. It felt like it helped. But I knew better. I have a lot of things I’m worrying about right now. My mother is not in the best health, my uncle dosnt have long to live, my grandmother is in extremely poor health, my jobs been stressful and I’ve been dealing with some drama from an ex. As I was pouring my third drink and about to ask a buddy for some drugs, I was able to stop and talk to myself and was able to tell myself to just calm down. I’ve learned so much over this year I’ve been sober. I knew I’ve been through this before and I’ve stayed sober so I asked myself why is this different. Now it’s no wonder why I’m stressed however stress is just a part of life and everyone has great experience in stress. One thing I learned in this time of self improvement is that how you react to things (good or bad) is the biggest variable in how your life can go. I realized a lot of these things were out of my control and I have to just keep going and see what life deals me. I learned to take what life gives me and to react in the best way possible. There’s a song called “hi ren” and in that song he says “it was never a battle for me to win, it was an internal dance and like a dance the more ridged I became, the harder it got. The more I cursed my clumsy footsteps, the more I struggled. So I got older I learned to relax and I learned to soften and that dance got easier” I’ve learned that it is a very very true statement. Anyone reading this knows the feeling of being lost and overwhelmed with their thoughts and I believe that when you panic and let your thoughts run wild, it is nearly impossible to see a way out, but if you can just take a min to just calm down and talk to yourself and clear you head, it becomes much easier to see the ways out of the chaos and back into the order. I was able to talk to myself and calm down and realize all the lessons I’ve learned over this year of sobriety I’ve had and I know you can too. I’m sorry for the long story but I just hope maybe it can help someone, even if it’s just one person. I believe it is our obligation to try to help people so I hope it helps.