Hello World!
Tough times don’t last, tough people do. – Robert Schuller
My name is Ciana ‘Ci’, and I am an alcoholic. I’ve struggled with addiction for most of my life. As a teenager I experimented with drugs and alcohol but was always able to stop using drugs without any significant withdrawals or impact. Alcohol on the other hand, was not so easy.
I’ve maintained sobriety in the past for long periods of time but always given in to ‘one drink’. For those of us suffering from addiction you know that one drink is too many, and one more is never enough. I wanted this time to be different, I needed this time to be different, because no matter how much I lied to myself and tried to lie to everyone else, I could see the effects in every aspect of my life.
So, I went to rehab! I started journaling as part of my daily routine in rehab. I kept thinking about something I heard there that really resonated with me. I watched a recording of Brene Brown who said, “One day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went through, and it will be someone else’s survival guide.” I don’t know if this blog will become someone else’s survival guide or just my journal to reflect back on later, I will be stronger for it either way.
May you be sober and happy always! Ci
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Surviving the Weather
12.29.25 I survived Christmas! And not in the dramatic, barely holding it together way, actually sober, present, and awake. In 2024, I was fresh out of rehab and still relearning how to function in the real world, so I count this as my first real sober holiday season. I didn’t die and I didn’t implode.
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Change Your Focus
12.21.25 “How are you?” I always answer that one on autopilot. Great. Good. Doing well. Tonight, sitting in a meeting, I stopped and asked myself if that’s true. Am I okay? And if I’m not—am I okay with that? Can I sit in the discomfort without trying to outrun it, fix it, explain it, or
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All Hands on Deck: Emotional Sobriety
12.14.25 Good morning, all you beautiful people! I’ve been looking forward to writing all week. It feels good to be excited about it again. Last Monday I chaired my first 8 PM meeting and picked emotional sobriety as the topic in case no one else had one. This week my sponsor and I finished Acceptance
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New Rhythm
12.06.25 Hi Mom, kidding, I know there are a few other people who will read this. Switching posting from daily to weekly has been an adjustment. Not writing here every day felt off at first, like I’d forgotten to do something important, but the space has been good for me. The daily check-ins had started