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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Recovery Quilt
8.1.25 Today’s reading in Twenty-Four Hours a Day talked about how AA draws from medicine, psychiatry, and religion. That reminded me how recovery itself is rarely just one thing. When I got sober, I was desperate—and that desperation cracked me open in the best way. It gave me the willingness to try anything that might
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Time Takes Time
7.31.25 Part of the July 31 Daily Reflection reads: “By accepting life as it is, I gain serenity. By taking action, I gain courage, and I thank God for the ability to distinguish between the situations I can work on, and those I must turn over.” I don’t remember when I first heard the Serenity
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Another Day, Still Sober
7.30.25 This morning I was drinking my coffee on the deck when the prettiest hummingbird came to the feeder just three feet away from me. Most of the hummingbirds I see are all brown, but this one had shimmering blue and green on its chest. One more of those little things I notice in sobriety,
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Specific Gratitude
7.29.25 I wanted to share tonight about the topic of being more specific in our gratitude—really taking the time to name why we’re grateful for someone or something, and noticing the little things we often missed when we were drinking. It’s easy to rattle off the big stuff: health, family, a roof over my head.