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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Clarity Without Anesthesia
01.12.26 I am really good at making things completely irrational in my head. Like, really, really good. Friday night I was reminded that not everything is about me, and that realization landed harder than I expected. You’d think it would have snapped me out of the funk I feel coming into my birthday week, but
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Foundation
1.4.26 In Bill’s Story on page 12 it talks about the foundation of sobriety being complete willingness. Then in Into Action on page 75, it says to ask ourselves during meditation Have we skimped on the cement poured into the foundation? That sent my mind straight to willingness. Specifically, the willingness I came into AA
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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