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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Full Spectrum of Sobriety
11.26.25 I survived the longest short week of the year without any casualties. My patience was thin like a melting sheet of ice, but it never cracked. Small miracles, right? And somehow, in the chaos, I woke up excited to make a homemade German chocolate cake for a good friend celebrating 40 years of sobriety.
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Holiday Circus
11.25.25 I’ve never cared for the holidays. They’ve always felt over commercialized and a panicked frenzy where everyone tries to engineer the perfect celebration, only to end up disappointed by travel delays, a dry turkey, a pie that missed the mark, or the inevitable family arguments. Working my steps has helped me release a lot
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Busy Living
11.23.25 What a weekend. I can’t remember the last time I crammed this much into two days. And there’s no universe where I ever did this while I was drinking. Back then I would’ve said fuck it and stayed home, isolated, coming up with a hundred reasons not to participate in life. I picked up
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Another 24, In Living Color
11.22.25 What a fantastic Saturday. I woke up a little worried about how the GSRU planning committee meeting might go, but it ended up overflowing with new people ready to jump into service. We filled a ton of committee positions. No begging, no awkward silence, just people showing up because they want to be part