Koly McBride 43 4 / 22 / 2006 • Sober Nation

Name: Koly McBride

Age: 47

Sober Since: 04 / 22 / 2006

Sober For: 18 Years & 9 Days

What it was like?

I was a binge drinker and user from age 19 on. I could clean up for a few months, pull the shards of my life back together, then crash! It would all come smashing down again, with me off on one more bender. Each of these was harder and harder to recover from and caused more chaos for those who loved me. I missed so much of my life and so much of my kids early life being loaded. But I couldn't stop the awful shameful cycle. I became numb and spiritually and emotionally bankrupt, as they say. I began to lose everything...my marriage, my car, my career, and everything around me suffered.

What happened?

I met a friend who had been sober for 7 years and everything about this person and their sober life was attractive to me. They had an inner moral compass and an honesty in every way they lived their life. I definitely wanted what they had and so I tagged along to a few meetings. But even after that, it took losing even more important things in my life before I finally got the courage to take myself to an AA meeting and announce myself as an alcoholic/addict. What I remember about that first meeting is that I cried a lot and shared a little and every single woman in that room gave me their phone number and told me to call. And so I did...I got a sponsor and started taking suggestions and stopped one minute at a time, then one hour at a time, and then finally one day at a time which is a pretty good place to be.

What it is like now?

My days are full of good things. Relationships with everyone in my life have been repaired. I'm a good mom , I am a good daughter and I am a good partner. I am trusted and depended on and am a functioning member of society. I am an honest person who can be trusted and my career is thriving. Best of all, I am not perfect...just sober...and I'm okay with that. I no longer have to create chaos and run away only to drag myself back to try to put it all together again. It stays together on its own because everyday I don't drink or use.