I saw this alarming statistic on my social media feed this morning: 5.3 million women in the US with Alcohol Use Disorder. When I researched it, I realized that statistic is from 2015! Imagine what the number is today? Yet, here we are in 2019 and alcohol is still glorified everywhere around us, and we are taught that it is okay to be a part of our everyday life.

Alcohol is a depressant. It is not for everyone. If you are one of those people, you should not be ashamed to choose sobriety. As I stand here today, going through the most trying time of my life, I feel so blessed to have realized 500 days ago that to be the mom that I wanted to be I did not want alcohol in my life anymore.

Five hundred days sober today. I am proud to say those words. I am mentally strong. I almost lost the love of my life a few months back and now he has begun the journey of healing through chemotherapy this week. I feel all the emotions. The gratitude, the fear, the stress of how I will make it all work and the depression at night when I feel alone. Feeling all the emotions allows me to work through them. I can validate them; I can be gentle with myself and I can find solutions to the problems that can be fixed.

If I was drinking, I would be just trying to escape all the emotions. Then it would turn into this downward spiral of trying to escape but in reality, not being able to. Then it would lead to my own illness and falling apart in a time that I can’t. No more escaping. I choose to feel.

Billy and I talk every day (even before he was sick) about gratitude. Through his path of healing, we choose to focus on that. Gratitude for my support system. Gratitude for my family and friends. Gratitude for Billy fighting as hard as he can and doing everything in his power to heal. Today I have gratitude for my sobriety.

When I began my sobriety journey, I wasn’t completely sure why. When I continued, I wasn’t sure it would be forever. Today I know why. It was the beginning of my healing journey. I have gratitude for my life and where this path is leading me.

- Amanda (@missdjlux ❤️)