I wasn’t going to do the HOF speech, but that’s me, Aquaman43, member 001. It’s funny, outside of this site, in my everyday life, everything is just as it was over 100 days ago. But here, on this site, every time I log in and post roll I feel a sense of shame. A feeling that I let a lot of people down and a feeling that my very presence could hurt someone that is vulnerable in their quit. I’ve thought about that a lot, and that is exactly what I should be feeling. That’s accountability, that’s what this site is about.
I’m not going to go into the things that led up to my relapse, my cave, my spelunking. If you really want to know, just ask me.
When I was quitting the first time, there were people that I was just in awe of. 2manycans was one of those people. He made quitting just seem so easy. For me, it was more like fake it till you make it. I held onto this site like it was a lifesaver in the middle of the ocean. One part of the song Ms. Jackson by Outkast was always in my mind, forever forever? Ever forever? Forever ever? Even at almost 1000 days, that was always somewhere in my mind.
I tried quitting a few times while I was away. I made it six months once, but there was no one around that I needed to answer to. I never reached out to my brothers or sisters, because of shame or pride, probably both. Late last year I decided I wanted to quit, for good. I knew the only way to do it was with this site. I did a bunch of research, then started talking to my doctor. In late March I talked to Chewie, and I started my quit on April 1st. A few days later I found out Ldiddy passed on that very day. Diddy my brother, we’ll never know for sure if you were right, but I wish I had flown down to Fort Lauderdale that weekend and had a few beers with you. I don’t know if things would have been different, but I fucked that up.
When we first started this site, we had two people over 1000 days and that was Uncle Bubba and Tractor. Look at the numbers now. But more important than the numbers, look at the knowledge. Things I was dying to know the first time around are right at your fingertips. “Forever ever,” there’s an answer for that. It was posted by the conductors for June 2021 HOF Train. A post by wildirish317, and you can find it
here.Cooter (SteveJCootie) it sucks that you had to start over too, but it was nice to have a fellow ACORDian reach out early. You and Wastepanel kind of slapped me back to reality. I appreciate it. Nick, thank you for reaching out as well, and for the information that has led to the best sleep of my life.
To the Bad Wolves, sorry you had to endure the ration of shit that came along with me coming back. I’m proud to be quit with you and now we are brothers. Saint, thanks for reaching out early brother, you made life a bit easier. 100 days is great and an important milestone. Statistics show that people that make it to 100 days have a significant chance of staying quit. But that doesn’t mean you get to let your guard down. As for me? The Outkast song is gone. I’m perfectly fine with forever. Like I said early on, I’m quit, I’m quit for life. I’m just stacking numbers with my pack.
