If you have been sober for awhile, list the things they have now

[wildeyed]

that you are grateful that they didn't have when you were drinking/using.

I will start:

Mobile phones/email/internet chat boards. It was bad enough to make blacked out drunk calls on the landline. I used to redial after a bad night to try to figure out who I called. But drunk texting and emails? Whoa, I would have been a total mess.

Four Loco.

Still having the alcoholic mind, I am a bit sad I missed ecstasy.

[NMDemDist2]

1. LOL

so true my friend

i'm just glad i never got a DUI with the draconian penalties they have today.

[Stuart G]

2. I have a much clearer mind..

There are many times when I think in a way that was impossible before.
That clarity of thought is a gift way beyond what I ever expected.

[Iggo]

3. Facebook.

[tfsoccer]

4. Better Dreams and better functioning

clearer, more color and positive, and remembered
better speech, less hesitating, forgeting, unclarities

[get the red out]

5. Facebook

It would have gotten really bad......

But I wish the internet had been around, I think I would have been helped with some actual access to information I wasn't getting in the situation I was in, with really bad psychiatric care and no information regarding treatment beyond an episode I saw on Opra one time.

[tavalon]

9. OMG Facebook

When I had to remove my addicted Ex, I had to defriend so many people. And that place is so middle school on a good day. Drunk Facebooking. Ouch.

I wonder if people have started Facebooking their amends.

Even better, can I do my fifth step on Facebook? (kidding - I would rather die than do that. Now Twitter......)

[rodsyrinx]

6. Interesting question

I can identify with the blackout phone calls (cringe).

Just grateful to be alive and sober.

I have a few nephews who were not around when I was drinking so I am glad they did not have to witness what others family members had to witness.....

[oldhippydude]

7. funny you should mention the DWI stuff

I pretty much stayed drunk for my whole 20's... got one dwi in 74 in Idaho.. on one inventory, i figured that i must have driven drunk over a thousand times.. in fact used to drive home using right hand turns if possible, so i didnt have to cross traffic.. would joke in the watering holes that driving home was an "art form"

i remember waking up in the middle of the night, with the stark terror that someday i would be in prison, for a crime i didn't remember.. i attended my first meeting shorly thereafter, and have been sober every scince.. that has been over 30 years ago..

years ago in my youth i was a homebrewer, (never supply issues).. occasionaly i wonder what some microbrewerys have done with the art.. but this certainly has not proved an obssesion.. i am now living free of both alcohol and tobacco, thanks to folks like Bill and Bob, and im sure many of you!!

[tavalon]

8. I'm sad you missed ecstasy too

You remember that old commercial from coke? I'd like to buy the world a hit of ecstasy, especially world leaders before important arms summits.

But, not to worry, the party girls ruined ecstasy. There isn't any out there to tempt you. And it wreaked havoc on one's body. Really.

But on the subject, there's actually something new from the last time I was in recovery (CoDA). Cell phones and phone trees. Yup. If I have a freak out at 2am, I have a list of people who will get out of bed to listen to me rant. And now that I think of it, that is so, well, codependent. Okay, now I've amused myself.

Of course, I'm such an idiot with my so called smart phone, it's only a matter of time before I pocket dial one of these fine folks. I don't even want to imagine that conversation. LOL Um, God Grant me the wisdom not to do that!

[Vanje]

10. Short-timer here. Its kind of early in my sobriety to call it.

But for sure ,
Better DU posts!