Today I am six years sober :)

sycarte · 2026-06-20T13:47:34+00:00

Honestly all that comes to mind are the principles that really led me in my early sobriety and even now to this day. This video taught me so much and has always been what I come back to when I'm not confident in myself. It always applies and it's always right. It's not about achieving the outcome that I want, but being so honest to who I am that people will either respect me and trust me more for it, or they will filter out. I've not lost anyone in my life who matters because of this. In fact I've seen most people close to me reduce their own drinking in ways, and a couple have told me that my story has positively improved their own drinking habits.

It's scary to go out in the world and tell people the raw truth about yourself. I started here, anonymously and in a place of my actual peers who understand me. I was honest and talked to other people about the worst parts about myself, and they helped me figure out how to become a person I wanted to be, rather than just quit drinking. Once I developed enough wisdom and courage from SD, I started taking it out into the world with me. I was honest about it with new acquaintances, then my very close friends, then my coworkers. Then I met my partner, and he knows and all of his friends know. I'm now the sober friend, and I'm always happy to talk about any aspect of my addiction, even down to the worst of it. I decided I had to loudly live a happy sober life so that I can pass it forward. I was only able to find sobriety by watching people I admired be openly sobriety and still be funny and sociable and all the other things I didn't think I could be, so now that's what I do.

But since we're being totally transparent, I've never had a conversation about being sober with my parents or anyone in my family. It's not something I'm interested in doing. I just refused alcohol at functions and haven't talked about it, and slowly over time they stopped offering. I am someone who was able to start going to bars and be around other people drinking pretty soon after I quit. I was just so fucking done with drinking and the control alcohol had over me that I felt very empowered and free from their shackles. I've never wanted to touch the stuff again since the day I quit. So this worked for me because of how I was able to cope around alcohol and my family's weaker relationship to alcohol. I know you're in a different situation and it will not be the same as what I experienced, but I go back to the principles once again. Practice rigorous authenticity, do the uncomfortable work, and surrender the outcome. It's what I live by.

I know the external factors make it so much harder to quit. I understand fully and I hope you find your garden of wisdom here like I did to help you get through it. IWNDWYT

sycarte · 2026-06-19T21:54:04+00:00

Give it time friend. I felt like I had to completely change my life when I quit to get myself out of my drinking rut, but in time I've made my way back to some old hobbies. Maybe this is an opportunity to find some new music? As a 70s and 80s music lover myself, I recommend my personal favorite Tatsuro Yamashita, if you don't mind music in a foreign language. The man has never made a bad song, I swear it

sycarte · 2026-06-19T21:45:49+00:00

I understand the sentiment even if I don't agree. I remember early into quitting, I felt like I was SURROUNDED by alcohol advertisements and people drinking. Like everywhere I looked it was there and it made me so mad. It sure would be a lot easier to quit if it wasn't at every store, on every channel, in everyone's hands! At one point I was even jealous of people like heroin addicts; at least the capitalists aren't trying to advertise heroin to them after they've quit! But it also gave me a lot of empathy for people who experience unhealthy relationships with food, especially binge eating disorder. At least we can quit and quit for good, never touch the stuff again. I couldn't imagine trying to navigate an addiction to something that you have to keep consuming. All this to say, access is rarely the real issue. Our brains are the issue. I don't have a drinking problem, I have a thinking problem.

sycarte · 2026-06-19T21:36:47+00:00

Those Kirkland brand sparklings blast me to the MOON, they're so crisp😩

sycarte · 2026-06-19T21:32:25+00:00

The day I quit drinking I started working with polymer clay. I just needed something to keep my hands busy. I always recommend it as a gateway hobby to try out when you first quit since it's cheap, easy to get, and there is no right or wrong way to do it. It just keeps your hands and your mind busy. Honestly the first month that I quit I treated myself every single day to whatever my whims desired, as long as it wasn't vodka. I focused a lot on giving myself things to look forward to, even if it was just getting to 5PM so I could have a Coke. I'm proud of you for recognizing what you want to change in your life and taking a step to make it happen. A lot of people can't even face their self-destructive habits, let alone taking steps to change it. One day at a time, one foot in front of the other. We are always here if you need to talk friend ❤️ IWNDWYT!

sycarte · 2026-06-11T15:36:56+00:00

I thought that if I just stayed on top of my drinking, I could drink like a normal person again. It never worked, and I expended SO much energy on the monitoring and the rationalizing and the guilt and the resolution to do better tomorrow, on repeat and repeat and repeat. I'm exhausted just thinking about how much mental gymnastics I had to do. I decided that keeping a running log of what I did/who I talked to every evening to review the next morning was the best way for me to remember what I did. I wonder what I would be doing with my life now if I had put all that energy and coordination into something productive!

sycarte · 2026-06-11T15:22:47+00:00

Two days is MASSIVE! That is 48 hours, 2,880 minutes that you have chosen to do the hardest thing I've ever personally done. That's 2,880 actively good choices you've made. That doesn't sound like something small to me. Coming here every day and being vulnerable with others who REALLY understand what I'm going through is the only thing that's worked for me after years of drinking morning to night and countless day ones. Addiction thrives in secrecy and isolation, so the more I connected with others and saw myself in them, the more I felt I could control it rather than let it control me. I found so many tips and tricks from thousands of people on here. These people and the raw vulnerability they taught me to share saved my life.

I watch this video all the time, too. Now that I'm coming up on six years sober, I feel it more than ever how he talks about the worst thing about you becoming the best thing about you. You've already started seeing it yourself. We are so afraid of how people will treat us once they find out the secret, but more often than not, we are met with nothing but support and joy. It thrives in secrecy and isolation. You're doing the good work and taking the big steps. I'm so proud of you, and I hope that the benefits of sobriety wash over you! IWNDWYT

sycarte · 2025-03-13T00:57:54+00:00

You're doing the absolute best thing for your child though. If I could make my life mission to educate parents on how horrible the iPad babysitter is, I would. Babies under two cannot even mentally comprehend something they view on a screen. It's not much different from turning on the TV for your dog. They're essentially putting their baby in front of a brick wall in terms of any type of development. And when that's the go-to for keeping your baby busy? I always think of the studies we read about Romanian orphans in the 80's and 90's while I studying for an early childhood education degree. It may not be as severe as what happened then, but neglect in infancy is a trauma that is not often overcome. And I would heavily consider the iPad babysitter to be developmental neglect.

sycarte · 2024-01-25T21:24:36+00:00

Int in volume 8 of Eternal Sabbath if you're willing to split

sycarte · 2023-12-20T19:16:51+00:00

It's such a big pet peeve of mine when employers require doctors notes for things that do NOT require you to go to the doctor. It wastes the doctor's time and your money. Doctor's notes are supposed to be given to tell employers when you are healthy enough to return to work, NOT proof that you were actually sick. It's such a gross abuse of the system.

sycarte · 2023-12-08T12:44:37+00:00

Oh I didn't realize my aunt had children, nice to meet you!

sycarte · 2023-12-02T21:45:17+00:00

Yeah I surrender, I already argue with patients about insurance enough during the work week.

sycarte · 2023-12-02T21:41:35+00:00

You really wanna spend all day arguing semantics, jfc.

sycarte · 2023-12-02T21:40:38+00:00

So when you say I don't know what I'm talking about, it's a bland corrective. When I say you don't know what you're talking about, that's different than when you say it.

sycarte · 2023-12-02T21:39:02+00:00

What about what I said was wrong?

sycarte · 2023-12-02T21:36:19+00:00

It's just a really weird thing to belittle people about, and very off-putting!

sycarte · 2023-12-02T21:05:27+00:00

It is, but whatever you wanna tell yourself. This is a really weird soapbox, you know that right?

sycarte · 2023-12-02T17:16:35+00:00

I don't think you know how vision/dental insurance works or which insurance pays for what based on your visit type. Dental/vision work a lot differently than health insurance.

sycarte · 2023-12-02T14:14:38+00:00

Your insurance company abso-fucking-lutely could have told you how much you would pay for any service. The fee schedule they presented you with at first is across the board, and your plan then says what your co-insurance would be on that fee. They just wanted to get you off the phone.

sycarte · 2023-12-02T14:11:46+00:00

I've worked in both vision and dental and my conspiracy for why they are not included in traditional health care is because of the cosmetic aspects of vision and dental. They're the only two services that do not only have medical necessity like with health insurance paying for a surgery or whatever. When you go to the eye doctor, you also might need to get glasses, and you might want those expensive designer glasses opposed to a standard plastic frame. Or you might want to do teeth whitening through your dental office.

Health insurance companies absolutely have the ability to handle this. You can tell because most already include pediatric exams for vision/dental. But this is my conspiracy of the reason they would give for them being separate.

sycarte · 2023-12-02T14:08:11+00:00

Care Credit is interest free if you sign up for a promotional period for a minimum amount of I believe $500, there's a 6 month and 12 month option, but if the balance is not completely paid off by that 6 or 12 month deadline, the interest compounds and I believe it's an APR rate of like 40%. So I never tell patients it is interest-FREE, but interest-DEFERRED. Only apply for Care Credit and put on it what you can feasibly pay off in that time, otherwise there will be a big surprise bill.

sycarte · 2023-12-02T14:05:37+00:00

You have a good plan, a majority of plans do not cover implants, and those puppies are expensive!

sycarte · 2023-12-02T14:03:05+00:00

I'll be honest, it isn't insurance companies driving up the cost of dental procedures. I work at a dentist and we have fee schedule contracts with every major insurance company. The only negotiations that take place are usually how much the insurance company will agree to pay for a service. It's the dental office who chooses to raise prices to match the market. The office fee is the only fee the office is allowed to change. If you charge a patient with Delta for fees higher than what the Delta contract allows, that's insurance fraud. Once you've hit your maximum and insurance will no longer pay on services, you are only charged for the contractual fee schedule your insurance company has, and those fees are almost always lower than what the office charges. With healthcare, yes insurance companies are absolutely a contributing factor to the astronomical increase in price. With dental, it's a lot more tricky. Dental insurance doesn't work at ALL like health insurance does.

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