Art(ing) again

Drinking, rehab, hospitals. These things don't leave me much time or mindset to be creative or do what I want to do. I love to sketch, draw, paint, and make art of some kind. I've been outta my creative world for a while now, but the last few weeks I have jumped back into my creativity with a plague of passion. Soul on fire! Been taking a bunch of sketches and digital art I did while not drinking heavy and updating my artsy social media sites, which I never put the effort or passion into that I should have. Making myself really push and promote my work on a daily basis, as well as creating and being creative as often as possible.

I even opened a Redbubble shop where I can put my art and designs on t-shirts and other cool products and sell them. Been wanting to do this for a while and I finally have a few designs up and running. If you want to check out my shop you can view it here.

I'm not gonna win any awards for blog post titles but, I wanted to use the word "Arting". Wasn't sure if that was a word, doesn't matter I would have used it anyway, but I found a definition that said - verb /ɑː(r)ting/ 1. 'the action or skill of using art to become more powerful'

Wow, That's exactly what I'm trying to do.

Ghosts

In 2 more days it will be 2 months since my last drink. Days are much kinder to me then the nights. I feel like I'm doing pretty good but the evenings into the nights are when my ghosts come around and start to flirt with my mind. I start to taste that ice cold beer, the beer that has been my lover for years. Now she's gone.

Well, hello third Mountain Dew and ice cream pint... What? You can't sleep?

First Post, Why?

For as long as I can remember (over 30 years), I drank alcohol every day. Beer being my biggest drink of choice. Most of that time I was a functioning drinker... go to work, do what I needed to do for the day, then come home in the evening and put down 6 or 8 beers and relax.
I have always struggled with anxiety and depression, so this was my way of letting go and feeling ok for the night.
This was the way I was for years, and to me, it worked. But the last few years I started to slowly snowball out of control... Covid, no work, weird work when I had some, awkward video meetings, family, dealing with a Mom who started the beginnings of dementia, my anxiety was out of control. I was now drinking during the day, before meetings, and numbing myself as much as possible. I was drinking more and much stronger beer, IPA's, and putting them down like water. Then I stopped eating, just drinking.
In the last year and a half I have been hospitalized 3 times, the first time for internal bleeding, all from drinking and not eating. As I write this I have been in rehab, and have been sober for 54 days.
I pray to stay sober, I'm not used to it, I feel upside down, but I need to. I'm hoping that writing what is on my mind will help me through it. And maybe someone else?