Jim Lunsford

Celebrating sobriety with a ribeye.

I did not rebuild my life by leaving the door cracked open. I drew a line on August 2, 2015, and I have defended it every day since.

Eleven years is not a finish line.

It is proof.

https://jimlunsford.com/eleven-years-sober-no-exceptions-no-relapse/

Today marks 11 years sober.

At 2:33 a.m. on August 2, 2015, I put down a glass of rum and made the decision to stop destroying my life.

Since that moment, I have not had a drink. I have not smoked marijuana. I have not taken narcotics, even when they were prescribed. There has never been a “just one,” a special occasion, a temporary exception, or a different substance used to make the same old escape acceptable.

Not one relapse.

Eleven years does not mean every day was easy. It means the decision stayed stronger than the hard days. It means I kept the line when life hurt, when I was angry, when I was exhausted, when I lost people, when jobs broke me down, and when escape would have been easier than facing reality.

Sobriety was the first decision. Rebuilding my life has been the work ever since.

I rebuilt my health. I rebuilt my marriage. I rebuilt trust. I became present for my family. I learned how to work, train, lead, build, and live without needing something to numb me first.

I am not sober because I got lucky.

I am sober because I drew a line 11 years ago and have refused to step back across it.

No alcohol. No narcotics. No marijuana. No substitutions. No technicalities. No relapse.

Eleven years sober.

Never go back.

The first half of the shift at the jail was slow, so I used the time to get all of this week’s articles ready to publish on JimLunsford.com.

The second half picked up a little when I had a long transport. Nothing major, but at least it broke up the shift.

Now I am home with three days off in front of me, trying to decide what I am actually going to do with them.

I have a few projects I could work on, plenty of things around the house that could use attention, and enough games waiting to keep me occupied.

For now, I am just glad the shift is over and the next three days belong to me.

I am giving up on using Cypher for scheduling, at least for now.

I have spent too much time fixing the same class of mistakes. I would correct the schedule, test it, verify it, and then another normal conversation would expose another failure.

The frustrating part is that I never wanted another calendar app. I wanted Cypher to have enough awareness of my schedule to reference it naturally while we talked. If I said I was exhausted, it should understand that I worked overnight. If I talked about tomorrow, it should already know whether I was scheduled.

The better design is clear now. Google Calendar should remain the authority, and Cypher should receive a fresh, read-only schedule snapshot with every conversation. No schedule memory. No reconstruction. No guessing.

I may attempt that eventually.

Right now, I am just tired of fixing Cypher.

Not much to report today.

It was just a steady 12-hour shift at the jail. Nothing dramatic, nothing worth turning into a bigger story. Some days are simply about showing up, doing the job, and finishing the shift clean.

Now it is time to relax and play some Pokémon Red.

Tomorrow is a shorter shift, then I have three days off.

I am ready for them.

Anyone can go hard when motivation is high.

The real test comes when the work gets boring, the results slow down, and nobody is watching.

Intensity starts things.

Continuity builds the life.

https://jimlunsford.com/discipline-dispatch-continuity-wins/

I took Kelly and the boys to Hardy Lake today, a place I remember from my own childhood.

I showed them the parts I still remembered, then watched them play on the beach while Kelly and I sat nearby. After that, we drove to Clifty Falls State Park, walked a trail, and ate dinner at the hotel.

On the way home, the boys thanked us for taking them and said they had a good time.

That meant a lot to me.

It was not some huge trip or perfectly planned day. It was just time together, a place from my past, and a new memory for them.

Hard days are not when your standards stop applying.

They are why you built them.

You do not need perfection. You need to protect the line, do the next right thing, and refuse to let pressure turn you back into someone you already fought to leave behind.

https://jimlunsford.com/recovery-standard-hard-days/

Nine hours on the range. Three tests passed. A 92% on criminal law.

After a year in a civilian job, I now can get my police powers back in Indiana.

Then I got a run in and came home to family time and dinner with Kelly.

Some days remind you that the work you put in still counts.