What would you like your epitaph to be? Maybe, by thinking about it and putting it into as few characters as a tweet, it may help put your life into perspective. I know what mine would be and it goes back to when I was 27 years old. 

After having tried to quit drinking for 8 years by all means, from getting into rehab (not a fancy place but a psychiatric hospital in Spain.), to limiting the number of drinks failing miserably every single time, I finally made it! Needless to say, that during all those years till I had my last drink on a flight back from London, I put my family and friends through hell, because that’s what we addicts do best as if it were our job description.

The day I got sober I wasn’t ready to tell my Dad because he would understandably hardly believe me. Yet, as chance would have it, he called to tell me he was on his way and that he wanted to talk to me. At this, I thought, he was finally going to send me off packing which I truly deserved, but when he arrived, he sat me down and said to my surprise: “Laura, I’ve realized that although you have drunk yourself silly all these years, I have to say that at least you have tried to quit many times and I have to give you that. Thank you. I still love you and always will. I’m your father.”

That was the day I quit, and it is now after all these years that I realize that maybe, what he said to me that day is what’s helped me stick to my sobriety all these years.

So, my epitaph, if I could write it myself, would be “At least she tried.” Because this, I can now proudly say, is what I’ve done all these years in all areas of my life.

What would your epitaph be?