Congratulations that’s awesome, I’m sober myself (just over 18 months) and it took me a lot of tries and many years to stop drinking so I can relate to that.
The one thing I would really caution people about is quitting cold turkey - alcohol withdrawal can be fatal. It’s also miserable even when done with medical help, I’ve done medical detox in the hospital and at rehab more times than I care to remember and each time serves as a huge reminder of what awaits me if I start drinking again. So please if anyone is considering stopping drinking and is drinking a lot, talk to a doctor about it and be honest. Seizures and strokes and DTs are not fun and can kill you.
That all said I also struggle with weight, and a few times after I stopped drinking I ate more and gained weight and it contributed to going back to drinking. This time I’ve been very conscious about calories in vs calories out because that has been something that works for me. Food scale and honesty tracking everything I eat and all my exercise.
And again, awesome job on 5 years, I love coming across sobriety out in the wild.
Bill Gates donated a lot of money and that has really done so much to rehabilitate his image. In the 90s he was seen as one of the worst people alive, I remember memes with him in a portrait in place of Hitler and those were wildly popular in some online communities. He was a ruthless businessman who broke laws to ensure Microsoft’s dominance in the PC marketplace. Even the pro corporate US justice department found Microsoft guilty of antitrust violations. He also schemed to rip off his childhood friend and Microsoft cofounder out of shares when said friend was undergoing cancer treatment. You don’t get to be a billionaire by being nice or generous. Even the Simpsons did a joke about Gates buying a competitor out by basically beating up Homer and trashing his office.
I’d be super generous too if I had 100 billion dollars. Notice how he also hasn’t lost a whole lot of his net worth? He’s not giving you the shirt off his back, he’s giving out his pocket change. He just has really deep pockets.