Remember back in the old days of Jersey Shore, before any of the cast members had kids and they were just out there, living their messiest lives?
Those were wild times, right?
And, looking back, they were actually kind of sad times, too.
While Ronnie and Sam’s terrible relationship made for some fantastic reality television, it was also pretty remarkably unhealthy.
Since Ronnie’s in another remarkably unhealthy relationship these days, complete with domestic violence charges, things obviously haven’t changed too much for him.
Snooki and JWoww are both married with kids, and Deena is married and pregnant.
Sammi is trying to lead a more private life now with her boyfriend, and Pauly D and Vinny both seem happy with the lives they’ve made for themselves.
As for Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino … boy, he sure was a piece of work, huh?
He partied as much as the rest of his co-stars back in the day, maybe even more.
After all, he did go to rehab in 2012 to get help for an addiction to pills.
In 2015, he suffered an injury at the gym, and his doctor prescribed him painkillers, which led to a relapse.
He went to rehab again after that, and as he announced in a new post on Instagram, he’s been clean ever since!
In his post, he shared two photos — one of him in the neck brace he wore in season four after he ran headfirst into a wall during an argument with Ronnie, and one of him proposing to his now-fiancée, Lauren Pesce.
“33 Months Clean & Sober,” he wrote for his caption.
“Went from Running into a Wall to Down on One Knee. We do recover.”
It has been a pretty amazing transformation, honestly.
And most of his fellow Jersey Shore cast members have taken the time to praise him for his hard work.
“Proud of u my bro,” Pauly D wrote in a comment on Mike’s post.
“Love you Mike!!!!!” Deena told him. “So proud of you brother.”
Snooki said “I am legit crying im so proud of you,” which is really sweet.
Even Angelina popped in with a simple comment of “resilience,” and how crazy is that?
Besides the Jersey Shore crew, tons and tons of his followers flooded the comments to tell him how proud they were of him, what a great role model he’s become, that sort of thing.
And those people are right — he really has turned his life around in a major way.
Back in the day, he was really just a seriously obnoxious douchebag who got arrested and sued pretty regularly, and he even thought it was a good idea to commit tax fraud.
Just take a look at the top portion of that “then and now” photo he shared: that’s a photo of a guy who got into a dumb argument with his roommate and decided to ram his head directly into the wall for reasons that we still can’t quite understand.
But now, he’s settled down, he’s pretty likable, he’s getting his legal issues sorted (even if that means spending some serious time in prison).
He’s even getting married.
So good on you, The Situation. Good on you.