11 Years Sober and None the Wiser

ELEVEN years!!!

Dang, that’s a long time! But you know what’s longer?

30 days.

In my first 30 days of sobriety, I didn’t even know I wanted to be sober. I just wanted to feel better, stop making bad choices and hurting the people I love.

I didn’t know that quitting drinking wasn’t going to solve all my problems and I would actually have to feel my feelings rather than stuff them in a bottle.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into and thank God for that!

My key to long term sobriety

I’ve learned a lot in the last eleven years, but my biggest lesson so far, the one that helps me through my darkest moments, is to wear the world like a loose garment.

Wearing the world like a loose garment means setting healthy boundaries with the people, places, and institutions in your life. It’s learning to focus only on what you can control, and letting everything else go.

Easier said than done I know, but in my experience when I feel agitated, less than, uncomfortable, attacked, or frustrated is because I’m trying to control that which is none of my business.

When I wear life like a loose garment I am free to make mistakes, let others make mistakes, and I can forgive us both.

I don’t drink, but I’m not always sober.

Even after 11 years I still have many of the same character defects, only now they make me uncomfortable enough to do something about them. I don’t drink over it, but I lose the serenity that comes with being sober. In the rooms, we call it an “emotional hangover” and it can be brutal.

Case in point…

I think it’s why I focus so much on self care.

I know what it feels like to be out of alignment with my intentions physically, mentally or spiritually. I get so uncomfortable I have to pick up the box of tools I know work for me. When we know better we do better.

I’m eleven years in and I still take it one day at a time.

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