Seven Years later

Hi friends. It is hard to find time to write lately but here I am and I am going to give it a go. I keep wanting to write the perfect post for my 7y anniversary which has now come and gone but I just realized in this moment that perfection is an old bad habit that I need to just discard. Now. I'm honestly not even sure what it is all about except being mean to myself and procrastinating. What old bad habits they are...

So, here I am, seven years sober. I can hardly believe it. I had the opportunity last night to talk to someone who is having a hard time, struggling, living with active addiction. It gave me a lot to think about and to be grateful for. What makes some people get sober. What keeps some people drinking. No one really knows. I guess there are lots of theories and books and experts but the truth is that if anyone really knew they'd be millionaires and everyone who had alchol or drug problems would be cured. We just dont know. What I do know is about my own journey, my own struggles, and my own recovery which continues and evolves.

For me and me alone--I had to learn to love myself. I have to continue to learn to love myself every single day. I lost myself when I began drinking as a teenager. I sort of lost myself before I found myself if that makes any sense. I mean if you are drinking heavily when you are supposed to be growing up--what happens. I ended up growing around and thru my drinking like some weird tree that has to grow all contorted around another tree. The branches get all strange and moved but they grow and the grow anyway. Part of this process for me has been taking an honest look and how I grew and why. Where did I bend and twist and why. Sometimes it means trying to unbend. Sometimes it meant in the beginning having to break off some old branches that were dead anyway and just weighing me down.

It is not easy always but it is endlessly interesting, exciting, and often startling beautiful. This crazy life. I do so much better when I let it unfold. When I stop asking the people around me to be who I want or what I need. When I let them be themselves and then let myself be me free from thinking about them or what should be then I feel something remarkable. Freedom. Gratitude. A life that is powerful and full of love and grace.

Just today as I was lamenting my not enough time to write, not enough time to shower, not enough...I stopped myself. I thought about it. Shit, I could write right now while I spend all of this time thinking about why I cant. I can do anything I want. My crazy brain just likes me to feel sorry for myself, my crazy brain wants me to feel victimzed. Lucky for me there is another part of myself that is getting stronger and smarter. I am learning to outsmart myself.

I wrote today because I realized I could. All of that complaining, whining, feeling that things were not right for me to do what I wanted...I dont know where it came from but it disappeared when I started doing what I wanted. As I was writing my daughter came out and handed me a picture she had drawn of our house. I asked what kind of house is this? She said, It is our house. I said what kind of house is our house? She said, without pausing, a happy house. And that is sobriety to me.
xxk