8,030 days that I have said yes to life and no to darkness. I’m still in awe that it’s been 22 years since I’ve had my last drunk, my last hangover, my last night forgetting what embarrassing thing I did or said to someone, my last time driving drunk - risking someone else’s life and my own, the last time I failed at something I promised myself every morning for months that I wouldn’t do again.
Putting down the drink, as they say, is the easy part. Sobriety is hard work, especially if you want to change the things that contributed to your alcoholism. If we don’t do the deeper work, we are still disturbed individuals taking our frustrations and fears out on the people around us.
I’m grateful I went to a fellowship of people who taught me how to clean up my past and look at myself honestly. I’m even more grateful that I found therapists to help me heal the deeper wounds that I tried to drink away. Someone once said to me in a meeting,”When you bury your emotions, you bury them alive.” That very wise woman showed me, with love and understanding, how important it is to uncover the deepest pain hiding within. Shining light on it and sharing it with others is the only way to release it.
I know lots of sober people who keep their wounds buried. They stuff them under the surface of their souls like a volcano waiting to erupt, pretending everything is great. But it’s not. They singe those they touch without realizing it.
Do the work. Uncover the wounds. Don’t do it alone. Find a tribe of others who have done it before you. Grab their hands, coattails, backs of their shoes if you have to. Just do it. There is an indescribable freedom on the other side that will emanate from you like the sun reflecting off the ocean.