My Sobriety Is Like David Blaine

It is hard for me to articulate in words just how grateful I am to be sober.

It is not because sobriety made it possible for me to find a meaningful profession. Or that getting sober saved my marriage. Or even that being sober got me into the best shape of my life.

Especially not that last one. I am 53 and my body is about as sturdy as a bridge made out of pipe cleaners. 

My gratitude is far less glamorous than that.

Since I have been in recovery, I have heard the word gratitude about a hundred thousand times. Sometimes it resonates with me like an earthquake and sometimes it disintegrates into a million tiny little pieces before it ever reaches my brain.

What I am most grateful for might sound less profound than you would expect. 

I am most grateful for not having the urge to drink. 

To this day, I still do not understand how my cravings for alcohol and drugs have vanished.

It's like David Blaine poking an ice pick through his arm or regurgitating live frogs on the Jimmy Fallon Show.

It's unexplainable. Or at least that's what it feels like to me sometimes.

I am not talking about a beer looking good on a Superbowl ad. I am talking about not having to consider it a choice. 

I do not have to remind myself every day or beat myself up over it and I do not have to ruminate, romanticize, or reflect on it.

This is not complacency or arrogance. I am not delusional or cocky.

It is just gone. It is not an option.

It just isn't.

Drinking is not part of my life anymore. 

Another thing I have heard in recovery way more times than I can count, is the saying, "don't quit before the miracle happens."

It took me a long time to understand what that meant to me. 

I say me because there are no right or wrong answers in recovery. Everyone's perspective is a little bit different. Everyone's experience is unique. How else would we learn from one another? It is one of my favorite things about being sober.

The only way I can describe this absence of craving, is that it is a miracle.

It makes no difference where it came from or how it got there or why it took this long.

It must be a miracle. 

It has to be.

SPOILER ALERT!

That miracle everybody talks about that you aren't supposed to quit before?

If you haven't figured it out yet...

The miracle is you. 



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Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 16, 2024 at 9:36 AM

    This is so spot on. What an absolute blessing and indeed a miracle! Keep them coming!

    ReplyDelete

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