May 18th, 2024

Approaching ten months like I’ve approached the months before. With pride and a sense of accomplishment. If I’m being completely honest there’s some nervous energy. With each month that passes the closer I come to having a year of sobriety. 365 days of sobriety scares me. My hope is that when  I approach a year, mentally I’ll be prepared for it. I have to remember too that 30 days used to scare me. I know you have to take it all one day at a time and sometimes I can get carried away. I like to manifest. Even with the manifestation I never could’ve honestly thought I’d be sitting here with 10 months. 10 chips. It’s truly special. FOREVER GRATEFUL.

I wouldn’t be here without the support and guidance of the people that surround me today. It’s a different kind of love.  Friendship. They are my PEOPLE. Like a missing puzzle piece that suddenly found its place. I deserve to feel these feelings. Both good and bad.  I’m no longer reaching for a bottle to drowned out all the emotions and thoughts that come with life. I’m accepting life on life’s terms. Not everyday is going to be a good one. There’s a silver lining as they say though… not everyday is a bad day anymore. That’s truly something to be grateful for. 

I felt myself becoming detached from sobriety or maybe AA in general the past week or two. Skipping meetings. Whether by choice or not. I realized just how much those meetings mean to me and my sobriety. I started to get complacent and took them for granted. Forgetting for a split second they are what got me and keeps me sober. These meetings restored a sense of honest in my life. Being honest inside those 4 walls always came easy for me. I guess I was done lying to myself and the people around me. I was tired of the act or roll I casted myself out to play. These people didn’t know me. I didn’t want people’s first impression of me to be some lie I made up anymore. I was done.

I don’t know if I had my last drink. Lord knows when I walked into that first meeting I didn’t intend to stop. I wanted to figure out a way to drink differently. Safely is a word that gets used inside AA rooms. I could never imagine my life changing the way it has these last 10 months. How much I’ve grown feels so minimal at times. I think I’ve grown so much and than something sets me back. I feel like I’m back at square one. Back in that first month. Contemplating if any of this was worth it because the thing I was missing, could no longer have a place in my life. The thing I used as a crutch or safety net was no longer there to catch me. So I had to fall. Fall flat on my face to know what it’s like to truly be able to stand. Stand in my own skin. Stand with confidence. Stand with strength. To know the person looking back at me, who at times, can be an asshole. But there’s a good person in there and my past doesn’t have to define me anymore. The words that were echoed to me as a child no longer have welcomed space inside my head to roam free. I believe today, if just for today, that I am a good fucking person. I deserve a second shot at trying to be the person I was meant to be. Before life became about surviving instead of dreaming.  I haven’t forgiven myself for the mistakes or the broken promises. But I do realize that there’s a beautiful life waiting to be lived and I won’t find it constantly looking in the past. 

To sum it all up mentally today I’m better than I have been. Better than 10 months ago. I’m blessed to not have an obsession to pick up hanging over my head. I know there’s people out there who cannot say that. For that I say there will be better days ahead. Just hold on. I have done a lot of just holding on in my sobriety. Just get 24 hrs. Try and turn that into 3 days. Then 3 weeks. Then 3 month. Now I’ve stacked the days into 10 months. Blessings. Sure I could sit around and be angry at the fact I wasted all those years chasing bottles and pills. Hoping for happiness at the bottom of each of them. Looking for happiness in others because I lacked finding it in myself. However then I’d be missing out on the true blessing that is today. Because today, now that’s its after midnight, I am 10 months sober.

It’s pretty cool when I think about it. I no longer have this fear inside me anymore. I can’t quite describe it yet. But it’s like knowing that the fear won’t kill me. It might beat me down. Hurt me. Maybe even crush me. But I will get up. Maybe when I’m going through it, its still tough to see at first. Then I calm down and just breathe. My senses find me and I’m reminded it will not kill me. 

… and I am okay.