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Thank you for that definition. I am finding that one of my biggest stumbling blocks to sobriety was my bizarre misunderstanding of what the term meant. I spent months journaling about and struggling with the idea. Fighting it tooth and nail, sure that sobriety meant I had to deprive myself for the rest of my life. well...the day it dawned on me that sobriety was NOT about deprivation, but was all about sanity, fullness of life and choices...was the first day I could actually consider it as a life path.
I couldn't want something I thought so badly about.
I wonder how many other addicts feel that way, how many former addicts felt that way.
I am really at the stage just now of discovering what sobriety actually is, and making real heartfelt choices to BE sober.
I didn't really want it before because I was so wrong about what it was. I felt like it was a burden I was taking on, something I was "supposed" to do.
In fact, I had a friend who is 4 years into recovery, and when I first got clean a year ago, a few weeks in I said to him "sobriety is a bitch" and he nodded and said "yes, and it never gets better"....guess how long I stayed clean...not another 24 hours, I was like "f*ck this...if it's never going to get better..." but several months later, after continuing to work a recovery program while still using, it hit me what sobriety REALLY is...all I had thought before was that it was fighting addiction, then I woke up and saw that it has nothing to do with fighting and struggling at all, it's giving up all that nonsense, all that crap I used to hide behind...and living instead.
I hope that friend of mine knows that, that what he said that day was just a slip, a misunderstanding, a thoughtless reaction to my comment. I hope that sobriety is way more than fighting to him.
I'm getting clean...because sobriety is more and more attractive to me every day, because I am so damned tired of fighting
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