thanks
Hi, thought I’d check in and say hello.
Coming up on one year sober in a couple of days – I don’t count obsessively, but I remember the day very clearly and I've been thinking about it lately. I posted here that day, desperate and miserable, and people were kind and encouraging and I sensed they knew what I was going through. Now I’m a year on, without a single drink. (Except, accidentally, one mouthful at a party when someone handed me some kind of apple cider when I asked for apple juice. I put the glass down, having a quiet freak-out, but then went and washed out my mouth, took a deep breath and decided to put it behind me.)
I sometimes wonder if I am sober or just not drinking. I’m not sure: it’s a difficult time for me right now, too much work and too much instability. I’ve been anxious and nervous, for no big reason. Not quite a dry drunk, no white knuckles, but without that great calm and centeredness I see in some recovered people. I go to AA sometimes, but don’t work the program. There are days when it inspires me, days when I feel like a total alien there. Sometimes I hear myself sharing and feel like a pompous, evasive windbag compared with some wise, straightforward and honest people I hear there.
But somehow I still have the same sense I had a year ago – that the last bender was the last bender I had in me, that I just couldn’t take any more, physically, mentally, spiritually, anything. Why was that the last blackout, after how ever many hundreds before? I came out of a blackout in a taxi, on the other side of the city, not knowing where I was and for a couple of hours not able to remember where I lived.
I have no idea how it happened. Something changed, I got strength enough from somewhere to begin to make a change. A little window of opportunity. And then a lot of strength from reading here a lot and posting, now and again. SR is a wonderful place: thank you all.