I'm coming up on two years sober this winter. Two years ago I was about to reach six months sober and was proud of myself... until I gave in (why??) and drank for two damn days. Brought myself right back to square one, where I'd been so many times before. Was I just hopeless? Was I doomed to drink myself to death? Was I going to alienate everyone I loved so I'd be
completely alone all the time? Why couldn't I just die and get it over with...
So I started over again. Yeah, yeah, same ol' same ol'... And stayed sober out of sheer stubborn determination. Wasn't really
happy, but I
was sober, and that's saying something, given my history of constantly relapsing.
At around three months I was still sick of myself and being sober just wasn't enough. I didn't want to drink again and have to start all over, or just walk out into traffic, if you know what I mean.
So I did something totally different from my depressing and hopeless state of mind: I started being grateful for my blessings. At first I had to really work at it to find anything to be grateful for as I was dealing with a lot of problems, most of which were brought on or made worse by my drinking. But I was determined to give it an honest effort and I'd express my gratitude for even the tiniest little thing, like someone letting me into traffic on a busy street.
Anything that made me smile. Anything that made me feel even a
little bit better.
And as it became a habit, it became easier to find things to be thankful for. In fact, I started being thankful for the many blessings I took for granted, like being able to breathe, and nice parks to take the dogs, and good restaurants, and taking my mother to the doctor's for help... all things I am able to do, all good things that added to the quality of my life but which I never stopped to think about and give thanks for.
Quite a few years ago I got a piece of paper with some interesting statistics. It stated what the percentages would be of all the people on earth if the entire world's population were reduced to just 100 people. And as I sat there reading it I realized that even with my 'problems', I still had it better than most of the people in the world. Of the 100 people/world's population, only one would have a computer.
I have a computer. Therefore
I'm the lucky one. What a blessing!
So now my whole attitude is different, much healthier, and I see things in a whole new light: the light of gratitude. I realize how blessed I am, and even tho it took emotional disasters to get to this point, I'm happy with how I turned out.
And the unexpected bonus for my gratitude is that I have no desire to drink. It's not an option any more. I'm too grateful to want to wreck everything good in my life.
I never would have gotten to this happy place if I'd just given up on myself like I so often wanted to do. Thanks to the good people here and my counselor, I didnt' give up. I tried again (and again and again) and I finally made it. So can you!
Don't give up!