I dig it....
Here's a short letter that it made me think to write to myself.... you can feel free to use it too.
Dear FreeOwl Past;
I'm sure glad you had that 1.5 year relapse and then came back to the path of sobriety.
If you hadn't spent that year and a half falling deeper into the cycle, armed with what you'd learned in the previous 5 months of sobriety, you may not have seen so clearly what was really happening when you finally did. If you hadn't spent those last several months silently suffering, quietly panicking as you tried, and failed, tried, and failed to moderate; maybe you wouldn't have been ready.
But now it's almost a year. Standing atop this little hill of hope and goodness I can honestly tell you it was all worth it. I'm grateful for the crap you put yourself through.... because it was all part of the momentum I needed to truly, finally, honestly and deeply put myself to the task of active sobriety.
Life is Good. And every day it deepens as I open and learn and grow. It's not always easy - but it's always better.
If you hadn't endured that relapse... if you hadn't held to your convictions and surrendered your will.... if you hadn't embraced sobriety, AA, SR, worked the steps, gotten a sponsor, taken time to help carry your experience strength and hope to others, focused on gratitude, patience and learning.... if you hadn't been seeing a counselor to work on your anxieties and stress, exercised, begun to really work at meditation, read the big book... then we wouldn't be standing here. We wouldn't be looking out over a beautiful and hopeful horizon at the boundless possibilities ahead, standing here in this beautiful Now, having left behind all that blackness.
Way to go. And thank you.
FreeOwl Now