gleefan

Hi Undies

It's good to read what everyone is doing to follow their sober paths.

For me the past 15 months have been an amazing journey. Saturday I marked 15 months sober and didn't even realize it. It's not because sobriety is unimportant to me, but because the work I've put into recovery hast made not drinking second nature to me. It isn't first nature, or innate, for me not to drink. If it was, I wouldn't be here or at AA! I pray that I never mistakenly think sobriety doesn't require work, for that is when I stand the chance to lose it all.

This has stuck with me since Carlos posted it. I had some nice years before alcohol took over. I had nice friends in college, graduated with honors, travelled around the world, married my best friend, had a good job, a nice house, and good health.

I never had a healthy relationship with alcohol but it didn't take over my life until my kids came along. It didn't happen all at once. It slowly, imperceptibly it took over my body, mind and soul.

I've spent the last 15 months digging out from 8 years of alcoholism. It hasn't been pretty or easy, or the best years of my life, but it's been a transformation in the way I look at the world. Every leg of my sober journey has offered me a new lesson, a new outlook, and a new opportunity to heal.

I've recognized over the past 15 months that I felt depressed but I didn't know what that meant. I learned that a depressed mind is a ruminating mind, and recently I had the opportunity to realize just how prone I was to brooding over what upset me, and how that got in the way of my happiness and joy. I've come up with a new tool - I tell myself "Stop!", and I turn my thoughts to what I'm grateful for, or I repeat an affirmation like "everything will be ok," or pray to be released from the bondage of self so that I may do my hp's will, or listen to the radio, or look at nature, or pay attention to whatever is right in front of me.

It's working. My husband recently went to a picnic with all AA people. When he came home he proceeded to get hammered. I was disappointed but I didn't dwell on it. It is what it is and while I don't approve of it or see myself living with it long term, I accept it.

Other women in recovery whose husbands aren't alcoholics have had difficulties in the dynamics of their relationships since getting sober. I'm so grateful for other alcoholics' camaraderie along the way to make the journey more enjoyable, to have fun, to share tools, and to offer support. I don't feel so alone anymore. But it's taken me 15 months of ups and downs, open mindedness, honesty, vulnerability, acceptance, and most recently, willingness to do what ever it takes to get there.

I get so much out of the programs of AA and Al Anon. I am humbly learning how to share my gifts with the program and use those principles in many other aspects of my life.