It’s not always apparent that you are making progress until something happens to shake you out of your complacency/routine. That happened to me this past week, it’s something I want to share --
not, I stress, for sympathy -- but for encouragement for anyone on the recovery path.
Last Sunday I had my first serious car accident in forty years, I did a 360 on black ice, crashed into a guard rail and totalled my car. I, hit no-one else and walked away without a scratch.
36 hours later my husband had a (minor as it turned out) heart attack.
I found reserves of strength, energy, patience and serenity that I didn’t know I had, those reserves came directly from my two years of sobriety.
- When I had the accident I didn’t fear the police arriving, I welcomed them for the assistance they could provide
- I could keep my head, communicate properly with and thank the many kind people who stopped to help me
- The resulting adrenaline didn’t push my (natural) anxiety to insupportable levels because I was mentally balanced when I went into this
- I didn’t overly dramatise when my husband became ill, I saw it for what it was, two horrible events coming very close together
- I found the strength and energy (?) to get into the hospital routine/merry-go-round, care for my elderly mother at our home, run our retail business and not lose my sense of equilibrium in the process
- I jettisoned the stuff I couldn’t deal with without trying to reach unrealistic standards of perfection
- Four nights of very little sleep and too much to do has not ruined my health or attitude
Sobriety enabled
all of that because, functioning or not, as drinking alcoholics we do not have full mental health and we have impaired physical health no matter how fit we might imagine ourselves to be.
I’ve had plenty of rewards in recovery but nothing can beat this week: being able to rely on myself completely and knowing that I can give 100% to my loved ones when I needed to.
This is another reward coming to you in recovery, you can't find this in any glass or bottle.