SoberJim - It's great to see you. Thirty days is a wonderful milestone. For me, milestones represent all my hard work. They're an opportunity to share with others the tools that got me to that point. They're also an opportunity to check in with myself to take stock of whether I'm taking care of myself and investing my time in people and activities that are healthy and build me up.
BoozeFree - It sounds like you had a fun trip to Vegas. It's always nice to get away. Winning money is definitely a bonus! For me sobriety is more of a challenge in the everyday grind than when there's excitement. What healthy things do you want incorporate into your every day life? What steps are you going to take to nurture your sobriety, healthy friendships, etc? AA meetings are a nice start. It takes time to get to know people; I've found the way to feel part of the crowd is to keep going back, share, help set up or clean up, and take on service positions. Baby steps - start with going regularly and see where that leads.
Knb - It sounds like you're doing lots of right things! I'd also add that taking a genuine interest in other people's recovery helps keep my addiction at bay, too. Giving to others, actively listening and responding to others' struggled with addiction, paradoxically helps me.
Babs - I think it's awesome that people notice a positive change in you. When I drank I never thought I was hurting anyone; maybe I wasn't, but I wasn't living up to my potential either. How could I when I was either drunk and checked out, or hungover and checked out, or planning my next drunk??
I avoided AA for some time. I had longstanding biases against lots of concepts I heard about on SR and AA because of negative childhood experiences with relatives in various recovery programs. When I listened to what everyone said, took what worked for me, and put everything else aside, I got out of my own way, transcended my longstanding biases and got help. I'm glad I did. Sober life is GOOD!
Today I went to the funeral of an aunt who died far too young. Her death wasn't a result of her alcoholism, but I do know that as wonderful, and fun, and dynamic, and interesting, and funny, and intelligent, and well liked as she was, as much as she loved her family and appreciated her life, she wasted a lot of time and energy on the bottle that could have been spent being awesome.
I'm going to do whatever it takes to stay sober today, to do the next right thing, to show people I love them, to laugh, work hard, to be authentic, and to live between those claps that Carlos talks about.
I love each and every one of you, Undies!!