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WAY back in the Stone Age, our Transplanted Brit Tennis Coach at High School imparted the wisdom that you get better at playing Tennis WHEN you play someone better. That sage advice stuck.
Having just hit 1,000 Days in recently, I realized I needed to inject that advice into my Sobriety Regimen. Quite some time ago, I realized I needed to hang with the Recovered. Cuz I are one. That is, Folks just getting on with their Lives. I meet them in Early Retirement at the Dog Park. At Parties. When out and about in our nice new RV Trailer. They everywhere! As are non-Drinkers in our seemingly Alcohol-obsessed Culture.
The occasional Story about The Early Days, or a lil [good] Trigger of how sick I was daily; recalling messing my Pants as my lower G.I. went out-of-control; recalling blowing off all kinds of things while being in that State called 'Persistent Stupor'; all these things remind me 'often enough' of what that now VERY undesirable State was like. I can't circle some imaginary Relapse like a Moth circling a Flame. That, in and of itself, is destructive, and not the elevated State I want to, and deserve to, live in. I'm nowhere near hanging in by only the Skin Of My Teeth, so there's no point in pretending that I am. Such is the irreversible beauty of The Big Plan.
I voluntarily take on less, and enjoy each thing more. If I'm mucking with some Technological Project, I am in that moment, and doing nothing else. It's really quite fabulous. Hell, I even drive wherever I want to pre-Dawn, or at Night! Whatta concept, eh?
Be sure to forge your own balance of how much you need to immerse in some former State of Alcoholism. Forge your own State thereof, and your balance.
A Pundit here at invaluable SR mentioned that it was at about the 3 year mark that he felt as though he was finally a non-Drinker. That's pretty much the trajectory I'm on, with 3 Years in being next January.
I'm hitting Sobriety now with the intensity of how I hit my Drinking over 42 Years of it.
Been there. Drank that. Movin' on. If that sounds Normal, it's because - to me - it is.
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