Stabilizer

I have been thinking much about what I am going to say at my one year coin meeting tonight and thought that posting what I am intending to say here might help me get it more clear in my mind. Here goes:

After over a year of complete sobriety I have had the opportunity to reflect greatly on what brought me to these doors and what I have become most grateful for.

My story, in my mind, is different from many of the stories that I have heard in these rooms, but also not uncommon. I lived a tremendously rich and meaningful life before my path toward alcohol dependence. I have spent the majority of my adult life without any dependancy on outside substances, but began to use alcohol as a means to escape the problems that cropped up in life that I thought I could no longer handle. Once I began to travel down this road, the problems became greater, and my use of alcohol as a means to escape increased. It increased to the point where I became a person that I never was before. I was no longer living for others and for my many passions, in fact, I was really no longer living. I was also not just hurting myself, I was hurting everyone that was close to me.

We all go through a period during recovery of intense shame and self-loathing for what we had become and what this did to others. There are many times now where I have to go into rooms with others that saw this former self, lift my head high and do my best to survive past that shameful shadow of myself. That brings me to how I make it beyond this in the face of so much fear for carrying forward ... forgiveness and gratitude. I do truly feel forgiven for this past from others and from God. I can't say that I truly forgive myself yet, but I am still working toward this.

Lastly, I am truly grateful for the supports I have found in family and friends, at AFM, in my sponsor, within these doors and for my faith in God. I believe everything in life happens for purpose and meaning, and we just have to keep living and hoping that we might discover what these might be.