soberandhonest

I had an event last week that, to me, means that I am at least transitioning from being in "early recovery" to "long term recovery." I'm wondering if others have had particular events where they feel they crossed this threshold and, if so, what they were and when they occurred?

For me, I am just over 500 days sober, and my event was this. I flew cross country on a red eye flight for work, arriving east coast early Tuesday morning. I had meetings all day Tuesday, culminating in an important presentation late that afternoon. I worked on my presentation for most of my flight and slept for, at most, an hour. I arrived at a lunch meeting with someone that I had never met. She arrived first and was already drinking a glass of wine. Of course, by noon I was extremely exhausted and I was feeling the stress of giving my presentation. My presentation was barely finished and I hadn't practiced it at all. The woman I had lunch with had no idea that I didn't drink and would not have thought anything at all if I had a couple of glasses of wine at lunch. In fact, nobody would ever know. If I had placed myself in that position early in my recovery (exhausted, very stressed, easy opportunity to drink with no perceivable consequences), the desire for a drink would have been overwhelming. But it wasn't. I didn't even consider having a drink. I ordered a ginger beer, stated that I don't drink, and had a nice lunch. The option of drinking was just not on the table. It wasn't anything more or less than that. Not a big decision. It was the next day that I thought more about this and realized that it feels like I have entered a new phase.