Originally Posted by
soberlicious 
Just curious AVRT, do you acknowledge any days as significant? ( birthday, wedding anniversaries, death of a loved one,etc) I notice many acknowledge even a day like today (9/11). Often marking a day as somehow significant acts as a simple nod to the past. An acknowlegdement that a change has taken place, that things are not as they once were. It doesn't have to carry any more significance than that.
I do, but I have come to alter my way of looking at this drinking business. It is over and done with. Hydrogirl asked me in another forum why I referred to alcoholics in the third person, as if I were not one, and I explained that I no longer consider myself alcoholic. I am no longer alcohol-dependent, and I never will be again. To acknowledge another milestone of "not drinking" would play into the Beast's hand by implying that this is somehow a great accomplishment, like climbing mount Everest, and that I might fall off any time.
I'm not saying that it did not take me quite a lot of time and misery to get to this point, but I really have come to look at the whole thing differently. On another level, I have had extensive experience with recovery groups, where sober time is status. AVRT is a radical paradigm shift away from never-ending recovering and daily reprieves. I have systematically deprogrammed myself from such ideas.
Only prisoners count time. Let the Beast, which has been sentenced to life without parole, count time since its last drink. I am already free, though, and I always will be.