Originally Posted by tootsl1

Congratulations Willow! I agree with Badge, your folks are smiling down on you.

John, I'm sorry you had such a slip last year, and sorry AV is trying it's best to get you to drink again.

After the early months of recovery when we 'settle' into a more sober routine, it is easy to forget the problems we had with drink, especially when our AV is telling us we really can't be an alkie because we've gone 'x' number of months sober. Coming here is a constant reminder that actually we do have a problem.

Joy if quitting was easy, there would be no AA, no SR or any of the other way to help us quit. It took me a decade of knowing my drinking was a problem, of making bargains, of lying, hiding and cheating to reach my personal rock bottom. I've said before here I don't know what was different about the day that I finally did take my last drink, I only know that, fates willing, it will remain that way. I come here as a reminder of why I no longer drink, and of what I have gained in sobriety.

I feel it is important especially this time of year, to find your gratitudes in sobriety. To look at how sobriety will help you find a better way of living, to remember the worst of what drinking has done to you in the past.

One important thing to get past in the first year is changing your way of thinking. You are not 'giving up' drinking, it is no loss, it is a poison that controlled you and would continue to destroy any semblance of a decent life you had. My drinking increased in the last 18 months of my active drinking days, to the extent I truly was not in control even though on the face of it, I seemed to be. I know that if I had continued, I would not be living the life I live now.
In sobriety, you gain so much. Clear thinking helps you to make better decisions. You can chose to do things that aren't based on where you can get a drink. You have more money and more time, you can begin to be the person you were meant to be before drink complicated everything.
Sobriety doesn't make life better. But it does give you the chance to do that for yourself. All alcohol does is steal your life. It has stolen enough from every one of us, don't allow it to steal a single moment more.