What does sobriety look like for you?
 

My therapist asked this sort of question repeatedly over the weeks and months and years.
Where do you see yourself in the future?
What does happiness look like to you?
If you were to be sober, what would that look like?
And I’d say
You know that I’m no good at these guessing games
Prognosticating
Trying to make up something I just can’t see
Same as if you ask me to watch my thoughts floating gently downstream
And out of sight
My thoughts won’t sit on those leaves and even if they could, I can’t see the leaves nor the stream
Unless it’s the stream of my father’s dream, but that’s not my dream
I don’t have a dream

Having been sober a little while now, I can promise you that I would not have successfully
Prognosticated
That the beast would still jump out of the bushes
Startling me even though I knew IT was still there
I would not have guessed that I would spend damn near an entire Saturday afternoon
After 20 months (610 days! 14,630 hours! But hey, who's counting?) engaged in idle and inane conversation with myself about
What it would look like to go to the liquor store

What’s more
I would not have predicted with any degree of certainty that I would eventually give up
And go upstairs to change into pajamas
Sealing the deal that I wasn’t going anywhere at all

And for now, I’m perfectly fine with
(irritated with, exasperated with, but still fine with)
Sobriety looking like staying in pajamas night and day, if that’s what it takes
To make sobriety look like it looks for me today

Congrats on 20 months O! Making decisions like you just did no doubt had a lot to do with getting you there too. Sounds a lot like acceptance to me, which is a good thing in my book.

Good for you, O!!. I'll have 22 months myself in just a week. Amazing how time flies, is it not? Have a wonderful week.

20 months is wonderful! I like your question or your therapists' What does Sobriety look like - changing into pyjamas to seal the deal - yes!
For me sobriety is not having to have an endless conversation/debate/argument with myself, starting at around midday, about whether or not I was going to buy any alcohol - running through the dialogue with myself, often knowing what the outcome would be but kidding myself it would be different, or maybe tricking myself into some ludicrous deal with myself only to go back on that deal hours later, distracting myself but glancing at the clock, checking how much time I had before I wouldn't have enough time to drink it all, making up some random lie about food we needed so that at the last minute I could go and buy it. That total bull**** has gone - totally gone - I need never have to listen to that utter nonsense again. Thank you Obladi for reminding me of what sobriety has won me.

It's funny (but not) how those well-worn habits and thought patterns can pop back up in varying forms.
I stopped by my actual office (haven't worked there in close to two years now) the other day to start cleaning out my desk/space.
When the elevator doors closed, I had a very keen awareness of how I used to get in that box several times/day and think, "What a lot of nonsense - I'm glad it's only x hours until I can go home and drink."

But that was only a memory, not a suggestion.
For all I know, the next time I get in that same elevator, the beast will be waiting inside.

No matter.
I never drink now, so the beast can do me no harm.

Happy Almost 22 Months, Rockbottom. I'm almost as pleased for you as I am for myself!
I think Jan/Ravel's anniversary is right around the same time.
Go us!

O,
i had those spells of times where i’d be disappointed, or pissed off, or resentful, angry, frustrated, devastated or all of those and more, and fed up fed up fed up that i wasn’t where i thought i “should” be by now, whatever the “ now was or is.
those expectations what sobriety would look like at any given moment.
there is not much point to it, really.
sobriety looks like whatever it is at any given moment.
it just so happens that today is my 15th anniversary of this sobriety thing, so i have been retrospecting the last few days, including reading a whole bunch of very old posts on my old lifering forum.
so if i were to make the distinction between abstinence and sobriety, i’d say that my abstinence has been totally steady all these years, but my sobriety, or me in my sobriety, has been ebb and flow, but the general trend is more and more even-keeled.
i didn’t, for example, expect to go into months of depressive misery around four to five years.
my sobriety is indistinguishable from my “life”, really.
i don’t know how to answer your question, really.
but i can tell you if it looks like pajama-wearing today, then accept it, be there.
it’s fine.
where are your choices about what you will converse with yourself about for an entire saturday afternoon?

ah; how about what it looked like today?
enjoyed my morning coffee, but then i always do, even though it’s decaff. it is fantastically RICH decaff:)
read the news, as i always do.
wrote some emails, one to clear up a misunderstanding i was having with one of my sisters.
took my dog out for a little hike and to play in a creek. took her home.
went to a little art gallery, looked at the exhibit and the gift store. i LOVE that particular little gallery and store. didn’t buy a thing.
took myself out for coffee and banana bread. mmm yum. middle of a good day.
on my way to a physio appointment dropped by the library to pick up, you guessed it, a book.
went to physio, and felt spoiled and taken care of.
thought of all the people who helped me along the way to get to today. how patient they were with all my questions. how space-making. how they gave what they had. how so many hung around even though i was full of “yeahbut yeahbut yeahbut”. how grateful i am to them.
went grocery shopping. came home and made a nice dinner. wrote an email to someone just very new in this sobriety thing.
came on this forum and posted.
now i’m on my couch, will read or knit, haven’t decided, the Rooibos Chai is spicey-sweet, the chocolate(in honour of the day) is dark and organic, doggie asleep on her blanket.
just another ordinary day, ordinary sober day.
that’s how it looks today.

way to go on 20 months!

congratulations. I'm little over 20 months as well

Congratulations on your sober time!

That is the best thread opening I've ever read, O.

I've said it before, sobriety for me is being able to look people in the eye, proud and unashamed.

Congratulations on 20 months O, I am so pleased for you. Who would've thunk it...well I would for one, as a witness to how damned hard you've applied yourself to the task you set yourself - and suceeded! Xx

sobriety looks peaceful and calm to me. no chaos, only peace. :)

Sobriety looks like normal life to me now. Alcohol just isn't a thing anymore.

Congratulations to you and your family on your 15 years, fini. And to my compatriot Eastern Row, as well as to everyone else who is in their first or 10,000th day of sobriety. No matter what it looks like today, it's a damned sight better than it looked like drinking. Couldn't see a thing then, aside from misery and shame on endless repeat.

I'll take misery without the shame any day. Because it's misery-lite at its worst. Somebody wrote something about surviving the fires of hell...
I did that.