Stepping stones...
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Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 2,013
Stepping stones...
A day is almost like a stepping stone for me in my recovery, enabling me to keep progressing and moving forwards. Sometimes I may seem to stay stuck on the same stepping stone for more than a day, but at least I ain't moving backwards. In my drinking days if I took 1 step forward when I managed to try to pull myself together after a particualrly heavy and prolonged binge then I would inevitably take 3 steps back come the following weekend and inevitable binge.
That's what I love about my recovery in many ways, since I've been sober and in recovery then I haven't made any backwards steps and took my life in a negative direction. I haven't acted in ways which I have had to try to talk my way out of or just ignore them and block them out through drinking.
I was walking back to my car today and the stepping stone simile/metaphor hit me and I found it useful, so thought I'd share it.
Remember that recovery has to be 'one day at a time' (for me anyway) and I will be 19 months sober tomorrow. I find that as long as I do my best to try to improve and do things that I know I used to not do then this will allow me to grow emotionally and mentally. It really is like a skill I think and for me as an alcoholic then much of this wasn't done but now I am doing it and it's worth it. I know that I am making improvements for what I want to work on and improve on and it's easy to want to race ahead and get things all today but I find that as long as I know that I'm making improvements and trying my best then that's what matters to me.
I am happiest and most calm when I am living in the moment and looking after today. Tomorrow has a way of working out just nicely when I don't worry about it and things are placed in my way as they are intended to be and I can make the most of them because I am peaceful, content and hopeful.
Keep the faith in recovery, 'One day at a time'.
Peace
That's what I love about my recovery in many ways, since I've been sober and in recovery then I haven't made any backwards steps and took my life in a negative direction. I haven't acted in ways which I have had to try to talk my way out of or just ignore them and block them out through drinking.
I was walking back to my car today and the stepping stone simile/metaphor hit me and I found it useful, so thought I'd share it.
Remember that recovery has to be 'one day at a time' (for me anyway) and I will be 19 months sober tomorrow. I find that as long as I do my best to try to improve and do things that I know I used to not do then this will allow me to grow emotionally and mentally. It really is like a skill I think and for me as an alcoholic then much of this wasn't done but now I am doing it and it's worth it. I know that I am making improvements for what I want to work on and improve on and it's easy to want to race ahead and get things all today but I find that as long as I know that I'm making improvements and trying my best then that's what matters to me.
I am happiest and most calm when I am living in the moment and looking after today. Tomorrow has a way of working out just nicely when I don't worry about it and things are placed in my way as they are intended to be and I can make the most of them because I am peaceful, content and hopeful.
Keep the faith in recovery, 'One day at a time'.
Peace
Member
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: CA
Posts: 2,977
Thanks for the great post! It def is like a stepping stone each day. I never realized how many steps back I was taking when I was still drinking until reading this. Glad to be sober today and have something positive like this to read before headin to work!
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Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 2,013
Today is 19 months sober for me and for that I'm grateful. I'm going to take time to reflect on that on my drive to Uni and remember where I was 2 years ago. This time two years ago I was totally and utterly hopeless - unemployed, driving license still suspended, just existing to get wrecked at the next viable oppurtunity, drinking alone and I couldn't see a way out.
It may not always be easy, but it is always worth it. Everybody's situation is different and their history different but ultimately the end destination for an alcoholic continuing to drink would always be the same. I don't want to ever go back to that loneliness and despair that I used to feel. I don't want to keep taking backwards steps.
I'm going to keep moving forwards and hopping along the stepping stones...
Peace
It may not always be easy, but it is always worth it. Everybody's situation is different and their history different but ultimately the end destination for an alcoholic continuing to drink would always be the same. I don't want to ever go back to that loneliness and despair that I used to feel. I don't want to keep taking backwards steps.
I'm going to keep moving forwards and hopping along the stepping stones...
Peace
Living In The Now
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Kent, England
Posts: 34
I like the way you described it being one day at a time. My recovery is based around this little titbit. I find that if I look even a few days in the future I get anxious and fearful about really silly things that I think are absolutely huge. The only way to conquer it is by living life one day at a time.
Member
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 246
Congrats on 19 months, Neo. I never take a day of sobriety for granted, either, and I hope I never will. Dealt with a lot of stress the past four months, stress that at times has brought back all those familiar urges. I'm coping, but have had to pull out all those promises I made to myself in early sobriety. One day at a time definitely applies even as I bear down on 21 months of sobriety.
Guest
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 2,013
I'm so grateful to have recovery in my life, I am so grateful that I have a recovery program that I live everyday. My alcoholism really is a thinking problem, so for me then by living my recovery this enables my thinking to keep me on-track and at peace, happy and contented.
Today turned out to be a really positive day and it sums up my recovery in many ways, letting things happen naturally without projecting it and being rewarded for this. I guess for me then my alcoholism really hurt me so hard mentally and emotionally as I knew how much I was wasting and chucking away. It's great to get top marks for Uni work and I have my recovery to thank for this 100% - without it I would be in a gutter somewhere lying in my own vomit. I cannot but feel grateful to have lived a life in such despair, getting kicked out of flats as even the riff-raff wouldn't put up with my drunken blackouts to being able to regain myself and channel my life positively again.
I am ever aware that I would lose everything if I ever took a drink, most precious of which would be my mind.
Grateful to be an alcoholic,
Peace
Today turned out to be a really positive day and it sums up my recovery in many ways, letting things happen naturally without projecting it and being rewarded for this. I guess for me then my alcoholism really hurt me so hard mentally and emotionally as I knew how much I was wasting and chucking away. It's great to get top marks for Uni work and I have my recovery to thank for this 100% - without it I would be in a gutter somewhere lying in my own vomit. I cannot but feel grateful to have lived a life in such despair, getting kicked out of flats as even the riff-raff wouldn't put up with my drunken blackouts to being able to regain myself and channel my life positively again.
I am ever aware that I would lose everything if I ever took a drink, most precious of which would be my mind.
Grateful to be an alcoholic,
Peace
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