Hope...
 

One of the great things about sobriety and recovery is the feeling of hope that it gives. Like many things that are felt in recovery then it's very hard to quantify but it's a great feeling and I also remember so vividly what hopelessness used to feel like. I remember the heavy weight that used to feel like it was hanging over me and that sinking feeling as my eyes opened waking up in the morning. The thought of anything changing in my life seemed so unlikely as I knew that there would always be another binge around the corner and that would mean more of the same, So depressing. My life could only go in a downward spiral and that's what it had done. The writing was on the wall and I knew without doubt that alcohol would take me to the gutter, and was doing.

By staying sober 'one day at a time' and putting recovery as No1 priority in my life then this has enabled myself to be able to feel hope. I love hope and it's a great feeling and ultimately is so closely related to all the other good feeling/emotions in recovery like gratitude, peace of mind etc.

I guess for most people there is nothing so black and white that they could do to mean that they would be hopeless. For me then to take a drink would mean that I would lose any hope in my life and I would be stuck in a life of living for the next binge, whilst destroying all of my relationships and everything that sobriety has given me. I guess it's not a negative thing to know that either as ultimately I know that as long as I keep on staying sober 'one day at a time' and doing what I have to do in my recovery to keep me grateful for my life then I will have hope.

It's a great thing to be able to live and accept the situation without having a yearning to always try to force maximum euphoria. I guess a big part of my recovery has been adjusting to the days where I accepted experiences as being as they are meant to be. Once I started drinking then I always wanted to increase the experience and also used drugs to enhance things too. I accept experiences as they are now and everything is so much more balanced and I'm content to let it be like that too.

By staying sober 'just for today' I gave myself hope that I could have a brighter tomorrow. I am so grateful that I had faith in recovery and trusted those who told me that things would reveal themselves in good time. For me recovery is an ever developing process and is in no way linear which is difficult at times as it can be somewhat painful to have made real progress and to then find yourself struggling again. But the rewards of working through are so rewarding and it's only natural that things cannot always increase at a consistent rate. So it's important to stick with it 'one day at a time'.

Thanks for letting me share SR,

Peace