Yesterday marked the 4 year anniversary of the day I quit drinking (and also the day I joined SR).
In some ways, it is hard to believe that it has been that long. In other ways, so much has happened and my life has changed so much that it's hard to believe where I was just over 4 years ago.
The last year or so has had a lot of changes for me: ending one relationship and then starting another, making and then canceling plans to travel in my RV full-time (I decided I'd rather see where the new relationship went than travel on my own), finding out in December that I'm pregnant (surprise!) and most recently moving out of the tiny town I lived in and into a house in the city with my boyfriend.
There have been plenty of stresses with all of these changes, but I have ways to cope with things now. I still care deeply about my sobriety, but it feels normal now. I've transitioned from being obsessed with recovery to feeling like I live a much more 'normal' life.
I'm still grateful to be sober (and never more so than when I found out I was pregnant). Life continues to improve in little increments. My savings account goes up a little each month. I become more stable emotionally and find it easier to make healthy relationship decisions.
I'm still working on some areas- a big one for me right now is the social aspect of my life. I never really made much in the way of new friends after leaving behind my drinking/drugging social circle. Now that I'm no longer living in a tiny town and have more opportunities, it's something that I want to work on. I'm still shy under a lot of circumstances and perhaps have a bit of social anxiety. I've always found friendships to take time to develop and be something of a matter of chance in meeting the right people. But I'm doing what I can and finding activities and things to go to where at least it's possible for me to meet people. It's still early in the process, but I'm proud of myself for making a good effort.
Finally moving out of the town I was in feels amazing. I was there for much too long and it really just wasn't the place for me. Moving has been a goal for several years and it's finally happened. Progress in recovery hasn't always (ever) been on my time frame, but it does happen.
I'm happy with the relationship I'm in. I get along fantastically with my bf and he's also in recovery. (I did start dating him when I had about 3 years and he had about a month and a half which I know is kind of frowned on, but in this case it seems to have worked out for us.) It's been a process to get here: I went through 2 serious breakups after getting sober.
I'm still working towards being a healthier person and staying centered: I see a psychologist every other week, go to AA meetings a couple times a month (I'm not a big AA person, but like to take the parts that work for me and I think it's good for me to feel like I'm a bit active in my recovery still), make frequent gratitude lists and do yoga, hiking and other physical stuff.
I'm looking forward to the next year, especially to my baby's birth in August.
Thank you to everyone here who helped me so much early on. I posted here multiple times a day for the first year or year and a half I was sober and the support really helped.
For those of you that are early in the process, life really does get so much better if you stay sober and keep working towards what you want out of sobriety. Here's a link to a post I wrote at 6 months on what I did to get that far:
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...along-way.html I have to say, I really fought hard to get here. The first year was incredibly difficult in so many ways, but also rewarding as I discovered my newfound freedom from drugs and alcohol. Sobriety has definitely been worth all the work.
