Sudz No More

I never thought passing a year would be such a hard distance to achieve. For years I planned in the back of my mind how I would just walk away and never return. Sure that it would be easy and I would just pick a day and stop forever. The problem was, I just couldn't see that far ahead of me even though I thought I could.

Once I started down the sober path, I walked the walk and talked the talk, head held high. But the dark voice of alcoholic reason followed me in the shadows everywhere. It ate at me, wore me down and pestered me until I flinched. At the time of my first relapse I didn't even care, like it was supposed to happen. I mean, doesn't it happen to everybody I thought? Of course, it was my alcoholic voice of reason convincing me it was ok. For a while I believed it, again and again and again until the pattern started to get disturbing.

Bad things began to happen, bad fights with my wife, kindling hangovers, close calls with acquaintances and risky work behavior. A trip to the ER where I was made to look pathetic with tubes in my nose and snickers behind the curtain. Yet, I still continued the madness, I just couldn't stop completely.

Then one day a year ago, I just decided I had had enough and couldn't go on anymore and couldn't do it alone. I needed someone to feel accountable to, so I booked a meeting with a psychologist and told him I was a hopeless alcoholic. He laughed and challenged me to come back sober so I wouldn't have to convince him otherwise. I was determined to not flunk like a college kid taking an exam. I just couldn't bear the thought of drinking and then going back to him with my head held low and feeling like a loser. I wanted to win and before you know it, the fog of alcohol dependence started to lift.

I was released from the chains and as I went further into sobriety my counselor would joke to me that he thought I was supposed to be a hopeless alcoholic. One day I truly believed it, now I was getting more and more sure that there was another side of me emerging. The sober me, the guy I never knew. Now I wasn't so sure I knew the alcoholic me anymore. My comments at my sessions shifted from when I might to how I never would.

It was at that point that I realized I was free, I had made it. No longer a slave to addiction I could truly walk the walk and talk the talk.

I'm still walking and hope you are too.

To all of you out there, keep on keeping on. You're worth it.