A Series of Bottoms: The Epilogue

So here we are, finally, back to the present.  Since this blog has been more or less a journal of the past year, I encourage someone just reading for the first time to look back over the past months to get an idea of what it was like.  For this post, however, I am going to focus on the miracle that was waiting for me, just around the corner.  It is 365 full days later, and daily I did the four things I have talked about the past year… I prayed, I went to a meeting, I talked to another alcoholic, and I did not pick up a drink or a drug.  As a result I get something today I honestly did not think I could ever do, which is stand in the front of a meeting and receive a coin that commemorates my one year of sobriety.

I have been trying to compose this post in my head for the past week, the topic being, what have I gained in recovery?  The list is almost endless… healed relationships, gratitude, membership in an indescribably wonderful Fellowship, pride, clarity, connection with God, I could honestly go on and on.

So then the big question… what is at the top of the list?  I think the biggest gift I have received in sobriety is a true sense of self.  And I don’t mean I got myself back, I mean I got this sense of self for the first time in 43 years.  Prior to this past year, I defined my life by the things that needed to change… once I lose weight, once I get my degrees, once I have an awesome profession, once I am married, once I have a child, once I have a boy and a girl, once I am able to run a mile without stopping, once I stop drinking, once I stop taking painkillers… then my life will be great.  For as long as I can possibly remember, my happiness was based on a set of future conditions, and, if I was lucky enough to meet those conditions, a new future set was already in place.  Which meant happiness was always just out of my reach.

Today, as a result of a year spent reflecting, and praying, and sharing, and writing, I feel different.  I am at peace, right now, at 9:06 am on Sunday, January 27th.  I have faith that I will be at peace for the rest of the day.  If something happens to disrupt that peace, I know that something is temporary, it will pass, and I will be okay.  And if the day goes completely to hell, I have the ultimate tool that I can take out and use at will:  “Am I sober today?  Then nothing else matters.”

Today’s Miracle:

365 days of continuous sobriety?  Priceless.