One Year Sober

I haven't fully given up on the blog. Not yet at least. And it's not really because I don't have anything to say. It's more I don't have enough time to do so. That is one of my biggest "problems" in sobriety.

I don't have enough time in the day to do the things that I want.

Pretty rough, right? That's what I honestly tell people and it's true. Sure, not drinking is an incredibly difficult task that I have to face every single day but the way I deal with it is by constantly keeping my mind occupied. Video games are obviously the biggest distraction. All I wanted to do when I was drinking was take shots and play Playstation. But where is the fun in that when you are too incoherent to actually enjoy it?

Easy answer. It's not.

Same goes for movies. A lot of the films I watched back then I am rewatching pretty much for the "first" time. It is incredibly painful to think of those times. So my motto is to always focus on the positive. Few people have survived as long as I have in recovery, which is completely disconcerting, but the more you dwell on that the less likely you are to succeed. The odds are stacked against us from the very beginning. The one thing that has been a constant in you life for how ever long, in my case over a decade, is stripped from you. Done. Gone. No more. That's is SO hard to accept when you really think about it. The fact that alcohol will never again, not once, enter my body of my own free will was a lot to take in when I first started this journey.

But again. Positivity.

And one of the biggest keys to my success is a strong support system. If you don't have that, shit is gonna be rough. If I had my way I would call each and every one of my friends and family every single morning, the moment I awoke, and thank them for getting me the help I needed. Because if it wasn't for them I wouldn't be where I am right now. I knew I needed help, but in my addicted state of mind if I got the help I needed I would lose the very thing that was destroying me. And that's how we, as addicts, think. We are petrified of the fact that what is literally killing us from the inside will be stripped from our lives forever. It's a sick mentality to have, but guess what, we're sick people.

I celebrated one year sober on May 10th of this year, just under a month ago. Every day was leading up to that moment and the closer I got the more I heard others had hadn't. As of a few months ago, I am the only one out of my group of rehab friends to not relapse. That was rough to hear. But you know what isn't rough? Hearing all the support from friends and family via phone calls, texts, Facebook, and Twitter.

Which brings me to why I started writing this post. I got a private message from a "friend" on Facebook. This person took it upon themselves to complain that I talk about my sobriety too much, that it's obnoxious, that I'm rubbing it in people's faces, etc. So first of all, let me state that this person is someone I don't even really know, I had no idea how we were even connected until I checked our "mutual friends" and found it's just some dick I shared an online connection with. We were never really friends to begin with and obviously their opinion means nothing to me. He was also promptly "de-friended" which in these times is the social equivalent of two 10 years old saying "I don't wanna play with you anymore." Who cares. Move along.

If this was coming from a close friend I would have been hurt. But it wasn't. And not only that, I don't think anyone ever would because I don't think what this dude said was true. I am in no way shoving sobriety down anyones throat. I'm merely expressing what it has done for me. That's it. And when I do post it's usually just to announce that I've completed another month or whatever. I do know of people in recovery who believe that now that they are sober they are better than those who aren't. I am not one of those people. I don't preach on Facebook that since I don't drink than you shouldn't either. That's not how this works.

I don't do it because it's simply not true.

I am the one with the problem. Not you.

Me, myself, and I. (Well, and the plethora of other alcoholics and addicts out there but you get what I mean)

So when somebody says something like this dude said, it frustrates me a bit. If that's how it came across to him than I apologize because honestly that wasn't my intention.

I won't, however, apologize for being happy. Because that's all my posts really are. I'm happy with my life. I haven't been happy in God knows how long. At least 5 years since my mother passed away, that's for certain. But things are different now. My outlook on life has completely changed.

But that one jerkoff aside, I do feel I should mention the other private messages I receive online. Shortly into my stint in recovery I would get messages from people who were actually coming to me for help and asking for advice. "When did you know you had a problem cause I might have one too" and things like that. At that point in my life, I didn't feel I was at the right stage of my recovery to be giving out advice so I simply recommended they check out some AA/NA Meetings. But I am glad they came to me.

Flash forward to a year later and I still have people asking except now I feel I can actually help. And those who ask know I will pretty much drop anything I am doing at that moment and listen. Because they are doing what I was always too afraid to do. To just ask for help. And thats a bigger step than most think.

So with that, I want to thank everyone in my life that has helped me get to where I am today. Maybe next post I will talk about my actual celebration or maybe we'll flash back to the rehab days and give you all a glimpse into that world.

Thank you