Eight Is Not Enough

Eight years.

Has it really been that long?

Some days it really feels like I've been clean and sober for nearly as long as I can remember, and other days it's like I'm brand new at this thing. There are moments when it feels as if this is just the way I've been for so long that it's become "old hat." When I reflect on how many people are now major figures in my life who have ONLY known me in recovery, it really starts to feel like I've spent a whole lifetime this way. That's kind of a nice feeling in its own way - what an amazing gift it is to have so many valuable people who see me as I am and not as I was?

Truthfully I'd much rather feel brand new all the time, because that pushes me back into the most mentally, emotionally and spiritually healthy place in my life: learner mode. Mature sobriety at times can feel to me like stagnation and that is a very dangerous spot - perhaps the most dangerous. It would be so easy to settle into comfort in a way that could breed complacency; our very nature as humans seems to be easily aligned with contentment, and in a lot of cases that isn't unhealthy. We seek the comfort of contentment. We bathe in complacency. Seek simple satisfaction.

Relaxation.

Stagnation.

Relapse.

Misery.

Death.

You see, that awesome eight year coin I picked up last Saturday did nothing to keep me sober on Sunday. Nothing I've "achieved" up until now in my sobriety guarantees me anything. The things I've learned will atrophy without application and the ways I've healed will slowly be undone if I don't remember to take my medicine. For me, my recovery involves mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health and I take "medicine" for each on a daily basis. Prayer, meditation, exercise, service, communicating and fellowship with others like me, educating myself in order to expand my spiritual life, rigorous honesty and many more habitual practices are daily doses that I need to maintain my sobriety and serenity.

I am most grateful for the time I've had clean and sober in this life, but that time alone won't give me one more day of serenity. The work is never over. No days off, because I promise you that my alcoholism/addiction is waiting patiently for me feel normal - to think I can drink like one of "them." If an when that day comes it will be ready to rip everything away and destroy whatever is left of me with tornadic intensity, and I can't accept that fate. I won't.