busted up boxThe problems I eliminated when I stopped drinking: My alcohol related problems.

Every other problem, challenge, irritation, life lesson, ache, or issue was still waiting to greet me—without the luxury of a drink. What felt like my life becoming worse with each sober day was the reality of the choices I had made and my awareness of my inability to cope, let alone flourish.

In the beginning, I was satisfied to be sober. It seemed like the “goal” had been achieved. Not only had the goal been achieved, but the thought that I might not be a true alcoholic ushered itself in rather quickly. (My original sober agreement was for one year. Stay sober for one year, get my act together, and then I could go back to drinking like a lady.)

It wasn’t long before the realization hit me—I was a true alcoholic. Stone cold sober for several months and the gravity of my person was painfully apparent. Drinking wasn’t my deepest problem. Drinking had become my catchall solution.

Drinking then became my obsession.

How had all of this happened? How had I slowly slipped away into this delusional world? I remember the 9 month mark the clearest. I was absolutely riddled with pain. There is no way that being sober is better than being drinking. Life has too many troubles to deal with it without drinking. I hate not drinking. I hate this.

What I came to learn was that I didn’t hate life. I hated me. I hated me sober and I hated me drinking. But at least when I drank I didn’t have to feel me—a dismal moment. It was also a pivotal moment. I had to make a decision, a commitment, one way or the other. I was going to endure the confrontation of finding me or I was to return to alcohol; equally horrid options—at the time.

I chose the former but I can’t say I did it without several moments of looking back. Every moment of looking back was a moment I was afraid to be in the now or worried for the near future. And at most moments ‘now’ and ‘the future’ felt the same. I did not yet know how to separate what was really happening from what I knew might happen.

This was the place I had learned to live: Regret for the past, fear of the future, and unable to decipher what was happening now.

There was no way in 9 months I was going to reverse forty years of thinking. I was going to have to settle in for the long haul. This is when my real journey began. It was no longer about giving up alcohol. It was about finding me.

What did I find in sobriety? I was waiting for “the miracle,” what I found was (short list):

  • I was comfortable lying and manipulating.
  • I was a yeller and a rager (w/ and w/o the cops here).
  • I was unfaithful.
  • I was a blamer, runner, and hider.

The miracles weren’t apparent by any twist of my imagination.

And yet I stayed clean. I chose clean.

I kept feeling that which I didn’t want to feel. I learned to have a genuine conversation with myself before the fact—rather than after. (With an I’m sorry trailing every action.)

I practiced being comfortable (while uncomfortable) as I clamored to know the true expression of me. That has taken more than nine months. To date, it has taken 10 years, 4 months, 24 days, and still counting.

I have done two things, every day, in all these days:

  1. Not drink/drug
  2. Work on myself.

Somehow I started to like me. Over time I started to love me. And when I learned to love me I could handle life’s problems, challenges, irritations, lessons, aches, and issues, which are still waiting to greet me—without the heartache of a drink.

Sobriety is a busted, battered package that this born from the bowels of drinking hell. If you stick with it long enough it becomes a beautiful gift from the heavens.

One you’ll never want to trade back.

Go find your miracle.

It’s somewhere in today’s battered box.