You’ve Come a Long Way Baby

“ It’s been a long time since I rock and roll…”

And by that I mean take a drink.

It’s been two and a half years (sometimes it is quantity over quality), I will proudly admit at the cost of sinning — if you can’t celebrate your own sobriety, who will? I prefer it over my birthday, it means much more, though I guess if I hadn’t been born I wouldn’t have been an alcoholic who got sober and bragged about it…ah, coming full circle. 

This is what I love about writing.

The death of one thing leading to the birth of another: trading addiction for the creative arts (which is still technically an addiction). Can you do that? Can you bargain with the devil? (Bob Dylan said all these years he’s been holding up his end of the deal) Can something good bloom from the seeds of the worst things? (Im ripping off a quote I read years ago, can’t take credit for that line). Jesus said you will know a tree by its fruit…

Ive come to this conclusion: God is listening (and angels ARE among us (you’re thinking: woah, she is really on a trip (no, I’m just listening to Closer to the Heart))) and prayers are being answered; maybe not your prayers, but somebody’s prayers. 

And if you really want to get psychedelic… “the universe is unfolding as it should,” (I thought I’d throw that out there and see what you think) which is straight from the Desiderata — is it okay to  get your philosophy from some antiquated writing found in the basement of an old church? And your wisdom from AA’s Big Book? Your sense of humor from your father and your good looks from your mother, while maintaining an average ego, and one day hopefully enough sobriety wisdom (claiming there wouldn’t be smarts without booze to be smart about) to fill up an encyclopedia? (Okay, I realize that’s a bit pretentious. And there’s really only one key piece of sobriety wisdom that can be summed up in two words: Don’t drink. Period)

I told my brother on the phone, something like “I miss the pleasure of alcohol, but I can no longer enjoy it because I only abuse it.” That is a true alcoholic’s lament, and possibly sobriety in a nutshell. 

A sacrifice for the common good: everyday I don’t drink i like to think I make the world a better place (I’m only being sentimental), while preserving my own welfare and dignity. Yeah, at the end of the day, it is a selfish decision, yet with immeasurable ripple effects.

And it’s the best decision I ever made.

I wouldn’t be on this blog. 

Yet here I am, “working on a piece” (gotta laugh about that one), creating something of substance instead of ingesting a substance.

Sobriety has given me something drinking couldn’t: deliverance.

I like to imagine where I would be had I not stopped: in one of those jails, hospitals, or institutions…or not here at all.

I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

And I’ve come a long way.

“Carry on, love is coming, love is coming to us all…”


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