Today is my birthday. Not my belly button birthday, my day I got clean and sober birthday. Today I am celebrating 35 years of sobriety. Celebrating 35 years of choosing to deal with life and all its challenges, obstacles, defeats, and victories without using drugs or alcohol.
What a year it has been, my 34th year of sobriety. Today marks my 35th anniversary of the day I chose to get sober. I have to say the last few months have been the most difficult in those 35 years, and that is saying something as my life has very rarely been without difficulty. But, even as I have battled my demons- stress, addiction, depression,my sons illness, etc.- the last few months, I have continued to work on my sobriety.
There have been many times lately when I said to myself out loud "Damn, I need a drink." Fortunately my next thought has been "Stop it, you don't drink." I am not ashamed to admit that that next thought comes slowly some days. Sobriety really is one day at a time. For me it is one moment at a time most days.
Why 'One day at a time'?
The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.~~Abraham Lincoln~~
For me that means I need to concentrate on living in the moment. Being present and living in the moment helps to keep me focused on the task at hand. When we live in the moment, one day at a time, we don't have time to become mired in regrets and worries over what happened and how we SHOULD have done. No guilt, no condemnation.Which is not to say that if we hurt someone we should not make amends. It is to say that if we live in the present, the past can no longer hurt us. We can let it go, forgive ourselves and others, and choose to live for today.Living in the present means that we no longer have to constantly review the past, trying to explain our actions or the actions of others. No more guilt or blaming. Living in the present means that we do not have to worry, assume, obsess about what may happen in the future. If we do that we sometimes project unwarranted negative outcomes to things, when all we really have to do is deal with the outcomes of our actions today, this day.
So, today, this day I will celebrate one more day of sobriety. One more day of hangin' in there, no matter how difficult life has become.
Easy? No, I don't think it is ever easy, but just because a thing is hard to do doesn't make it any less worthwhile.
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