In Sobriety

In Sobriety

Everybody asks me to tell them of all the screwed-up shit I pulled when I was drinking.... no one ever asks what I've accomplished in sobriety. But even those who do ask the right questions always depress me at this time of year

I want secretly to walk into AA hold up my 23 year sobriety medallion and say really inspiring things to the new-comers. Things like, “After being sober a year I won a Pulitzer, after being sober two years they gave me a Nobel Peace Prize.” and then like the newcomers in the room would just be so impressed with my great list of accolades that I, omniscient as I am, would literally charm them into staying sober for life and not wrapping their car around a toddler.

TRUTH.... I have accomplished things, many things but nothing nearly that shiny and kool! (Also let me mention here that AA has tried many times and many ways to teach me that it is literally not all about me.... however I'm pretty certain that it really is all about me and they have just somehow failed to recognize it.)

I have accomplished in sobriety things that I would never have even learned had I been drinking and drugging. I have a book contract (who'da thunk?) I have taught many children history, World Cultures, reading, math. I raised a terminally ill child to adulthood (top of her class scored 10^th highest in the state of Florida that year!) I have poetry archived to go into the Vietnam Museum when it is built. I've had poetry read at parades by the Master of Ceremonies. I beat cancer, survived a brutal rape, escaped a nearly fatal relationship. I taught myself to paint, learned Shamanism and got a degree in it. I earned a coup feather... I was the first in my family to earn one... now I have earned 4! I've been declared an Elder by a Medicine Man and received one of the 7 Sacred Rites. I conquered my biggest fear and rode a horse. I started my own business that almost went multimillion dollar in the first year before the economy collapsed. I have learned how to do hair and make costumes. I learned a little sewing and learned to make dolls to give to the Children's Hospitals. I am learning photography. I learned how to use a PC and blog. That's a smidgen.

The truth about the difference between full-blown addiction and sobriety is massive. When I was drinking and drugging... I could do nothing much... I could never try new things because I either wasn't sober enough to function or when I was I never tried anything more then getting the next fix to dim down that evil feeling of... I'm a piece of crap because I've never accomplished anything.

Let me say then that medicating and intoxicating will NEVER do anything to fix self-worth issues. In sobriety on the other hand I have learned to build that person I want to be, a person that was in there all along but I'd never met.

Sobriety is like when you're a very little kid and some grown-up says, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” And you're like 5 but you get so excited at all the options that you blurt them all out together at once. I want to be a fireman, ninja, cowboy, president, doctor!

That little kid excitement …. that's sobriety. You can do, be, accomplish and there are no real limits.

So I've listed my accomplishments, but I left the biggest one out until the end. My biggest accomplishment in the world ever, the one I am most proud of is that for this 24 hours I have not picked up a drink or drug. For this 24 hours I was sober. Now that 24 hours might not seem like a whole lot to you.... but it has been working for me for 23 years!

That's my side of it,

Angel
www.streetlighthalo.com