A WHOLE YEAR SOBER

Heck!!! Here I go. I’ve finally arrived at one whole flipping year sober!!!  Who would have ever thought!! Not me, thats for sure!

Looking back it has been both hard and easy at the same time. The hardest thing was the decision......that took a good 40 years!! hahaha.... but once made, I am stuck with it so to speak, or at least I hope so. So then it is just the not so simple little matter of getting on with it. It is rather a shock to find that I am not quite how I believed myself to be. Who knew that I am actually quite shy sometimes, and happy to be a home body, that that great restlessness within me can be quelled in other ways than drinking myself silly, talking my head off, and being eternally ready for any drinking session, any time and for any reason at all, or no reason at all!

I never look at drunk people with disdain because I know they are having a good time in the moment, and I fully remember how that was once me. I don't look at them with pity because I know I would have hated to be pitied for having all the great fun happy laughing times I have had pissed!  I look at them with knowledge.  That one day some of them will probably choose to face up to their own problem, that deep inside there is a fear in many of their own dependence, and for the notoriously drunk ones, that tomorrow they will be surfing the great wave of remorse! 

I try never to allow myself to feel disgust when I smell it on people's breath, it is just what alcohol smells like, and it’s not as bad as sardines!  I remember (or not)! the thousands of conversations I've had in loud places, getting right in someone's ear with booze, tobacco and probably garlic on my breath as well!  No one ever told me my breath stunk.  Even drunk people are gracious and have many qualities, and I will remember that.

Looking forward, I am not afraid of the life I will have if I remain committed to the straight and narrow (not so narrow at all actually). There is much abundance out there for me that I haven't even tapped into yet, coz I'm deliberately a bit slow with the inner growth.  I don't search for it any more, I just allow it to come to me bit by bit in it's own good time. Slowly but surely that is happening, and I am becoming. 

I am far more afraid of the life I will have if I do not stay committed.  I would have a hell of a lot more fun, for sometimes false and short lived periods of time.  I would have an active social life once more, with people who are mainly with me coz I'm great fun to drink with.  I would laugh more and talk more and dance more and meet lots more people.  But I wouldn't have the quiet contentment and growing peace inside of me that comes from knowing I am living my life how I am meant to.  I wouldn't have the certainty that there is a great connection out there somewhere that will find me when the time is right.  That sounds stupid but I know it is true, because I have so much in me I want to give, that it would be very wasteful if that energy does not connect and lift the spirit of another worthy soul.  And hey, if it's wishful thinking, then there's always the future grandchildren whom I long to adore. 

It has been quite a lonely year in many ways, the adjustment to not having my nightly companion in a glass (or 10), my daughter leaving home, my son away building a lot, the end of a kind and companiable realtionship with a good hearted lovely man. As a result of all this I’m spending more time alone than I've ever spent in my life. After a very busy life, marriage, children, end of marriage, single parenting, house full of teens, then two long relationships, running busy businnesses through all of that, Hell it is about time I spent some time alone.  So that is how I am looking at it, time for me.  Time to heal and time to grow, so the rest of my life can be time to give and share and love and laugh and be happy.....and SOBER!!! Bring it on.......and all the cool people are getting sober these days…..so pretty soon I won’t feel like a freak!!! hahaha