Life In Sobriety

    Another sober New Year's Eve.  I have not had an alcoholic drink since September 1999.  Eighteen years of complete abstinence from any alcohol is a huge feat for this old hippie.  I knew I needed to stop drinking long before my first attempt but I made up every reason I could think  so I could continue drinking.  Society uses alcohol as a socially acceptable medicine when it comes any and every problem  Finding out the hard way, alcohol is only a quick fix and a fix that does not last long  was a lesson I studied over and over with out a passing grade for a very long time.
     Binge drinking, maybe during the early years of my alcoholism but most of my drinking career involved heavy drinking.  That drinking was a happy crutch but it came to a point were that crutch would no longer hold me up. At that point I knew I had lost any control I had left over my alcoholism.  Contemplating a sober life was almost to difficult to visualize and that fact alone kept me drinking for years.  However when  I finally did stop drinking I soon realized there was a big difference  between  being sober and living life in sobriety.  Being sober is just not drinking.  During a sober life one is forced into a spiritual, physical and mental reevaluation of one's life.  I didn't want any of that all I wanted to do is to stop drinking.
     AA meeting after AA meeting I kept hearing sobriety is a way of life and the journey is a ling one.  They were talking about happiness and contentment both  I really wanted real bad.  Neither came during the first few weeks of being sober.   It took several years on the journey of sobriety before I was comfortable in my own skin.  Now eighteen years into the journey there have been good times, bad times and a few times when temptation almost cornered me   In all those years there is one fact that has never changed, I am powerless over alcohol.. Life in Sobriety can be a good life if one takes the journey seriously and remembers Soboriety is one day at a time and to find it you have to be true to your self.