A reflection on the first year in sobriety. The obstacles overcome, the lessons learned, and the outlook I now have on life.
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The Invisible Line
Addiction doesn’t always manifest itself at the beginning. It can take years to expose itself. There is an invisible line that’s crossed where enjoyment fades and addiction pervades.
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PIR and Predicaments
Just what is PIR and how does it work. Read my first meeting experience and some of the thoughts, feelings, and concerns that went through my head during the initial meeting of a fellowship I am now deeply committed to.
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Navigating Holiday’s in the First Year of Recovery
My first trip back for a big holiday with the family was filled with anxiety and a constant concern over how best to act. I am a 5 hour flight from them and so there are large gaps of time between family gatherings and outside of occasional phone calls the progress and changes not just in my life but in my thinking aren’t apparent to my immediate family. So, showing up all reformed may come off as showy and coming back with little changed in my demeanor or how I act would beg the question, “what is he doing?”. This is the kind of things that go through my head. I made the mistake of thinking there’d be a ticker tape parade the first time I came back this summer and that was a huge disappointment that actually regressed some of the progress I had made to date. Giving up…
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Plant The Seed
10 years ago after a particularly bad bender I reached out to a friend who I knew was in Alcoholics Anonymous and could help talk me through how to get out of the predicament I had gotten myself into. After missing several days of work and feelings of shame, guilt, and depression were setting in, my friend Will came and picked me up. He took me to my first AA meeting and talked to me about why I was doing what I was doing. I was ready for help and I knew I needed it. I was 30 at the time. I went to AA for a few months, never got a sponsor, didn’t read a page of the book but still liked that I was taking some sort of action. Unfortunately, that was not enough and ultimately, I was not ready. Will didn’t beg, plead, or try to convince…