I have begun step 4. We are not going to talk about step 4. There will come a day for that, but today isn't it.
Let's talk about what sober living feels like at 90 days for me. For me it is ....... frustrating. The first time I took this journey, I didn't take THIS journey. I didn't do the work, I didn't think I needed to, I thought I am an adult I can do this on my own. By 90 days I was already done with therapy and no longer attending AA. I was doing nothing to ensure my sobriety, I just assumed that all I needed to do was get sober and that would be that. After all in my mind I was not the average alcoholic, oh no no not at all, I was above average and didn't even start drinking until I was almost middle aged and hadn't been drinking that long. I just got carried away, but now that I have quit I will be fine and I don't need all that other stuff.
Welp we see just how average I actually am. I am a garden verity alcoholic that can not control her drinking at all. Yes I have a home, I didn't lose anything but my pride, I didn't go into debt to drink, or lose a job, I also was always drunk, morning, noon and night. All I had to do is pick up that first drink and the roller coaster ride would begin. And I did, I picked up that first drink, then the second and quickly the third followed, soon it was a bottle and I didn't even need a glass. For no other reason than I am an alcoholic. An average run of the mill alcoholic. There is nothing special about me, nothing that makes me less of an alcoholic, or a better one for that matter. I, just like every other alcoholic can not drink, no matter what.
I mention the roller coaster. Heres the fun part, you don't get off the roller coaster when you get sober. Nope it still goes up, down, around and around and even up side down. You now get to learn how to ride the ride sober. At the beginning of the sober ride, where I am, right now, the ride is not exactly enjoyable, it's scary, frustrating, and aggravating.
Imagine being a grown adult and finding out when it comes to the most basic thing in life, living life sober, you know nothing and in fact are a child, hell not even, you're a toddler just learning to walk. Figuring out and accepting that fact was the first of many downward tracks on my roller coaster. It is like, you were sitting comfortably on a top peak looking around enjoying the view, and BAM you're speeding down the tracks with no brakes and no idea where you will land. But land you do, in a mud puddle of confusion, resistance, sometimes even anger. It seems like it takes forever to work your way through all the mud and muck and make your way back up to the peak again. So far I do make it back up to the top, but not without help and guidance along the way.
I even get a little longer stay on the peak each time I make it back up there. The twist and turns they still keep coming though and they are tuff to handle, they cause melt downs, moments of no confidence and they always hold the question " Why Me?" There really isn't an answer to that, there is a solution, and it is a simple one, that seems almost impossible to do. Stop asking the question and except that it is you. Funny when you do stop and except this fact, things seem less stressful and less impossible. Accepting that " why me" isn't a productive question to ask or dwell on, doesn't stop the roller coaster, but it does slow it down on the curves. Allowing the ride to become a little bit of fun.
The big book talks about people coming into the rooms and seeing happy laughing people, sober people, and the book tells you if you want that, you can have it too. It doesn't tell you just how much work it takes and that the happiness is not immediate. There are mentions of balking at the requirements needed to get and stay sober, but no actual warning that the happiness and contentment come with time and only if you work at it. Maybe the work is why so many have to try this getting sober thing, more than once.
Right now resentment and anger are driving me crazy. Not that I have a lot if any, but that I am not allowed to have any, well that sends me into fits of resistance. In the past week I can't count how many times I have asked myself and others " Why the hell am I doing this? I should just get a drink and get over it." That sentence is a perfect example of why I can't hold on to anger or resentments. That knowledge doesn't make letting go of either of those reactions or emotions any easier. I never realized just how easy it was to get angry over nothing, or to resent people for things they have never done. I also never realized just how quickly anger or resentment can lead to a drink. For someone like me where a drink is always the answer for anything, good bad or indifferent, I can be led even easier than most people.
While I am not taking bows for my 90 days sober I also am not taking it lightly. Yes most days I am struggling, sometimes with the desire to drink, other times with my emotions that are on a totally different roller coaster, that has no brakes and as far as I can tell no driver, there are moments each day when the vail lifts and I see exactly what it is I am working for and just how attainable it really is. Every day the vail lifts for a longer period of time, some days even long enough for me to feel just what I am working for.
Being sober at the 90 day marker, is not a picnic, or a walk in the park. If you were to think of this as the 7 stages of grief I would be at anger no doubt. That is actually good news, not the anger, but grief ends and happiness finds it way back into your life.
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