Listen Linda

When I think about sobriety. No. Wait, when I think about staying sober. It means to me to not let a substance inside of me that will change how I think, feel, or behave. Because if ‘it’s an honest program’ than one should be honest that certain things can cause people like us to behave badly, think less, and let’s just say it –feel nothing. Because that’s why we did the thing, drank the drink, or what have you. Whatever our problems were, we didn’t want to face it. Most defiantly didn’t want to think about it. And just about anything within reach was the best alternative…until it stops working. No job, no family, no house, no hope…hopeless. Life as we know becomes unmanageable. And whether we liked it or not. Shit’s going to hit the fan. And much like another person whose been there before us, it’s time to face the music.

We are supposed to have feelings. And I being a woman. That’s right a woman, not a girl. I’m well over the age of 16. Two marriages and two kids later…that little girl is long ago gone. Maybe she grew up too fast? Maybe she didn’t, but it’s not about her, or me. It’s about THIS. It just so happens though that this is a very big deal in my life. It’s saved mine, 1000X over. By just being grateful to be alive. To be grateful to be clean and sober. And to be something else…a human being. Who is connected to her higher power, (God) of my own understanding.

I mean isn’t there something that aches human—and feels profoundly sacred—about the sentence “The longer I chased these elusive feelings with alcohol…” It screams the need for an escape from the intimate ache of being alive and uncertain. I am sure you can agree that almost all people like us could describe that endless hunger: A longing for peace. A longing to belong. For some un-nameable “enoughs”. And much like that rabbit hole, when our relief feels out of reach, we chase its illusion. Anything to get us out of our heads. Anything to quiet the noise inside. Anything, to make that thing, go. Away.

But as most know we have learned that sobriety isn’t just abstinence, it’s unfolding and un-raveling. And at first it does feel like standing still after years of running. (I don’t have multiple years of sobriety–yet. But you get my point.) The silence is loud; the feelings we tried to outrun begin to surface. Then the text reminds us that sobriety is a gift that grows with time, and that growth is rooted in the surrender—not a collapse, but a choice to do better, be better. A daily willingness to lay down the weight of control and trust something bigger than us, than our addictions, to hold the pen.

Remember that surrendering doesn’t make us smaller. It gives us more space. The parts of us that have been holding up the sky—fear, guilt, shame, self-pity—get to rest. From the rest, something authentic arises. Trust doesn’t grow all at once, but gently—sometimes trembling, sometimes still—until you realize you are no longer walking alone. And perhaps never were?

When you “do your part,” it’s no longer an effort to earn love or prove worth. It becomes an act of reverence. A quiet participation in something sacred. You take the step, and the path responds. And by moving forward doing the next right thing, things come together. That storm that we created from our lives of chaos can now be mended. Things that are solid stay. The things that were not will fall. And always remember that with positive action, hope will always be there. You just have to keep going.