18 Months of Serenity | A Look Into Early Sobriety from Alcohol Addiction
Today I am 18 months and two days sober. And today I am happier than I have been since I was a little girl and the solution to all of life’s problems were found in the highest whispering branches of the tree in my front yard. In those days I fell into bed drunk with exhaustion from building forts and skating on metal wheels and climbing trees and flying from the rooftop into my pool. I knew no fear. In those days I was invincible. I wore capes. I had serenity.
I can’t say precisely when that changed. Not precisely. But the fear crept in. Perhaps it was when I began to realize that adults did not have all of the answers and worse, they could not be trusted. They could be selfish and neglectful. Ugly. Life for them seemed confusing…heavy, unromantic, full of obligations and responsibility. It sucked. And, the kicker, adulthood was an inevitability.
So, since I could see nobody around me who seemed to wear adulthood well I became afraid. I was afraid mostly of what I did not know. The unknown was my compass that led me in the opposite direction of possibility.
As I got older, I began to notice that there were, however, people out there who seemed to know some things. Happy people. Successful people. I thought that somehow, they had to have been born that way or had parents with answers. More than likely, insanely rich, parents with answers. But I was different and could never hope to have what they had. I was not chosen for that life. I did things mind you. I earned a degree and had a business, but I was unsatisfied. I became resigned to a life of quiet desperation.
So I drank to make life fun. Then to make it bearable. And finally because I could not stop, I lost things, important things; the trust and respect of my children, relationships…countless pairs of sunglasses. Then I lost hope. I did not live, I existed. I subsisted. I did not really expect to live much longer and believed my children to be better off in the long run for it.
It was a cold and dreary December morning I woke from a 7 day blackout alone, defeated. I prayed to a god I did not believe in. I prayed to whomever was listening and I picked up the phone.
That was when I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.
I turned over my life and will to the care of my higher power and started working the program of AA, an idea that repulsed me for years. Go figure,
Today I have the happy heart of childhood. Today I have serenity. Today I am a grateful alcoholic.
