twenty eight years…
It is hard to believe that I have been sober one day at a time for 28 years…

This is a significant sober birthday for me because I got sober when I was 28, so I have now been sober as long as I had used. I was introduced to alcohol early through hot toddy’s, bourbon on the gums and draining bottles of left-over wine from the fridge at age 7. I remember climbing up on the kitchen counter to get a bottle of wine when there was no more in the fridge. I drank it warm. Thank God, (my HP) that my Mom and Step Dad really didn’t drink very often and did not replace the wine so I moved on to other ways to alter myself at that young age.

By my 28th belly button birthday I was ready to kill myself. Absolutely miserable with myself, life and everything within my small narrow vision. I could not see how narrow my vision was at that time, how by my own thinking and behavior I was keeping myself stuck. Repeating the same things over and over while desperately longing for a different life. There are early childhood, adolescent and young adulthood traumas in my story, awful things happened outside my control.

Until I stopped running away from everything and especially myself, I could not see clearly. That I was still trying to escape from things and from myself. The greatest gift I have received in sobriety is that I have choices. The steps have taught me what I do that works and doesn’t work and how to change it. The steps, my sponsor, my sponsees and other’s in my life have taught me how to change. How to find out who I really am, how to accept and love myself no matter what. That I am good enough right now, no matter the circumstances in the world that I know how to be content, peaceful and present.

It is this contentment, this love for myself and compassion for myself that keeps me coming back, working the steps, working with others and continuing to improve my conscious contact with God as I understand him.

I have discovered that I cannot love anyone or anything else more deeply than I can love myself. Life is so much broader than the tiny, narrow box that got created early in my life and that I kept myself trapped in for years later. Nothing or no one was in my way more than I was. Giving up my old way of life one day at a time, one little piece at a time has given me the greatest gifts I never could have imagined.
Keep coming back, keep working the steps. If you want things to change, then let go, let god and change.