366 Days Sober

October 5

I didn't call in sick for the first year of my recovery. Not once! It just never occurred to me. I was so healthy that I just did not get sick or feel under the weather. But it’s not all about go, go, go, and get ‘er’ done! I had lost something in that first year. I forgot that I really enjoyed fucking off and doing nothing sometimes. So, let’s do something we may not have done in a while. Let’s get a little naughty. How about we call in “stupid” today? Pick up the phone and tell whoever it is that you need to tell, “ I took my temperature rectally today and read all the way to stupid.” Tell them that you are sick! You’re not lying. Just don’t say you’re “Sick… of working!” Or “Sick… in the head!”

Reflections

Are you working too hard? Have you forgotten how to have fun in your recovery?

Daily Challenge

Seriously, take the day off. Open the freezer, grab the ice cream and some Oreos, crawl back in bed, and turn on Netflix or your favorite movie. When people ask you how you feel tomorrow, just say, “Great! Thanks for asking.” And leave it at that.

October 2

The past is the past. It will always try to come back to life, and it will find its way into the nooks and crannies of your day-to-day life. It will always find a way to replay in the virtual VCR/TiVO/YouTube of your mind. What once was does not have to be again. What you are going to do in the future can and will always be better than what you’ve done. If you allow it. If you can keep the past where it belongs and move toward the future. Some of us live in the past so much that it overwhelms our tomorrow and can narrow our view of what is possible. It’s okay to learn from our mistakes or even to regret the past (contrary to the Big Book, it’s really okay to have regrets “I have had a few, but too few to mention.”). It’s also okay to reminisce or review the past, but let’s not allow it to muddy the waters of today. Let the lesson sink in, but don’t let the lessons sink you.

Reflections

Can I review the past without deep regrets or resentment? Can I let go of the past to enjoy today and tomorrow?

Daily Challenge

Call someone from your past you have not talked to in a while. Just shoot the shit. Don’t bring up anything more.

October 1

Today, you are going to draw a graph. Do you know what a graph is? Of course, you do. We are going to draw a simple line graph to illustrate a point. First, we draw a vertical line that defines 0%-100%. Next, draw an “X” on that line to represent how you feel things currently are (i.e., I think everything is around the 40% mark because things are just humdrum, and they could certainly improve). Then, draw a circle where you wish things could be (i.e., I wish everything to be around the 80% mark! Not perfect, but certainly better than what things are). Now, measure the difference between the two. For me, it was a 40% difference. The difference between how things are in your life (40%) and how you want them to be (80%) is the amount of your suffering.

Reflections

Am I accepting things for what they are, or am I wishing for them to be different?

Daily Challenge

Actually, do the graph above. Note the difference between the two marks.

September 30

Hands down, getting sober is the hardest thing some of us have ever had to do! It takes so much goddamn courage to do what we are doing and to continue to carry it through. It may look strange to people without the disease of alcoholism and addiction, the importance we place on our sobriety. The fact is that without it, nothing else is possible. Those who have never had to wrestle with this disease up close simply say, “Just don’t do it if it’s that bad for you.” Or “Why can’t you have just a couple and stop?” These are the types of statements that come from a lack of awareness and inability to put themselves in the alcoholic’s/addict’s shoes. Our significant others or parents may even say these things simply from the point of ignorance. But these things should not deter you from placing sobriety at the top of your priorities. You know the truth about yourself, and that’s all you need to know.

Reflections

What is at the top of your priorities today?

Daily Challenge

Put a symbol around the door you use to exit your home to remind you of your priorities today. What symbol did you think of?

September 29

“WE are not bad people trying to be good. WE are sick people trying to get well.” – Overheard in a meeting

Maybe you’ve heard this a thousand times. Maybe you’re just as tired of hearing it as I am, but it doesn’t make it any less true. It’s one of those things that you hear in the rooms of recovery, and nobody knows where it came from, but it always rings true. There are as many different types of alcoholics/addicts as there are people in the world. Conmen, thieves, liars, assholes, etc. But there are also policemen, clergy, doctors, teachers, and the occasional nun or priest. We are varied individuals from all walks of life that just happen to have been afflicted by the disease of addiction and alcoholism. Whether you are from a good home with loving parents or a dysfunctional home with mental illness and severe addiction, your background makes no difference in the halls of recovery. We know only that you know up close the face of “Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, and Despair.”

Reflections

Have you met the hideous Four Horsemen yet?

Daily Challenge

Find the “hideous Four Horsemen” quote in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Highlight it.

September 28

Boy! We Americans talk a lot about freedom. But we addicts/alcoholics don’t know the first thing about it. We run around declaring freedom from this and that, and the freedom to go wherever we choose, freedom of speech, etc. But are we even remotely free if we are living under the thumb of alcohol and drugs? Are we truly free to make our own decisions? Not if those decisions are divided by alcohol and drugs; they're not. Freedom starts with the individual, and there can be no true freedom unless that person is free in their own mind. When you depend on outside circumstances for your internal condition, you are at the mercy of those things and cannot be truly free.

Reflections

Are you free today? How free do you want to be?

Daily Challenge

What is one thing you depend on that you should give up today?

September 27

Higher Power or hire a therapist! I don’t care how you find sobriety as long as you find it. Those last few years of drinking were absolutely maddening for me, personally. Having found that I could not stop drinking, it was painful to imagine the rest of my life having to drink against my own will. I tried many ways in those last few years to abstain from drinking. I did all the things they talk about in the rooms of recovery. I swore off forever! I switched from vodka to beer to wine to margarita mixes, to mixing my own drinks, to rum and coke, and back again. Finally, I said, “I will quit for my kids.” And when that failed, I tried another thing and another. I tried self-help books and other programs on my own, and nothing seemed to work. I thought I always knew what I needed to do; and refused to listen to others who had “been there, done that.” Then, after years of trying, something finally stuck, and it felt like I finally broke free.

Reflections

Are you still trying? Have you ever tried to stop trying?

Daily Challenge

If you are new to recovery, clear your home of alcohol. Throw it all out. Today.

September 26

At some point, you may stop and ask yourself what all this repetition is for. Why all the driving home of the obvious and reading of the same old books and sayings? Some of it is downright annoying! And the same guy that goes to meetings sits in the same chair and says the same shit week after week! Or worse, day after day. Ugh! But! Remember, someone in that room may not have heard that yet. Someone just like you, at some point, needed to hear those things today. Remember, it’s not all about you. So, as you sit there and think, “I can’t stand hearing that motherfucker share that same story one more Goddamn time!” Just know that person’s message is not for you, but it may be helping someone through one of their roughest times. And who knows, maybe if you listen close enough, you just might hear something you’ve been missing this whole time.

Reflections

Are you really paying attention?

Daily Challenge

Lean in. Learn to listen. Listen to learn.

September 25

There will always be someone who doesn’t understand what it means to be an addict or alcoholic. And people especially don’t know what it means to be an addict/alcoholic in recovery. People and professionals will have all kinds of misunderstandings and suggestions of their own. Though almost everyone means well, if they aren't addicts or alcoholics themselves, you won’t get much benefit from them. I personally didn’t think another recovering addict or alcoholic had much to offer me before I got sober. I viewed them as weak and unsuccessful in the business of life. Before I got sober myself, I had little need for what they could offer me. But boy! When I saw that I needed recovering addicts and alcoholics to get sober and that doctors or therapists could do little to help me overcome my most significant deficits, you can bet your ass that I put them in much higher esteem.

Reflections

Are you able to help someone in recovery today? Are you an example of what it means to be in recovery?

Daily Challenge

Honor other people in recovery today. Let them know you are proud of their accomplishments in the “business of life.”

Just buy the book already!