"What Does Two Years Look Like?"

On Saturday, I celebrated 2 years of continuous sobriety. Two years clean and sober from any and all mind- and mood-altering substances. I went to a sober BBQ and enjoyed the companionship of my fellows. A number of people had a lot of love for me and it was an awesome day. I made some time to journal and comment on the occasion, but discovered I didn't have much to say. When I mentioned this to my sponsor, he laughed about how funny it is that there isn't much to say when things are going good; we can go on for hours if we're pissed off about something, but life being good simplifies very simply: life is good.

I'm going to qualify that just a bit and say it more specifically: life is working now.

I have a job. It sucks, there are tons of toxic people all around me, backstabbing, undermining, childish behavior, but for the most part it doesn't bother me. I don't have to get involved. I'm not appreciated as much as I'd like, and definitely treated as less-than, but I don't lose sleep or have temper tantrums over it. There is a resilience there, a strong spiritual force that comes from within.

I'm in touch with my family. They are still themselves. They still communicate the way they do, still live their lives in ways that strike me as insane and unmanageable. They never talked about my problem before I got into Recovery, and now that I've been clean and sober for a while they still don't talk about it. But I don't try to change them anymore. I don't berate them. I even manage to avoid judging them most of the time. It's a far cry from two years ago when I wasn't even speaking to them.

I'm dating. It's going how dating goes. I meet women; sometimes we connect and sometimes we don't. I can recognize when something isn't working and let it go. I don't try desperately to hold on to something that's unhealthy. I don't try to make something work that doesn't. If I meet a woman who has issues, I am supportive but I don't take them on--they are her issues and I let her have them. Some of the women I've dated, I'm still friends with; some of them I'm not. But that's very different from how I used to burn every relationship to a smoking cinder. And when things are over, I don't break stuff anymore. I don't put my fist through doors anymore. I can't think of the last time I yelled or screamed.

I am responsible now. I pay my bills and my rent and I do it on time. I keep to a budget. I have a savings. I live in a very decent place that has enough room for me and my music equipment. I take care of things that need taking care of, and usually I do it sooner rather than later. I obey laws now. I still don't like cops, but hey how 'bout that?

These are all external changes, and they are impressive, like night and day from how things used to be. But the internal changes are the more amazing ones. Things like how much peace I have inside, how centered I am within myself, and how the strength and force of that peace pulls me back to it. Being serene has become my new normal. When I am knocked off of it, I return to it almost like one of those children's toys that perpetually rights itself.

I know now--without a doubt--that I am a person of value and of worth, and I know it deep inside myself. I have people in my life who truly love and care about me unconditionally. My sense of self is not dependent on who my friends are, or how much money I make, or anything outside of me; it comes from within. The friends I have in my life I have because I care about them and their lives. Two years ago, I did not have friends. Period.

Being sober isn't the center of my life, though. Recovery, working the program, that is not my life. It isn't a way of life to me, it's a way of living. Recovery is the way I have found to be in the world that works. I am not the center of my life, either. Not to get too spiritual, here, but my life and my body are all just on loan. God is the center of my life. I put my trust in him, ask for knowledge of his will for me, the ability to make it so, and he gives me what I need. And I get to stay sober.

I get to help others, too, to find what I have found. It isn't easy. I've had some hard times and dark days. But I've gotten through it all without picking up and the end result has always been for the best. To say I have a life beyond my wildest dreams? I guess that description fits, but it doesn't do justice to what life is like for me now--especially when compared to how it used to be. It's like trying to describe color to a blind man, or music to a deaf woman.

So I'm going to close out this entry with a return to where I started. What does 2 years look like? Life works now. It sure as hell didn't before. And that's a fuckin miracle beyond human power and understanding, possible only through some seriously hardcore divine intervention. I truly am one of the lucky ones, no two ways about it.