I’m so grateful to be sober

I am a little more than 10 months sober.

There is so much going on at in my life, at work, in the world around me, and this heat and HUMIDITY wave here in SoCal is killing me. Through everything, I am so grateful that I don’t have to drink anymore.

My sobriety is one of my proudest achievements; I drank problematically for 10 years, basically daily for 5, and it took years of constant struggle/false starts/relapses to get to where I am. I think about the money I haven’t spent, and the amount of alcohol I haven’t drank in the past 10 months almost everyday.

This is one of the only things in my life that belongs to only me. It’s maybe the only thing I have complete control of. I’m grateful that I’ve been given the chance to actually get to know myself, and I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to practice being compassionate towards my younger self.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring; I literally have the words “tomorrow is a new day” as my phone lock screen. Today though, I have the gift of presence and a quieter mind, and that feels pretty beautiful