Day 18: Q and A
Here is a response I wrote to a question posed in my group.
Are you grateful that you are an alcoholic?
I had to sit with this question for a good long while before I could answer it honestly. Or open-mindedly.
After I relapsed, I most certainly was *NOT* grateful that I was an alcoholic. But, honestly, I wasn't even grateful for my own life.
Today, 18 days in (because I got up and picked myself up AGAIN), I look at all the good things that have happened in my life over my last two years of nearly constant sobriety (which doesn't count, but has let me see clearly) and ESPECIALLY in the last few weeks. I GET to be sober. I GET to remember what I said. I GET to wake up feeling AMAZING (except on Tuesdays, which are my Mondays, because hey! A Monday is a Monday, wherever you are.) A very good friend of mine told me that not everyone gets to feel this way, and she certainly speaks the truth! And no, not everything is a pink cloud for me. Purple, maybe.
Also, losing my Aunt to a pill overdose last week has brought addiction to a sharp, clear focus for me - that makes me grateful to be an alcoholic - I *KNOW* what I need to do to succeed. I always thought that she would win, love would win...and, painful as it is, you don't "win" by sitting on your butt (see: denial, enabling).
Yesterday I participated in a triathlon. My first one. And I was the 2nd girl. 2nd! Were I hungover or depressed or anxious or embarrassed or wallowing in self loathing or any of the other things that inevitably happen to me when I drink, I never would have been able to do this.
Am I grateful to be an alcoholic? Yes. However winding and humiliating and horrible the bottom, I have learned from it.
I am much more grateful, however, to have the tools at my disposal to be a RECOVERING alcoholic.
You learn and you grow. One day at a time.
Are you grateful that you are an alcoholic?
I had to sit with this question for a good long while before I could answer it honestly. Or open-mindedly.
After I relapsed, I most certainly was *NOT* grateful that I was an alcoholic. But, honestly, I wasn't even grateful for my own life.
Today, 18 days in (because I got up and picked myself up AGAIN), I look at all the good things that have happened in my life over my last two years of nearly constant sobriety (which doesn't count, but has let me see clearly) and ESPECIALLY in the last few weeks. I GET to be sober. I GET to remember what I said. I GET to wake up feeling AMAZING (except on Tuesdays, which are my Mondays, because hey! A Monday is a Monday, wherever you are.) A very good friend of mine told me that not everyone gets to feel this way, and she certainly speaks the truth! And no, not everything is a pink cloud for me. Purple, maybe.
Also, losing my Aunt to a pill overdose last week has brought addiction to a sharp, clear focus for me - that makes me grateful to be an alcoholic - I *KNOW* what I need to do to succeed. I always thought that she would win, love would win...and, painful as it is, you don't "win" by sitting on your butt (see: denial, enabling).
Yesterday I participated in a triathlon. My first one. And I was the 2nd girl. 2nd! Were I hungover or depressed or anxious or embarrassed or wallowing in self loathing or any of the other things that inevitably happen to me when I drink, I never would have been able to do this.
Am I grateful to be an alcoholic? Yes. However winding and humiliating and horrible the bottom, I have learned from it.
I am much more grateful, however, to have the tools at my disposal to be a RECOVERING alcoholic.
You learn and you grow. One day at a time.
Labels: alcoholism, gratitude, life lessons
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on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 6:04 PM.
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