Tie o’ the Day is uncanny. It always knows what I’m thinking. I was cogitating about whether to address this topic in this morning’s post, and Tie voted GO AHEAD, before I even asked the question.
I’ve mentioned it before here in TIE O’ THE DAY posts, but I can’t remember ever saying it straight out: I’m a recovering alcoholic. I’m not proud of it, but I’m not ashamed of it either. I say it with humility, not out of humiliation. Those are two absolutely different things.
Today is the 12th of the month, and it’s also the 12th anniversary of my last beer. My sobriety birthday doesn’t always fall on June 12th. I go by the number of days (365 x 12= 4380), not the date I quit. This year it just happens to fall on the 12th.
And then there are AA’s 12 Steps. It is amazing how far you can rise just by taking 12 Steps. I’ve discovered I will have to take some of those steps over and over again for the rest of my life. I am careful with my sobriety, but it doesn’t stop me from living an expansive life. My sobriety is my Faberge egg. I must handle it with utmost care.
I can still be in bars or wherever alcohol is served. It’s not a problem to me that there is always a slew of wine bottles and champagne in our fridge. In fact, it’s actually one of the things which helps me not drink. When I open the refrigerator to grab a Diet Coke, I look those bottles of alcohol straight in the cork and walk away. Some alcoholics can’t do that, but I’m not the only one who can either. We’ve all got our individual ways of dealing with the baggage we carry and the wreckage we caused. And we’ve all got our lines we know we can’t cross if we are going to remain clean and sober. How we deal with our drinking problem is individual to each of us. I’m the only one who can keep me sober. I’m the only one who can keep me honest with myself.
Today, my lucky number seems to be 12. Today, I am clean and sober, just like I was yesterday. But today, I also know it’s dangerous to me if I get ahead of myself and start thinking it will be easy to get to 4381 days. That’s pride, in the worst sense of the word. That bad kind of pride lurks inside every soul. The best we can do is to get more skillful about keeping our negative pride to a minimum. (That’s meant for EVERYBODY about the pride thing, not just those with addictions.)
I still have to tell myself each day, “I can have a drink tomorrow.” So far, that little sentence has worked. “Tomorrow” hasn’t shown up yet. So far, it’s always “today.”