Paul Churchill said in one of his Recovery Elevator podcasts that “If you want this, you can’t have that. And if you want that, then you can’t have this”.
I think that’s pretty describing of life in recovery. It’s all about making the choice. For example I cannot drink because every instant high and temporary happiness it might bring, it is always followed by an equally devastating drop from above. And as the time passes each drop becomes more and more unbearable and gets me deeper until it would be impossible to maintain that lifestyle anymore.
Now, life without booze is more stable and balanced and yes, sometimes just more boring. It lacks the instant highs that drinking brought but also saves me from the steep drops and problems that comes along with it. It would be great to get the best of both worlds without the negative but that is something called moderation and as we all here know moderation is not an option for us.
So it’s all about making a choice. You give up on something but at the same time you receive something else back. The more I’ve started to realize the consequences of my choices the more I understand why I do this and why I choose to stay sober. Hope you make the right choice today
Yeah, I think it’s hard for some to understand that when we say that life is so much better than when we were drinking, we don’t mean some mythical feeling attainable only by passing certain steps blah blah blah.
It’s just about meeting each day head on!
Taking whatever comes with it, accepting the good with the bad.
Accepting that we are alive and that life is there to be enjoyed no matter what we do.
I mean, it’s not like we have done it before, we have nothing to measure our lives against. It’s no good looking to other people, because we are all different.
It’s a personal thing, life!
Enjoy it for what it is.
Life wasn’t boring, when I was drinking. I was boring. Just as wet wood won’t burn, drunk me couldn’t burn either.
I look back over my life, and the periods of sobriety were marked by achievement, learning, and growth. Most of all, they were times of great personal satisfaction. The periods where I drank were marked by failures, set-backs, stagnation, and a resulting frustration.
I can’t get those 22 years back. I can only make the most of the years I have left. I may have faltered, stumbled and slowed in the middle of the race, but I will finish strong.
For me ditching the booze has been something like suddenly receiving some extra bandwith for life to deal with the goods and the bads, to prioritize and think what’s important to me and what is not. Alcohol took a major part of that bandwith before and it was a hell of a job to keep everything else together along with that.
I think for most of us it is a true eye opener that normal life is, well, normal after you quit. For me it definitely was.
I like writing my thoughts down now and then, it usually helps me to stay focused. I’m glad if somebody else gets something out of it too