I have never been particularly good at “endings” in general. Goodbyes are always hard. In every way. Death for me is in that category.
Death took me to my bottom. The end of my drinking.
The end of my drinking was the beginning of my sobriety. I have been sober many days in a row since that bottom and have not felt the need to drink over the deaths I have experienced since getting sober 7,620 days ago (Over 20 years). I have experienced many deaths, humans and dogs, along the way and know that now, I don’t have to drink over it. I know it can be done.
I like beginnings. They are all about hope for the future. Weddings. Beginning relationships, births, sunrises, being sober each day.
There is a place in between endings (past) and beginnings (future), called “the present” where I find it hard to stay some times. It’s one of the reasons we talk about One-Day-At-a-Time in recovery. I don’t want to stay stuck in the past and how I was dealing with life with drinking or chaos as part of the solution. I don’t know what the future holds either, but I can begin in today, arranging my life a little differently. Making better choices to support myself in today. Planning for the future in a healthy way and trusting God for the outcome and how it may turn out.
How do I do that?
I look for the constants in my life. And those are confirmed in “The Promises” of our recovery program below:
The Promises
"If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not.
They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we trust God and work for them."
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