(#5282) Coming up on 17 years of sobriety

     My life has been very complicated lately but what isn't complicated is staying sober. I gave myself a chance nearly 17 years ago to change my life into something far more healthy and productive. That part was not easy to do. I had to stop drinking alcohol and that habit was ingrained in me for many decades. I was used to the taste and effect alcohol had on my body and to just stop was a shock to my system. However the longer I didn't drink alcohol the lesser the desire to drink alcohol became. I was not quite a lost soul when it came to alcohol but I was starting to drink as a first response to most anything that caused me pain or joy. I was getting hooked on the act and effect and it was bothering me.
     So that day I decided to actually stop drinking alcohol I got up and went to an AA meeting. I admitted to them that I was an alcoholic and I needed help. Well for the next 628 days straight I went to a meeting. In that time I found that I could make new friends who were like me wanting to eliminate alcohol from their lives. This commonality of purpose was enormous in my being able to not drink alcohol. I heard their stories and how they survived in their daily battles to stop drinking and I battled my own desires when I was tempted to return to alcohol. Through it all I had built a foundation upon where our support of each other was enough to keep the many of us from falling off the wagon.
     So almost 17 years later, July 24th, I will have not had a drop of alcohol nor for that matter any cigarette, pipe, or cigar. The smoking was always an add on when I drank so when the drinking of alcohol stopped the smoking disappeared as well. I can honestly say right here right now that drinking alcohol rarely enters my mind. When it does I kind of chuckle to myself and remember all the times that I didn't quit and how much worse off I felt for thinking I could keep drinking. For me the nearly 17 years could be 1700 years if were to live that long but as a person who knows how alluring drinking alcohol can be just living one day at a time without drinking is always my core default position.