4 years sober!
reflections on the year(s)
Hi, happy new year! Thanks for being here. A disclaimer that this essay and all of my writing about sobriety is about my own recovery. What works for me won’t necessarily work for everyone else (and vice versa), and I don’t have an opinion on how other folks do their recovery. I just want us all to make it! Thank you for reading 🩷
Today I have four years of continuous sobriety. Four whole years!!!! I can’t believe I’ve been clean and sober for that long.
When I first came to AA at around sixty days sober, the sponsor I started working with told me they had celebrated four years of sobriety a few days after the last night I drank: new year’s eve, 2020. At sixty-ish days then, four years of recovery was unimaginable. I also couldn’t believe someone only a little older than me had that amount of time. I really looked up to them — I still do — and it’s so wild to have hit this milestone, to have the amount of time that my first sponsor did when I became their sponsee. They seemed so wise, so knowledgeable about recovery and the program. Here I am at four years now and I’m feeling like, oh god, I don’t know shit.
*
This past year was hard in so many ways. Unlike previous years though, sobriety wasn’t really one of the things that made it hard. That’s not to say resisting urges and staying away from a drink for 366 days and nights was easy — just that staying sober didn’t feel like one of the things that made a lot of those days and nights difficult to get through. That was a relief! And I’m glad I was sober for this year because as challenging as it was, I know that drinking wouldn’t have helped in any way. Everything would’ve actually been much worse if I had been drinking through it all.
That feels especially true in relation to the various health problems I was experiencing last year. My health is a bit better now thankfully, and I can look back and recognize that it all would’ve been more difficult to diagnose and manage if I had still been getting blackout drunk most nights like I used to.
I care about my body and my overall health now. I didn’t want to take care of myself before I got sober, but now I do. I had to stop drinking to learn how to take care of myself, and to learn to see myself as someone worthy of care — from others as well as myself.
This past year of recovery really tested my commitment to my own wellbeing. At any point, I could’ve said fuck it and drank or smoked to distract myself from the pain, the dizziness, the depression, the nausea, the fatigue, and more. But I didn’t, for another whole year. For this alone I deserve a medal. I should get to hear people tell me how strong I am, and how brave, and how sexy, too, while they’re at it. I’ll settle for a little token and some applause in a meeting tonight though.
*
I’m entering this next year of recovery without a sponsor, after having been broken up with let go by mine a couple months ago. To be honest, I haven’t tried that hard to find a new one. I don’t know what that lack of effort means for me.
I thought about taking a break from going to AA meetings once that sponsor and I stopped working together. Before I could decide one way or the other though, my home group suddenly needed a new treasurer. I took this as a sign to step up and stick around.
We say that service keeps you sober, and that’s something that I found to be true this past year. I spent the first half of it completing my year-long term as Zoom host, which meant I had to log in every Sunday and facilitate the online portion of our meetings. And now, for the past two months I’ve been showing up in person each week to collect the crumpled bills that people donate.
It feels important to help keep this meeting going, especially since it’s one of the very few queer-centered meetings near where I live. I’m grateful that I’m someone who can show up to a place on time, week after week now, and that I can be trusted with other people’s money. I was not as reliable or trustworthy before recovery. I want to keep being deserving of responsibilities, and I want to keep helping this meeting continue so other queer folks in the area have a more welcoming meeting to come to.
Being a part of something bigger has been so rewarding. Being a part of something gay has felt that way too. AA doesn’t work for everyone, but it does work for a lot of people. It’s been there for me when I’ve needed it, and I think for now I still do.
*
Four years is such a long time, and it’s also no time at all. I still feel so new to recovery — in part because I am. That isn’t even half of the time I spent in active addiction in my teens and twenties. It’s long enough, however, to have started feeling like this is just a thing I do now, just a fact about me. It’s long enough that I rarely ever feel like I want to drink anymore. I’m equally surprised by the fact that it took this many years for me to stop wanting to all the time, and by the fact that the desire to drink was actually lifted at all.
I ordered that particular anniversary coin (pictured above) for my four years partly because I love space, but mostly because it has that silly Big Book quote about the fourth dimension on the back: “We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.”
Have I been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence? I think in a lot of ways, I’ve just landed back in this dimension, in this world. But what I hadn’t dreamed of is actually liking it here.
That’s something I do know, here at four years: I like how a lot of my life looks now, and I like the people in it. Back in early sobriety, I would’ve been excited to hear that was coming, if also skeptical and judgmental of whomever said that to me. Honestly, I’m judging myself for writing it here. But I might be doing a bit of a disservice to a potential reader who’s also in recovery or considering it, to not be honest about what’s possible, at risk of being a little too earnest.
Things are frequently difficult and I am often overwhelmed. I’m very worried about the future, both short- and long-term. AND also, sometimes I’m having a good time out here. I didn’t get sober to still be miserable, after all.
Some highlights from this past week, for instance: I baked several batches of cookies to give out to friends; I read a really good lesbian book; I went on a nice sunset walk; I played piano for a couple of hours at a house my bestie is staying at, trying to learn this song that’s pretty hard, especially because I’m, like, not a piano player; I worked on a couple new pieces of writing; I went to work at the very small business I started and did the job that I enjoy, despite being tired from working too much lately; I chaired a meeting and heard some inspiring things that folks shared; and I made plans with some friends who wanted to celebrate this anniversary with me.
I did not have this much goodness before recovery. I don’t want to find out what I’d lose if I went back out.
*
I’m so grateful for all the support I’ve had in getting here, and for all the encouragement and care that has kept me going. I’m also grateful for the help that’s been asked of me and for the opportunities I’ve had to show up for others. I don’t take any of this lightly, and I try to not take it for granted either.
I feel like I don’t know much at all yet. I know, however, that for a long time I wanted a lot of what I have now, and I didn’t know a lot of the rest of it was possible. They’re simple things really. Maybe I should want more; maybe I don’t have enough to celebrate today.
It’s easier to feel appreciative when things are relatively stable of course. Regardless, I think feeling that way — feeling appreciative, and also feeling periods of stability — is a sign of change and progress. I think it serves as a reminder of why recovery, in whatever form it takes, can be worth all of the work.
So today, I am full of appreciation. I’m grateful to be here, grateful for the people here with me, and grateful to be sober.
Here’s the piece I wrote for my last soberversary:
amazing and inspiring 👏 congratulations
Congrats!! This is a huge accomplishment. And I love your writing!