I might finally have enough internet to get back to this regularly.
I have a lot of thoughts, but today I am fixated on the one thing: sobriety. Six years now.
But any alcoholic will tell you that it isn’t one lump sum, it’s a string of single days, hours, moments, even seconds that just happen to coalesce into a single unit of measure.
There was a moment a few months after day one when I walked onto a boat and was overcome with anxiety, salivating like a madman for a drink. My amazing wife stopped in the middle of this big ship and, knowing only that AA is something to do with a higher power, offered to pray with me if I needed it.
The courage it took to fight for my sobriety with me in that moment without hesitation. That is some badass shit.
I We made it through that moment.
I was driving to Cleveland from Chicago via a stop in Indiana to replace a bandwagon I had busted up. The entire drive I was white knuckling it, cranking Jason Isbell to repeat the mantras that might keep me clean for the day.
When I got to Cleveland I wanted to get to a bar and get blackout drunk.
My friends Todd and Keith were waiting upon our arrival.
I’m a hugger. A good one I have been told. But when I hugged Todd I was less hugging and more holding on for dear life. He didn’t know then that he was holding me up when I wanted so very badly to collapse.
My friend Katie K, my best friend Kris, my brother Anthony, have all held me up when I thought I might otherwise fall; they were strong for me when I couldn’t find the strength within myself.
I’m forgetting more than I remember, but I feel it is not hyperbole to say that you have probably held me up once or twice.
A stupid meme.
A card.
A Christmas ornament.
Little things that remind me of the beauty I would miss if I ever picked up again.
Don’t tell TGB, but, the best of all of that is when I wake up and she’s sleeping and I get to just look at her face. That fucking face. That’s when I thank god for one more day sober. One more day alive. One more day with this person.
Have a day.
