Six years

Today I have six years of continuous sobriety. It feels good. I got up to five years and then relapsed twice for a couple days each on a one-year span. By 12-step math, I have six years. By my numerology (my favorite word to misuse!), I have 11.5 years minus a week.

Some people at the meetings talk about getting a life better than beyond their wildest dreams. I can easily imagine a better life for me. The great news is that I have learned how to accept the life I have as being good enough. Taking the time each day to write about what I am grateful for has been the biggest blessing in my life since getting sober. I am much more likely to be focused on the good parts of life than the bad parts. For example when driving down the road, I can either fume at the driver that cut me off two miles back or I can focus on being mindful of all of the natural beauty that is around me and the miracles of our modern transportation system. Guess which option feels better? Guess which one is the one I would fixate on left to "my own best thinking"?

I am grateful for the life that I have today. I got to do some service work with others stuffing information packets for professionals, stop by Costco to have $180 worth of copying done while I waited, have lunch & shop while waiting, drive around on a beautiful summer day in Seattle, have a steak for dinner, watch a good foreign flick (okay, it was a Hong Kong Kung Fu movie) and read a book. That is good enough for today.