Thursday, October 09, 2008

State of Sobriety

Over the last few weeks, with all the turmoil happening in almost every aspect of daily life, I have begun to ask myself a lot of the questions. What will my retirement look like? Will I continue to have a job next year? Will this end? How much will oil cost to heat the house this winter? It's been daunting to everyone in the global community.

It seems like we are constantly faced with adversity inside and outside the home. And it's been monumentally stressful to think about all of these questions over and over, every minute of the day, while still maintaining some kind of quality of life.

There was a time I would have added sobriety and all its question to the same list. I would have looked at it as a hindrance, another stressful event to ponder over while reading the tumultuous news reports each day. I may have even considered taking all the stress I feel about life in general and justified drinking at this point. And, for some reason, I have found that in all of this inconsistency going on, sobriety is an enormous source of stability in my life.

Think about sobriety as a financial investment. The return on investments, both short term and long term, are extremely high. I invest in my own sanity, solace and well being and I am able to amply produce more. My overhead is extremely low because I no longer require an extra hundred or so dollars a week to sustain my business of getting really inebriated. The insurance may be high, but I can almost guarantee that I will not default so long as I maintain minimum payments. I am continually reassessing my equities within sobriety and there is always positive movement. I don't think there are many other avenues today that guarantee all of these things.

And, in life, if I lost my job, money, house, heat, etc. I would still have the ability to say I am sober. To me, particularly in this state of being, sobriety ranks high on my list of assets that I am proud to continually invest in.

6 comments:

shinyruby2 said...

inspiring thoughts.. as I'm definitely stuck in the early part of your post... being under 90 days myself, I'm really struggling. But I look forward to
getting to where you are!

x

Anonymous said...

I can really relate to this.

One of the many joys I have in being sober is being able to do some seemingly normal things, stuff that is easy to take for granted, and at completely random times be struck by feeling extremely grateful.

This feeling has elements of joy and a sense of wonder. A sort of "Wow - I can do this now/freely/easily/etc."

It was hard to believe when I was struggling to get sober that I would ever view my alcoholism as an asset. Yet I can't help but think that it gives me a well of life experience that can be a real benefit.

Like being randomly struck with feeling good about a situation that could be seen as bad, or tough, or worrisome.

Unknown said...

Kudos to you!!! It has been a while, since last i read this blog but this was a great post. Glad to see you're sticking to your convictions even in these tumultuous times.

I am proud of you.

-Brett

Anonymous said...

What an well-put way of saying this. I often had thought that staying sober was another burden, and have come ask myself. "how did I get anything done without being sober?" My sobriety is like an investment... what I put forth today will provide enormous rewards tomorrow!

Anonymous said...

Wow - I am on the eve of plunging into sobriety and have debated myself over and over why I am doing this - I hurt no one - and this blog just hit home - I am an executive and I put in 200% at work however being "fuzzy" or hung over makes it seem like only 100% and if I am going to go ahead and work 12-14 hour days, why dont I make them count.

Anonymous said...

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