Clean Living

As I was making my bed and getting ready for work yesterday, implementing my Million Dollar Morning routine, a thought struck me. Before I quit drinking, I would never in a million years been able live the way I’m living today. At this productive pace. At this level of fulfillment. The normal day for me was a day of settling for mediocrity. Getting through the day by checking off the least amount of boxes to still maintain basic functioning. Not feeling well (especially in the mornings) was normal. Beating myself up was normal. Feeling tired, and unmotivated, and stuck was normal.

All of our lives are marred with struggles and pain. Yet we don’t have to make it harder, and darker, by coping with suffering by creating more of it.

In March I will celebrate five years of sobriety. I am welcoming the new year with meaningful goals and a path toward achieving them. A path that was completely obscured with brambles and weeds while I was drinking. My new lifestyle is more active and interactive, more purposeful and productive. The path is illuminated by the power and light within me.

I say this not to be boastful but to illustrate the contrast. All of our lives are marred with struggles and pain. Yet we don’t have to make it harder, and darker, by coping with suffering by creating more of it. It seems as if it would be intuitive, but when you are on auto-pilot, constantly employing the coping mechanisms you grasped for to pull you out of the first pit because you “learned” that this life needs constant coping, it is not. However, when you throw out your unhealthy coping skills–the booze, the pills, the overeating, the obsessive consumerism, the gambling, the porn, the scrolling–two things happen in order. One, you feel like you’ve stepped out of an airplane without a parachute and need to learn how to fly, and two, you become comfortable with the sensation of falling and realize that feeling it is the only way through it.

We are all going to hit the ground someday. We can choose to numb out with the goal of not feeling anything, or learn how to experience the good, bad, and in-between with clear eyes and a courageous heart. Having chosen the latter nearly five years ago, I can testify that numbing out is debilitating, life-stealing, and hopelessly elusive. Living clean is engaging, inspiring, and satisfyingly solid. By changing my lifestyle and ditching the alcohol, I can now experience the simple joy found in showing up for myself each day and striving to be the best version of me I can dream up.

So if you feel like you are in the dark and can’t see the way out, maybe you need to take that leap of faith. It’s a whole lot brighter out here.