What Keeps me Here

I’ve been thinking about the processes of starting and stopping, sliding and progressing, and even completely falling off the path. While the desire to move forward in a positive direction seems to have been planted somewhere deep inside, motivation is at best a flakey companion. I’ve had periods of time, okay decades, where I felt I was plotting my course in the wrong direction. That any good I achieved was overshadowed by the general decline of the quality of life I was living. Then, I got sober.

For the last two plus years I have been on a positive trajectory. The good I achieve in life now outshines the lapses in motivation and challenging times. At my last doctor’s appointment, there were new concerns about some weight gain and high(er) blood pressure. “But I don’t drink now, and haven’t for 29 months,” I proudly announced when questioned about my history of alcohol use disorder. And that, in my mind, means everything will be okay.

I’ve had a few drinking dreams lately, probably my brain acting out an old, repeated behavior as a response to stress in my life. But upon waking I always feel initial relief, followed by the questions What keeps me from going there again? What keeps me here?

Some people in recovery have the clearly defined line that they cannot cross. If they drink/use again, they will die. Their bodies will not take anymore and will revolt, shut down, give out. But others, including myself, live in a gray area, and gray areas always leave room for what ifs…. I don’t have the certainty of: If I started drinking again I would die. But what is certain is that I can’t moderate when I drink, and if I started drinking again it would lead to a bad eventual end. I didn’t get a bad health diagnosis as a result of my drinking. Wasn’t ever hospitalized, didn’t lose a job or my family or get into legal trouble. I stopped drinking for the simple fact that it was killing my soul, and eating away at my quality of life. I knew there was no room for it in my life that included a happy ending.

So what keeps me here, then, in the land of sobriety? What if something horrible happens and I can’t cope with the pain, or the grief? What if I lose my way and my faith? What if I simply don’t care anymore how hard it was to quit and how it negatively affected my relationships and robbed me of my sense of self? What keeps me here, instead of drifting over there again?

I can’t speak for my mental wellbeing if, say, we were to be in some apocalyptic situation where there was no hope for a future. What I can say is this life, as it continues to unfold, has been do-able day by day with God’s help. And there is not a thing that has or can happen to me that drinking would make better. And I never again want to be that mom or that wife or that daughter or that friend that disappoints, hurts or confuses those around her because she can’t think straight. Most important, though, I never want to let myself down again.

That’s who I am now. And that’s what keeps me here.