Just for Today, I’m Sober

To an alcoholic, sobriety is as miraculous as water changing into wine. Because it isn’t one’s natural state, something supernatural has to happen to transform the nature of the beast.

If I forget to honor that supernatural fact, I’ll revert to my natural state. My own life was transformed 21 years ago. Years later, I did forget, and I became water again. That wasn’t fun. I spent three years vacillating ~ water / wine, water / wine, very confusing ~ before I experienced the miracle again.

Today I celebrate a new sobriety anniversary. It’s bittersweet because longevity is a badge of honor among recovering alcoholics. My husband has been sober almost 24 years. I celebrate three years today, and my heart is thankful for that. My competitive spirit isn’t: I coulda been an old-timer!

I’ve had to relearn the method of living in gratitude one day at a time. Yesterday’s gratitude doesn’t keep me sober today, just like yesterday’s food doesn’t feed me today. Yesterday’s food is already shit.

I’m in a state of flux again. It’s not the water / wine thing; it’s happy / sad, content / frightened. I was told last August that the death of my mother would be a life-shifting event. Well. So it is. The future has become uncertain. (Ha! she said, as if it were ever otherwise!)

I read this message this morning in “Twenty-Four Hours a Day,” a daily meditation book:

“We can forget about the future. We know from experience that as time goes on, the future takes care of itself. All we need to think about is today. When we get up in the morning and see the sun shining through the window, we thank God that he has given us another day to enjoy, a day in which we may have a chance to help somebody.

"All is fundamentally well. That does not mean that all is well on the surface of things. But it does mean that God is in his Heaven and that he has a purpose for us. Don’t be upset by the surface wrongness of things, but feel deeply secure in the fundamental goodness of God’s world.”