Living Day-to-Day

Some of you may be asking yourself what it is that I do day-to-day in my recovery. Well, I try to stay busy. Boredom/idleness is one of my "triggers", or something that starts my mind obsessing over the thought of drinking. I have many triggers, but boredom is one of the strongest for me. I will get into the trigger --> craving aspect of the disease at a later time, however, so stay tuned for that.

Essentially, for now at least, I treat sobriety much like I see prison life portrayed, minus the threat of physical violence and rape. I tried to get into an inpatient treatment program, to more realistically create this scenario, but insurance wouldn't cover it because I didn't show up in the midst of an epic bender. I told them that I could achieve this in no time, but they declined my offer. Instead, I have been going to to an evening outpatient program 5 nights a week, that gives me the regular 9-5 hours of the day to do with what I will.
Obviously, it would be convenient for me to fill this time with school or work-related activities, but since I am currently involved in neither, I have adopted a prison-style regimen to fill this void.

Most days I wake up and say a little prayer to my Higher Power to help get me through the day sober, and ask Him to direct my thoughts and actions according to His will. This behavior still surprises me every day. It was no easy task initially, because I have not been a religious or spiritual man for some time now. But I will get into that transition later on as well.

Next I hit the gym. Over the course of the last several years, I have gotten far, far away from my reasonably athletic High School days. This running, weight-training stuff is not fun for me, nor is it easy, but it gets a little better every day.

After I clean up I do my daily meditation, an example of which is posted below. It gets my thoughts oriented toward a particular aspect of my recovery and helps give me a purpose for my actions throughout the day.

After that, I usually do some reading in the Big Book of AA and/or some step work that my sponsor has recommended for me. Like the other specifics mentioned in this post, I will share with y'all some of that stuff later on.

The rest of the day is less organized, but typically involves, in no particular order, some pleasure reading, some writing, a meeting, 3 hours of treatment, some cigarette smoking, some calls to my sponsor and other AA's, and some eating here or there. Pretty much like prison, only I have the choice of being there or not. At any time I can say "eff this" and go crack a brew, but I don't. I don't because I have already noticed an improvement in my quality of life. I don't like doing all this stuff every time I do it, but I love the effect this way of life is having on me. I feel better. I don't fear the future or regret the past (as much). I still have my down moments, but they lift much quicker and the bright side seems much brighter once it comes. It may be the meds, but I like to think that all this work I'm doing is having a positive effect as well.

When the day is done, I once again say a quick prayer, thanking my Higher Power for getting me through the day sober. Then I typically pass out, but not from drugs or booze, which is an important distinction to make. That's definitely a change for me.

Some of you may ask, "What's the point of all this?" And I would respond by saying, "Good question..." The truth is, sometimes I don't know. A lot of the time, actually, I have no idea what I'm doing or why I'm doing it. What I do know is that those who are telling me that this is what I need to be doing have many, many years of sobriety under their belts. Much more time than my 36 days. Ultimately, that is what I want and I am willing to do whatever it takes to get it. Slowly, the obsession to drink is being lifted from me. Some days I actually realize, as I'm saying my nightly prayer, that I haven't thought about drinking at all. Other days, I'm not so lucky. But it seems to be working so far, so I'm gonna keep it up, because those days free from the thought of drinking are pretty effin' awesome.