Sobriety has a way of recreating a state that you drank to forget. When I first got sober, I isolated myself. I felt lonely, sad and hopeless but it felt familiar. A resemblance to my 13-year-old actuality who was trying to escape my desolate dysfunctional world through community anesthetics. And so, sobriety says, let us pick up right before you embarked on a journey into the enslavement of sedatives, the point where you began to retreat into the clouds of poison. That's where sobriety begins, the emotional point where you chose to absorb something other than your feelings of despair.
From there, you let God steer you into faith while you copilot the daily activities of your life. You let go and you feel everything from that point on or you risk losing the bit of frail faith that managed to reside within you all those years, you risk suffering forevermore. If I was going to be dependent on anything, it was going to be hope and faith. It was no longer a substance.
It takes courage to do this. To challenge the painful cycle of generational wounds that keeps us drenched in despair. To surrender to faith for a better future. To have hope in the possibility of inner peace. To risk being different and push against the societal current of drinking culture. I am profoundly lucky that I get to witness the adventure of life from a sober perspective. I have the privilege to bravely endure the good and the bad, to observe life's miracles and setbacks without retreating into sentimental sedation. And the gift of recording it all onto the fabric of my human heart. You can too if you so choose. All you need is a spec of frail faith to get started.
