Another Sober Sunday Morning

I find that my gratitude for sobriety surfaces during the most mundane moments. It blossoms and blooms into my thoughts not at the peak of moments filled with excitement, but mostly while I'm going through the very average and very unexciting motions of the day in and the day out.

It happened this morning as I was brushing my teeth.

Suddenly, the thought, "I am sooo glad I'm sober", floated through my head like a balloon and I grasped the end of its string and pulled it down close.

I'm so glad I don't have to wake up and deal with the effects of a hangover.

I'm so thankful to not wake up with the hammering in my head, the churning in my stomach, and the dirty, rotten, stink taste in my mouth.

I'm so glad I can brush my teeth without gagging. (and to think I always thought it was the toothpaste!)

I'm so thankful I'm not sitting here at 10:30 in the morning hating myself. I'm not sitting here consumed with regret and shame and remorse for the night before. I'm not sitting here struggling with the thoughts of never doing that again and just a few more to get me straight alternating through my head. I'm not sitting here bargaining with myself or making promises I know damn well I can't keep.

I'm just so grateful not to have to deal with that shit anymore!

I'm so grateful not to FEEL like shit anymore!

I'm so grateful to have a choice not to feel that way because for a long time I didn't think I had a choice. I felt following through on the choice of not drinking was hopeless and my solution to that hopelessness was to drink some more.

I remember countless Sunday mornings (or afternoons it would have been) feeling this dirty, scumminess under my skin. Like there was this layer of grime and filth trapped in my body that no amount of soap and scrubbing could touch or eliminate. How I hated that feeling. I could separated myself from it. I couldn't shake it off. I would shower and rinse and splash water on my face in futile attempts make it go away. Even now I'm repulsed just thinking of it, thinking how gross it was and how gross I felt while it was happening. The only thing that would keep the awareness of it at bay was to drink until I was consumed by the feeling of drunkenness and to continue drinking until I passed out later that day. Which, of course, would result in my feeling much the same way all over again. The same day, the same shitty feelings all over again.

Thank GOD I don't have to feel that way again. Thank GOD there is another way and can choose to take it. Thank GOD for AA.