Day Eighty Eight

Let’s take a moment just to consider how far you’ve come. We can look at this in so many different ways. Look at how far we’ve come since yesterday morning. Since the start of thing year. You can see how far you’ve come from the moment you decided you wanted to make the change of trying life sober. Look at how far you’ve come from the darkest parts of your drinking.

I oftentimes compare how far I’ve come based on the material. I can belittle my growth based on what I own then, based on what I own now. I am not rich, I do not have the fanciest of everything, so that can signal to me that my growth hasn’t worked. When I make my job the sole reason I exist on planet earth I can destabilise myself by comparing myself to other people in my field, and say I haven’t reached my professional goals so all of this must be for nothing. But then I can remind myself, those things are incredible and I am grateful for them every day, but they aren’t the gifts, the peace of mind is.

With greater peace of mind, I can more effectively attribute to those goals. Then I can try and look deeper, and truly look back at my past and see the behaviours I don’t engage with anymore, all of the things that I wouldn’t have been able to handle before, and all of the mending of the past I’ve been able to do.

Remember always, this is not linear. Whatever your day count, however you feel right now, it’s all part of the pattern – and steps backwards doesn’t mean you’re doing badly. Temporary pain doesn’t mean it’s not working. It’s all part of the path.

And what’s more, the more I do this work, the more I know it never has to get that bad again.