Saturday morning group topic was Year 1 of sobriety. We talked about the obstacles of being sober. Really the obstacles are just every day situations that we chose to ignore and turned to our addiction for “comfort”. The core reason we use is for Comfort. We by nature do not like to be uncomfortable. We can give all kinds of reasons for using but at the very core of theses reasons it about being comfortable. My take on year one of sobriety is you need to establish E.R (effective routine) to me addiction is a Habit. Eventually addiction will have your whole day planned out for you. From the time we wake up to whenever we fall asleep addiction is in control. People don’t break habits they start new ones E.R. Year one of sobriety is all about starting new habits it like a Job. After awhile you know how to do your job well because you practice. Pretty soon that practice becomes the new habit. That first year is where we put the work in and after that year is when our Recovery begins. Being sober and being in recovery are two different things. Being sober is having a ticket to the dance , being in Recovery is the Dance! Be well my friend work and then dance.
I remember I had been going to AA meetings for a few months and my brain was just starting to clear up and i was sitting in the meeting thinking to myself that these meetings work so well because they are like CBT ( cognitive behavioral therapy) . I started to feel better because my “routines” changed enough for me to be able to stay sober long enough to get some skills to deal with the uncomfortable emotions that are really just part of life. I learned that while Bill W. Himself may not have been a psychologist he did however seek out people who knew more than him on those subjects such as Carl Jung for his advice/opinion on alcoholism. I’m grateful that for whatever reason those meetings/those steps/ that design for living has given me a chance go dancing 