Two Years Sober - A Review

If I have one drink, I'll have two. And if I have two drinks, I'll have ten. And after that, I'm drinking until I don't know how to stop anymore. 

Maybe it doesn't happen all at once. Maybe I can limit myself to just one drink at a time, during social outings with friends. Maybe after awhile I allow myself two. And maybe even I can keep myself to that limit.

But I know deep down, it's only a matter of time. It's just a bad day away when I think "what does it even matter?" and I let myself escape to that numb feeling only alcohol seemed to bring me. I promise myself it'll just be that one night and then I'll get back on track. 

Or maybe it's a really good day and I feel I deserve the right to celebrate in excess. After all, I've proven I have control again. It's time to let loose and tomorrow I'll get back to moderation.

But it'll never work like that. One bad day snowballs into lots of bad days and lots of reasons to want to feel numb. Funny enough, one drunken celebration of a good day also snow balls into lots of bad days. Lots of chasing that happy feeling while it gets further and further away.

And then before long, all semblance of control is long gone and I'm stuck wondering how I let it get so bad. Wondering if I'll ever be able to get sober again.

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Year two certainly had it's challenges, but staying sober was rarely ever one of them. And I think that's due to me always keeping the above in mind. I've heard a lot of people say year two was harder than year one because they thought they had control (since they already did a whole year without alcohol) and decided to try having "just one" again. And for most of them, it didn't take long til they were back where they started. So I guess, in a sense, I'm lucky that I still in no way think I can have control. 

That said, I did not get back to being as physically active as I'd been hoping to for year two. I wasn't a complete couch potato, but due to some personal stuff that happened throughout the year as well as me just generally loving sitting on my couch (or laying in bed), I didn't get out as much as I'd like. 

Does that mean I hope to try and change that in year three? Yes, yes it does.

More importantly for this next year though (or at least I think it's more important - some days it's hard to tell what I should be prioritizing, but that's something to talk about another time) is getting serious about planning for the next stage of my life. I'm not even sure what that means, but I've been spending the last few months thinking a lot about where I am vs. where I want to be (and where I believe God is telling me I should be going) and the two(/three) places are definitely not the same.