Day 100

It's way past my work-night bedtime, but before hitting the sack I had to make note of my arrival at triple digits. Yeah, every possible milestone counts for me. Tonight I saw a fellow take his 17-year chip, and as happy as he was about it, I was far more ecstatic getting my 3 months the week before. (Maybe this tendency has something to do with my grade-grubbing childhood?)

As count-y as I am, readers might infer that each day is a white-knuckled struggle. Not so. Nor is each day feather-light bliss upon a pink cloud. I experience cravings at some point on most days. They are brief and they have triggers: end of the work day, stress, restaurants, seeing people drink on TV. (Sex and the City, for example, is not the best fluffy entertainment for the newly sober. And the other day I saw Julie and Julia, a movie in which the cast consumed more wine in two hours than I did in the entire month of April. And that, my friends, is a hell of a lot of wine.)

Cravings are okay. I'm a freaking alcoholic; I am supposed to want to drink. I feel very fortunate in that my cravings are thus far manageable without terrible duress. I recognize the feeling, name it, observe that it is yet another piece of proof that I am what I am, feel slightly wistful, think about how much I treasure my sobriety, and remind myself that the craving will pass. By that point it usually has already. If not, rinse and repeat.

The next steps would be to do some appropriate reading, call someone, maybe eat some sugar, find a meeting...and so forth. I have done all those things during the past 100 days, but I haven't had to do them because I was about to take a drink. Hence I guess I'm one of those drunks for whom the biggest traps will be adverse life events and, far more insidious, complacency.

In AA I've met two people who made it through the death of a child without losing their sobriety. If that can be done, surely anything can. In both cases, the central element seems to be that the alcoholic had an active, effective program already in place when the loss occurred, including a spiritual life and many sources of support. In essence the deal is apparently that working a conscious, mindful program every day--for good--will equip a person to face whatever slings and arrows of outrageous fortune may come.

Same thing with complacency. Everyone I know who's made it into AA, stayed for a while, and then gone back out (that's the lingo for drinking again) tells the same basic story. You get some sobriety behind you and start to feel that you have the answers. You're not going to drink again, so why go to meetings all the time? Why keep in touch with AA people? You want to live your life, not waste it in a program you don't need anymore. So you go less often and eventually not at all. You still don't drink; you think you're fine. Then one day, either in reaction to a terrible loss or just for the hell of it, without even thinking it through, you take a drink. And there you are.

Alcohol is patient, it would seem. It's willing to wait. I've met people who get years of sobriety, double digits even, only to go back out there. Naturally I hope to avoid becoming one of them. That is why, as I get ready to live on my own again, I'm more afraid of complacency than anything else I can think of. Hence this post. I have to remember what's one drink away, forever.