1290

I have been sober now for three years, six months, and thirteen days.  Not very long at all but long enough; long enough to forget.  It’s funny how easy it is to recall my moment of clarity and to recall the early days of my recovery.  I recall the events well enough.  I can recall what I thought.  I can recall the names of the emotions I felt, but honestly it has been so long ago I cannot recall, or rather re-experience those emotions.

Part of the reason I do the particular kinds of service work I do is that it gives me the opportunity to see others in a state similar to mine all those days ago.  It does not replace the gut wrenching pain I was in or the terror I felt when I could finally see that things were never going to be different.  I do not re-feel the hope I suddenly felt.  I get to see it in others though.  I get to see it in others and that helps me remember, at least mentally, what got me here and why I keep doing this.  I realize, intellectualy of course, that the process of taking the steps is an experiential learning process, and having had the experience I tend to re-experience that process intellectually.

There are rare occasions however when I am swept over with a great wave of emotion, by a profound wonder and gratitude that I have been graced with sobriety.  There are very rare times that when sharing in a meeting I have to pause before I regain the ability to speak, and when my eyes well up with tears.  Sometimes, some beautiful and breathtaking times, these feelings are so overwhelming that I weep.

I was thinking just the other day how seldom that happens anymore, twelve-hundred-odd days away from the turning point.  Then without any warning I’m hit with a great tsunami of emotion and I remember with every cell in my body, with every synapse of my nervous system, with every corner of my sometimes dimming spirit, how wondrous and how miraculous it is that I’m sober today.

For whatever reason, Day 1290 is one of those great days.