OMG I made it!

Dear God,

Today is Day 30!! 

30 days of sobriety means something in AA.  I won’t be going to a meeting tonight, so I won’t get my 30 day chip until later this week. I’d get my chip on Thursday, but I’m holding out until Friday because I want to get my chip from my sponsor A. I figure she has to put up with my daily text messages, so she ought to get the pleasure of handing me that 30-day chip.

I went to a meeting last night. I was the only person in the room for about 10 minutes, and then one other person showed up.

Long and short of it…we both needed that meeting.   We shared about our challenges and our awareness that sobriety means changing the way that we relate to the world and see ourselves in relation to the world (which is so much more than just ‘don’t drink or do drugs’…so much more!)  In fact, we talked for an entire hour.

We both really needed that meeting.

Today I am really grateful that I don’t have to be sober alone. Today I am really grateful for one other person who shows up to help me stay sober another day. Today I am really grateful for AA literature, for sponsors, for the 12 steps, and for the realization that I while I am powerless over alcohol, I have the power to go to a meeting. I am grateful for the fellowship I find in AA, and that I am not alone anymore.

Today, despite all the things that tell me that I should be grumpy and unhappy, I am happy to be sober and able to work a program.

God grant me the strength to start working the steps (beyond the first three…like, I need to start figuring out the crazy crap that got my drunk in the first place, so I need to start step four) and to trust my sponsor to get me through the emotions that will come up when I start getting really honest with myself. Help me to retain my gratefulness when things get painful, and to trust that the promises in the Big Book will actually happen for me if I am willing to work the steps.

Most of all, God, grant me the strength to show up to meetings when it might be just me and one other person. Keep me in that chair in an empty room long enough for someone else to show up, because that someone else needs me to be there just like I need them.

Thanks for sticking with me through the first 30 days!