Facing Responsibilities Sober
I had been sober for nearly ten years and felt secure in my recovery. During that time, I started and chaired a small Step Study meeting that met every Friday morning. I also worked evenings at a job that required seven days a week. My daily commute took about an hour and a half. Life was busy. I had a wife and young family, and much of my time went toward caring for sick children and making trips to the emergency room.
Learning to Set Priorities
I shared my concerns with a friend and mentor in AA. I told him I felt I should attend more meetings. He understood the demands I faced. However, he reminded me that AA is not a hideout. He told me that sober living means putting first things first and learning how to set priorities. Then he asked me a simple question:
“Are you thinking about drinking?”
I told him no.
His question helped me understand something important. Sobriety means facing life’s responsibilities, not avoiding them. As alcoholics, we may want to escape painful situations. Recovery teaches us how to live through them rather than run from them. He also told me that if I ever started thinking about drinking, I needed to get to more meetings as quickly as possible.
I never forgot that advice.
Sobriety is about how I live, not about making excuses or putting myself first. As alcoholics in recovery, we are not exempt from dealing with life on life’s terms. The difficult seasons of raising a family, facing illness, and carrying heavy responsibilities do not last forever. Therefore, endurance in sobriety often means living one day at a time, one twenty-four-hour period at a time.
Sobriety Beyond the Meeting Room
When I read the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, I was especially moved by the section in Step Three describing how World War II became an early major test of the Fellowship’s principles.*
Many AA members served in the military and were scattered across the world. People wondered how newly sober alcoholics would handle the fear, stress, and loneliness of war without local meetings, sponsors, or fellowship close at hand.
Think about that for a moment. There were no Zoom meetings, no cell phones, and no easy way to stay connected. Yet many of those members stayed sober. In fact, their strength came from dependence on a Higher Power and from practicing the spiritual principles of the program each day. That same truth carried me through my own difficult season.
I relied on my Higher Power and practiced the Twelve Steps to the best of my ability each day. As a result, I met my responsibilities and remained comfortably sober at the same time.
My Higher Power and the Steps became one of the greatest sources of strength in my recovery.
What Sobriety Taught Me
Every day in sobriety brings new lessons.
During that period of my life, I learned that hard times do not last forever. More importantly, I learned that some of the best guidance I have ever received has come through other members of the program.
I remain forever grateful for the grace of a loving God, and for the better way of life I found in AA.
*(pages 38–39 of the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. )