Living One Day at a Time

The concept of living one day at a time never occurred to me before I came to the rooms of AA. It may have sounded like a nice theory, but it wasn’t something I ever thought I could attain, much less apply to my own life.

Before AA, I Lived in the Past and Future

When I drank, a lot of my anxiety came from my past—what I did and failed to do. My past was filled with resentments and self-anger over what was done and what I failed to do. It was loaded with inadequacies. Of course, that was easy to mask with a few drinks, or so I thought.

If I really screwed up in my early days of drinking, I’d brush off my craziness with my friends as a badge of honor. But the sad part is that the damage can be cumulative. After a while, people around me would avoid my company as they went on living their own lives.

The consequences of drinking are also a double-edged sword. It is not just the past that creates a problem. Those actions and mistakes also impact the future. Doubt sets in, fears arise, and anxiety increases. At least, that is what occurred in my own life.

It is easy to get discouraged when you are drinking. Poor job performance, lack of career opportunities, and relationship issues are all par for the course when drinking. Chaos becomes the norm in life, and the collateral damage starts to amass.

When There Seemed to Be No Way Out

This was a point in my life when it was easy to fall into despondency and feel there was no light at the end of the tunnel. Every day became a replay of Groundhog Day. If nothing changes, nothing changes.  There came a point when depression became an accepted fate in life. For me, it literally became a jumping-off point when I came to realize I could not live with alcohol, nor could I live without it.

It is a suffocating moment to realize you are trapped, and there is no escape. Even oblivion in a drunken stupor offers no real solution. That final awareness is what drove me to AA. I needed a solution.

Day One in AA

I was fortunate enough to run into someone I used to drink with at my first meeting. He came over and asked me how I was doing. All I remember sharing was that I wanted to stop drinking.  He was obviously sober and in good spirits, and that was encouraging. After the meeting, he asked if I had some time to join him for a cup of coffee. I was more than ready to listen, and I accepted.

He then shared that he had been sober one day at a time for six months. He had found a solution to his problem in AA.  He explained that AA was a simple program for complicated people. At that first meeting, he explained that the basic solution in AA is a daily one: we don’t drink one day at a time.

He told me to forget about my past; it was history. This was day one of my sobriety. There would be plenty of time down the road to deal with the past and learn how to live differently. For now, the most important thing was simply not to drink.  He asked me if I thought I could do this for one day, and I said yes. At the time, I was 21 years old, and if someone had told me I could never drink again for the rest of my life, I probably would never have come back to AA.

But one day? I thought I could do that.

One Day at a Time Became a New Way of Living

Sobriety—stopping the drink—is not a one-time event. Living one day at a time is persevering through life’s ups and downs.

The full program of recovery in AA has twelve Steps. Each Step has allowed me greater freedom in this new life and given me a way to deal with my past. Living right today helps ensure a more promising future.

For me, this way of living gives me a purpose, even at times when I do not understand the endgame or the goal of life. It’s practice. I am dealing with what is on my plate in life today.

I am no longer dealing with the anxiety of what is yet to come or constantly facing the exposure of something I’ve done in my past. That doesn’t mean I ignore the past or avoid responsibility. The Steps gave me a way to deal with it.

Living one day at a time is not about being complacent. To me, it is about living life to its fullest. I am not avoiding life, nor am I shirking my responsibilities.

A New Beginning

Looking back, I see that living one day at a time was much more than a way to stay away from alcohol. It gave me a new beginning.  When I first came to AA, I was overwhelmed by the past and frightened by the future. I couldn’t imagine how my life could ever change. I only knew that I needed a solution.I didn’t need to figure out the rest of my life on that first day. I only needed to stay sober today.  Over time, one day became another, and another. Somewhere along the way, I discovered that I wasn’t simply staying away from alcohol. I was learning how to live.  

Today, living one day at a time allows me to enjoy my successes and learn from my mistakes. It allows me to face life’s responsibilities without being overwhelmed by everything that might happen tomorrow.  For me, it has become a grateful way of living. I can deal with what is in front of me today, learn from yesterday, and let tomorrow arrive when it gets here.

What began as a way to make it through my first day without a drink became the beginning of a purposeful life I could never have imagined.