I’m coming up on a sober anniversary next month. Anniversaries are always a weird and reflective time for “us sober people.” Last week I was all up in my journals from 2012.  I got sober in 2013.  2012 was a difficult year for me as well as those close to me.  It was 2012 when I landed in my “first” AA meeting.  I mean, technically I had been to meetings when I was 21, but those don’t count because I was obviously in the wrong place.  Right?  People accidentally end up in AA every day don’t they?  The morning of my first meeting I woke up hungover and still slightly drunk like every other day.  I got my children ready for school.  As I was preparing to drive them to the bus stop I couldn’t find my keys.  Then I noticed my bourbon was missing.  And my wallet.  I hadn’t been anywhere the prior evening.  These things weren’t missing.  They had been hidden from me by my husband the night before to be sure that I didn’t go anywhere.  And I was pissed.  I took his truck to the bus stop, put my children on the bus and came back to the house.  Since I couldn’t find my bourbon, the next logical step was to look for other alcohol in the house.  And I found it.  Mike’s Hard Lemonade.  Those were a thing in my life.  Technically, I drank Mike’s Harder Lemonade and because that still wasn’t hard enough, I added vodka to them.  On this morning I couldn’t find any vodka.  So I cracked open a Mike’s and called a friend.  It was 7:00 am.  I spent the next 10 minutes on the phone bitching to my friend about what a horrible man my husband was for hiding all of my things.  I hated him.  I hated him policing me and I hated him acting like he was my father.  I told him this regularly.  My friend interrupted my rant and asked why I was drinking at 7 in the morning.  I didn’t understand then that I had no coping skills and drinking AT the problem was my solution.  I was just drinking because I was pissed off.  My friend told me I needed to go to an AA meeting.  For some reason this excited me.  Probably because I was just drunk enough that this sounded fun. It was certainly something different to do with my day. She said she would come pick me up and drive me to the meeting.  She had already found one online and it started at 8 am.  Perfect timing.   I got off the phone and got ready for my new adventure.  Here comes the good part…….My friend called back and said her car wasn’t in her driveway.  She forgot that she had been drinking the night before and left her car parked elsewhere.  She couldn’t take me to the meeting.  At this point, I was ready and I was going to the meeting.  I called another friend who seemed to think it was  a great idea for me to go to an AA meeting.  She came over immediately.  I grabbed another Mike’s out of the fridge and jumped in her car.  She drove me to the church and pointed out the blue AA sign that was hanging in the window.  She was familiar with meetings and had been to many herself.  Court ordered, I’m sure.  I poured out what was left of my hard lemonade and walked inside.  This new adventure was neither fun nor exciting, I promise.  But, I am fairly certain I brought some excitement to the meeting.  It was so weird.  If you have never been drunk in an AA meeting at 8 am, you might not get it, but if you have, well, you know.  There are no words.  Keep in mind that I voluntarily showed up here.  Nobody made me go.  And it was in this moment that I chose to unleash every bit of anger I had inside of me. I was angry at my husband.  I was angry at my life.  I was angry that I was the one in the AA meeting when clearly, all of my friends should be there with me.  The room was full of “old men drinking coffee” and one woman who I now know was new to recovery.  She was probably terrified.  I was asked to introduce myself but refused to do it the way they had done it.  I would not call myself an alcoholic. I most likely told them “my name is Shannon and I am a mermaid.”  That was one of my favorite ways to introduce myself in meetings there for a while.   I let them know that the 12 steps were bullshit and they didn’t work.  Obviously they didn’t work since I had been to a few meetings when I was 21 and here I was, not sober.  I cussed and cried and called them names.  They came at me with smiles and pamphlets.  AA people are big on their pamphlets.  They told me to “keep coming back.”  They invited me to a speaker meeting that evening in the same church.  They told me there would be cake and promised me that it was a fun time.  Nothing about this sounded like fun to me anymore.  However, I agreed to come back and told them I would bring a “fucking casserole to their sober party.”  I still owe them a casserole.  I called a different, more reliable friend to come and pick me up when the meeting was over.  Now I was armed with pamphlets and a schedule of all the local meetings.  We drove to my friend’s house (the one who couldn’t find her car), to tell her I had made it to AA.  She was pleased until I snagged a beer out of her fridge.  That part just confused her. I  made a plan to hit the next meeting on the schedule.  At noon.  I am sure there were several beers in my life before I hit the noon meeting.  My friend (the reliable one) actually went to the meeting with me.  She was my designated driver for the day. Again, when the meeting started, I felt the need to unleash every bit of anger in my being.  The AA people directed their comments to my friend.  Probably because it was clear they were going to be lost on me.  My memory of this second meeting is a bit more fuzzy than the first.  Thanks alcohol.  I promise I was an asshole.  I like to think that was the last meeting I went to on that day, but I can’t be sure.  I do know that I went back the next day.  To a women’s meeting.  I hated it and I hated them.  I am sure I told them about it too.  The women weren’t nearly as kind to me when I cussed and cried as the old men had been.  I was not a fan of that meeting or those women and didn’t go back for a LONG time.  But I did keep going to meetings with coffee drinking old men.  Usually when I was drinking.  Sometimes I would wait until afterwards.  I went to meetings for a solid year without really trying to not drink.  I kept thinking that eventually I would want to be sober, and when I did, I would just stop drinking. I honestly thought it would be THAT simple. Unfortunately, the not drinking part was the hardest part of getting sober.  Who knew?  I’ll tell you who knew…….every freaking sober person in the world.  Every person who had been sharing at those meetings I had been going to.  We all know how this story ends.  I am sober today.  I am sober because I took that ALL IN thing I do and applied it to my recovery.  I went ALL IN with meetings sometimes going to two or three a day. I went ALL in with meditation, creating a local group to sit with and going to meditation retreats. I went ALL IN with yoga which is why I now own a yoga studio. These three things were the magic combination for me. It’s different for everyone but that magic combination is there for everyone. You just have to find what works for you. And now, here’s the kicker……the easiest part of being sober is the not drinking part.  Seriously.