Here’s a thing to know about me.  I like it when things magically happens for me.  When I don’t have to do any work and shit just gets done.  Rarely does this happen, but that doesn’t stop me from hoping.   I am currently waiting for this to happen with my taxes.  When a warning light comes on in my car, I prefer for it to magically go  off all on it’s own.  I not only prefer it, I expect it.  Sometimes it works out that way and sometimes it doesn’t.  When I announced to my readers that I am writing a book, I fully expected that I would magically have the discipline to sit down at the same time everyday and write.  Without distractions.  This has not magically happened for me.  YET.  I’m still hopeful.  I’m still writing.  Just not with the magic discipline I had imagined.  Certainly not with no distractions.  You best believe that when I declared to the world I was going to get sober I had no doubt that it would just happen for me.  Magically.  Because that is my preferred way.  I assure you it did not happen that way.  I pick up a lot of new followers and friends on social media because of my sober status.  Every time I post about sobriety, someone new reaches out to me to inquire about how it’s done.  I know how it worked for ME so that is always where I start. I also know that there are many ways to the top of the mountain, so I share resources that might be helpful.  I always give my time to the people who reach out for help.  If the person is local it almost always ends with them asking me to go with them to a meeting so they don’t have to go alone.  I always agree even though I rarely go to meetings anymore, because meetings are a great place to start.  I know that first meeting is super scary. Here’s an interesting fact.  I have gone to exactly zero meetings with the people who reach out and ask for help.  Because, inevitably, something else comes up and they can’t make it.  And I get it.  I so get it.  They know they have a problem, they kinda/sorta want to do something about it, but ultimately, they want it to happen for them.  Magically.  And I hope it does.  I also know that as much as I want it to happen for me, my taxes aren’t going to get done unless I do them.  My book isn’t going to get written unless I sit down and write it.  The warning light on my car is a toss up.  There’s a chance it actually could go off all on its own.  Doubtful, but possible.  For my readers out there waiting to magically get sober, I promise you it doesn’t happen.  Ever.  When I first arrived in the rooms of AA it wasn’t even because I had a problem with alcohol.  It was strictly because the people around me had a problem with my alcohol use.  I didn’t even try to get sober in the beginning.  I drank on my way to meetings.  I was in a meeting once and the person sharing made a reference to the bottles they used to hide in their active drinking days.  I learned in that meeting that lots of “those people” hid their drinking.  They hid bottles around the house so nobody would know they were drinking, or maybe just how much they were drinking.  That knowledge changed my life.  It was the most brilliant thing I had ever heard.  Why hadn’t I thought of it?  That knowledge changed my life because on that day I started to hide my drinking.  That decision (if you can call it that) changed my life in awful ways.  Seriously.   Once I started to hide my drinking it made perfect sense to have a drink at 6 am.  Why not? Nobody would know.  It would be as if it didn’t happen.  On those mornings I would hold my hand under the ice dispenser and catch the ice as it fell so it wouldn’t make noise hitting the glass.  I would make breakfast and pack lunches while drinking bourbon.  Those days all run together and none of them make sense.  I do know that some of those mornings I would wake up and know that I had things to do and if I started drinking, I wouldn’t be able to do them.  I started to understand the severity of the situation when I would promise myself I wouldn’t drink until 5 pm (or let’s call it 2 pm) but my hands would shake so badly that by 8 am, I was having a drink to make them stop.  That’s when the fear set in for me.  That’s when I really began to understand that no matter how much I wanted to wish myself sober it wasn’t going to happen.  I was depressed and the alcohol was making that, along with everything else, worse.  I felt like the biggest loser in the world.  Really, who drinks so much that their body becomes addicted to alcohol and they have to drink in the morning to function?. How does this happen to a woman in her 30’s who has everything in the world that should make her life perfect?   In my mind that kind of alcoholism was reserved for the people who lived under bridges and drank from  brown paper bags.  But in my heart, I knew what this was. And it terrified me.   I had been addicted to “worse” things.  So I thought.  And I had beaten those addictions.  But once I crossed that line with alcohol, and my body was physically addicted, it was the same horrible addiction as any other addiction I ever had to fight.  And it took me down lower and lower for the next year and a half.  There was no magical cure for me.  I had to decide that I wanted to be sober more than I wanted to drink.   That meant that I had to choose sobriety above all else.  When things sucked, and everything does in early sobriety, I had to choose not to drink.  I had to stop making excuses and show up every day ready to do the work.  I had to stop expecting that I could latch onto someone who would make it easier for me.  It’s lonely getting sober.  (Latching on is a whole different set of issues.)  We are all familiar with the term one day at a time, but it’s often more about one hour, one minute or one breath at a time.  It’s a fucking battle some days.  In the beginning, I would say it’s a battle most days.  Being in contact with people who are in the midst of it and looking for a way out keeps it fresh for me.  It is so much easier to be sober than it is to get sober.  Getting sober is for the warriors who have the strength to say I want to live.  I never expect the people who reach out to me to “get it” right away.  And that’s ok. It doesn’t mean I’m not hopeful each and every time.  Because I am.    I just hope they get it before it’s too late.  I’m here for anyone who reaches out.