I think one of the more challenging things in early recovery is trying to figure out what to do. In my case, everything I ever did had alcohol involved with it. When I wasn't doing anything social, I still had alcohol involved with it. When I stopped drinking, I truly felt lost. I literally didn't know what to do with myself. I suddenly longed for every social situation I bailed on prior to quitting. All the parties, all the bar hopping, etc. My brain couldn't visualize doing anything fun without alcohol. 

Part of the difficulty is the relationships I had. I had quite the reputation with most of my friends. That's all they knew of me -- my ability to party and an epic tolerance for alcohol. The invitations were still coming my way now and again to attend events. Instead of not going because I knew I would probably get a DUI trying to get home, I wasn't going because I was trying not to drink. That made my addict brain really upset. Suddenly, I wanted to go to everything. Right now. On the flip side, there were healthier relationships that had almost ceased to exist because I stopped paying attention to them. These would have been the relationships to keep around and would have been a better support when getting sober, but I had made the same mistake that many addicts do -- I fed the relationships that met my immediate social and alcohol needs. 

Fear not, for those of you in early recovery, the relationships will fall where they may. Some folks I found were gone the minute I got sober. Some folks thought addiction issues were just BS and couldn't respect what I was trying to do. Some folks were just down right awesome and stood by me. It's not the world's easiest adjustment. There were friends I really wanted to stick around but no matter how hard I tried, the relationships didn't work. There are some relationships that I thought would never last that turned out to be the greatest supports I have ever known. 

For the few years before I got sober, I used to go to the State Fair with a friend. We drank a lot together when we worked together. Even when I left the job, we were both in unhappy marriages and we were in a great position to drink our woes away. I did have a really good time and I was always really excited to go and we had built a tradition for several years. Six years ago at this time, I was about a week out of the hospital after an epic relapse requiring a 6 day detox. I remember sitting at home thinking that the fair was coming up and there was no way that I was going to be able to go anymore. Trust me, the pity party was in full force.

One day I finally came up with the idea of bringing my nephew to fair. This was going to be a totally different experience. Normally, it would have been - get there at 3:00, start drinking, visit 2-3 areas, eat, drink some more, visit something else and then have a few for the road. This visit was going to be getting up at 6:30am, catching the bus, hitting every single thing that we can manage, eating, laughing, watching people, more walking, riding rides, eating, laughing some more and spoiling this little one ROTTEN. 

One thing I had learned in DBT was "building a life worth living". Part of the process was finding new traditions, new hobbies and new things to do. As the years have passed, this time of year is just my favorite. At the beginning of the month, I get to celebrate my "other birthday" which has formed a totally cool new tradition with my family and my recovery support crew. Then, the focus turns to the state fair. My nephew and I talk about it all year around. Now my niece and I are going to start our own tradition this year as well. There is no greater pleasure for me than to see the state fair through the eyes of these kids. It's a full day of "whatever you want to do." We play. We laugh and talk 120 pictures of smiles and joy. If that isn't "a life worth living", I don't know what is.

It's taken me some time for me to develop new traditions. I have sought new traditions through volunteer work, through AA meetings, through reaching out to friends and trying to recreate activities I liked to do without alcohol. It's taken the effort of pushing through times of anxiety. It has taken me time to gain the confidence to be ok with what I like to do now. I had to take some chances. Some of them worked out, some of them didn't. Whether a person is in recovery or not, life changes over time and we all need to keep a degree of flexibility to adapt as life moves forward. When I was using, I wanted everything to stay the same. I didn't like change. I didn't like when other people's lives changed. Recovery finally got me to a point of flexibility. It's much nicer here.

I look forward to building more traditions in my life. 

​Julie

It's that time of year when I celebrate my "other" birthday. My sober birthday. 08/09/2010. So, yes, I am a few days early. I have a tradition now of getting my medallion at the AA group I first started attending in the beginning of my recovery. I went today to get my medallion. My mom was there to present it to me. My how our lives have changed. I am no longer trying to hide my secrets and shame from her, instead, I can proudly say in front of her, "Hi everyone! I am Julie. I am an alcoholic and I have been sober 6 years!" So cool.

After 6 years, I thought it might be fun to look at the 12 steps of recovery:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.  - I never really had a problem with the first part of this step. I knew I was powerless over alcohol, it just took me about 15 years to figure out that my life was unmanageable. Once I got there though, I finally was empowered to make the long-term changes I needed to make. 
   
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. - I was still pretty mad at God when I was first getting sober, but the irony was is that I still believed in Him. Can't be mad at Him without believing in Him. I felt insane. I tried to do everything I could to try to control my drinking. It never worked. Why not give this a try? My way sure wasn't working
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. - At a meeting, someone once said, "When I drive, I drive into the ditch, I sit in the passenger seat now." Something about that has always stuck with me. When I am stressed out or trying to control something that I cannot control, I just give it God. If something is meant to be, it will be, no sense in getting all bent out of shape for things I can't control. It took a lot of practice to do this step more often than not. I still need a reminder from time to time.....
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. - Oh boy, I didn't like this step. I laid it all out there. All the fears, all the people I hurt, all the things I did. I realized that addiction takes everyone to bad places. It doesn't mean that we are bad people, we are sick. I was sick. I was living against my value system. I explored my fears, my biases and resentments. There it was, all on 10 sheets of paper. It wasn't pretty, but I did it.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. - It's another thing to actually have to say it out loud. What I learned from this step though is that no matter where addiction took me and no matter how bad I of a person I thought I was, I could admit what I did and it wouldn't kill me. Some of it was embarrassing, some of it was just hard to admit and some of it I would have preferred not to have to actually say out loud. The purpose, though, is to say it, get it out and move on. Release these resentments. Move past the embarrassments. Dump the baggage. 
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. - Yeah, we all have defects of character. I was really good at self-pity and I was very self-centered. I struggled with ego and pride. It wasn't until several years into recovery that I really felt like I was really "ready" to have my defects removed. Defects are parts of me that don't support ongoing recovery. There is nothing wrong with me, per se, they are qualities I have developed around my addiction. They were very comfortable and familiar to me. These qualities pop back into my life every once and awhile. Like most of the steps, I can't just do them once.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. Here is another step that I need to regularly. I consider this my humility check. When my ego and/or pride start to get in the way, I can tell by the way I am feeling or reacting. I do turn to God at these times to ask him to help me past these times. 
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. - I actually didn't want to join AA because of this step. I didn't want to ever have to go back and have to say I am sorry to anyone. There are still some people out there that I want to say sorry to. I still carry embarrassment and shame about behaviors of the past. Of all the steps, I struggle with this one the most. I can make that list. It is regularly in my head. That willingness to make amends has been slow in some cases. 
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. There are a few people where direct amends would not be a good idea. In general, those are few and far between. I have made some direct amends over the years. I still have plenty more to make. Steps 8&9 tends to be the times where my pride and ego pops back up. I fear the awkwardness of saying I am sorry. I will continue to work on it. 
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. - This I am working on as well. I am WAY better today at admitting I am wrong and being able to admit when I don't know something. I have a different kind of confidence in my life and I don't need to right all the time. It's a much more peaceful existence!! I do like doing an inventory more regularly now so that all my fears and resentments don't build up and create chaos in my life.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. -This has probably been my favorite point of focus for the past year. Since 2014, I have been working really hard on developing my spirituality. Since I shifted my focus here, I have noticed an exponential increase in the positivity in my life. I still have times of stress and hard times, but when I look over the past and 1/2, I am generally very happy with what I see. I believe that quieting my mind and taking more time to listen to my heart and been leading me in a happier direction.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. - So, my job is not service work. While I talk about AA with my clients, I do not consider that carrying the message. That is clinical information. I do my 12th step work in a variety of ways. I am working on finding some new ways too. More to come on that one. In general, I try to incorporate many of these principles into my daily life. I practiced these steps so hard in my first few years, that they are really second nature to me now and I don't think about it much. I am doing what I need to do to make sure that I am sober for the next 24 hours.

It was really an exciting day for me. I really love this time of year. I am proud of my recovery. It is the hardest and best thing I have ever done for myself. I have met so many wonderful people because of it. I have an awesome job because of it. I have a great life because of it. Welcome year 6, can't wait to see what awaits!

​Julie