Ungrateful Alcoholic

Sometimes I need a really big kick up the ass to remind me of just how lucky I am to be sober. Drunks like me die every day from this disease and by rights, I should be dead. You’d think that would be enough to keep me in an eternal state of gratitude? Yet somehow, I manage to piss and moan about something completely trivial on a daily basis. Even the most obvious ‘grateful’ scenarios, (like a beautiful sunset and the Mediterranean sea), can get spoiled by the addict in me  always wanting more…

I just spent a month with my family in England – something I’ve not been able to do in 19 years. During this time, I was lucky enough to go to the Costa Del Sol in Spain with my sister (who is also sober) and celebrate my sobriety birthday with her.

Now comes the part where I almost mess it all up. I wanted more – I didn’t want to leave! Thank God I have a program of recovery and so does my sister. We were sitting in her kitchen in England, the night before I was due to leave to come back to the USA and both of us were very upset. We were talking about how rotten we felt about the prospect of saying goodbye but somehow we started talking about our recovery programs and amidst all the self-pity, we managed to get our heads out of our asses and realize how lucky we were.

Boo ‘fucking’ hoo, so what! We hate to say goodbye  – at least we got to see each other in the first place AND take a vacation – how many people never see their families or get to go on a vacation? How ungrateful and selfish were we?

Our disease likes us to forget how bad it was and where we came from. Both of us had bottoms where we lost everything, we were hopeless drunks, chronic alcoholics, we lost our families, our homes, we lost touch with each other, yet here we were, clean and sober and moaning! That’s when I really felt immense gratitude for my sobriety, my sister’s sobriety and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous for giving us the tools to recognize our own bullshit.

I cried my eyes out the next day when I left and so did my sister, but having a recovery program allows me to take it one day at a time, and I’m certain we’ll be sitting having a cup of tea again in no time at all (and no doubt finding something to bitch about).