Sober.

I am sober.

It has been one year since I had my last drink. It has been painful.

Getting there has been one breath at a time.

Heartbeat by heartbeat.

As the fog started to lift from my brain, the emotions I ran from hit me full force. Unrelenting gut punches. It hurt. Without an escape, without reprieve, I felt it all. All the pain, all the traumas, all the heartbreak. Facing that pain without the buffer of the bottle was overwhelming. 

It was uncomfortable, it was gut-wrenching, it was transformative.

I felt like I was being pulled under by the currents of the Lake. Fighting for air and being tossed around. But as I rolled closer to the surface, the waves spinning me, I was being cleansed.

Minute by minute, day by day, I found pieces of me and my new life and started to put them together. What I saw was that vast emptiness, the place I left inside myself as a hole in my heart, was filling up. I discovered running and a renewed connection to the Earth. I discovered hot yoga and a new way to connect my body to my breath. I rediscovered writing. My old disjointed, often incoherent script fell away, and a new creative and clear style emerged. And I discovered myself.

Over the months, I gained new friends from yoga, was welcomed by my Saturday morning recovery group, and reconnected with my circle of women. These are the people who support me. They offer ears to listen, hands to hold, and an acceptance I’d never felt. Held up by my collective of loving souls I grew stronger. Pulling in the pieces of my sober self, I started to fill up.

I looked within and stared down the demons inside. They had sobered up too and were ready for a fight. It’s a scary place to be. Facing the truth, feeling the pain, and going head to head with the parts of my life that hurt so much I had to constantly numb them was hard. It still is.

It has been one year since my last drink. Hopefully, I have many more years to grow in my sobriety. My transformation is not complete. It never will be. But my journey down my new path toward it is wide open. I’m walking slowly, gathering up pieces of myself and starting to fill that vast emptiness. Sobriety is challenging and sometimes overwhelming. It can be a lonely place, but it is soul work. And the point of soul work is to heal. In surrendering and allowing myself to break wide open, I can allow for healing to begin.

One year does not mark an endpoint. One year is the beginning. I broke through the waves of the Lake and am swimming with the current. I am tired, but I can see the shore.

Sobriety is the best gift I’ve ever given myself. I will treat it with the reverence it deserves and accept the grace it has to offer.

With every beat my heart has taken this year, I am grateful.