With another new year beginning. I look back to see how much growth I have achieved over 2022. (This growth is spiritual, personal, and emotional.) And what I need to improve on to be the best person I am capable of being. (See Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.) I also look back at all the things I had to be grateful for. It’s been over 26 years since I stopped drinking and I’m certainly grateful for remaining sober and finding greater happiness in my life. But it is the happiness part that means more to me than the sober part.
Sure sobriety was important in finding happiness. If not for remaining sober it simply would not have been possible. However, when looking at the definition of sober the first one you see is “not intoxicated or drunk.” So it would seem that while, as I said, being sober was important in finding happiness, it’s what I did to obtain it that slowly helped me develop into the type of person I always wanted to be and live the kind of life I always wanted to live.
I didn’t drink every day and I was never the stereotypical alcoholic. (I prefer saying I am someone with an alcohol use disorder.) But the life I led back then was anything but happy. I always say that it may not have been a living hell like so many can experience with addiction, but it did seem that way at times. I was always negative about something. I did not know how to appreciate what I had in life and was never truly grateful for anything. But thankfully that slowly changed when I stopped drinking and asked for help. For almost half of my sobriety Alcoholics Anonymous and The Twelve Steps, as written in a book called Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, were instrumental in my recovery. The Steps presented in that book helped me to love myself enough to finally be happy with who I was. (Or I should say, who I was becoming).
Today, I am truly grateful for so many things in my life. Besides AA. I am grateful for having a job in the mental health and addiction field that I say “I love most days.” (Although I love my job, it can be quite stressful and heartbreaking at times.) I am also very grateful to have two children that I love dearly. My son is now 39 years of age and my daughter is 42. And I am certainly very grateful for the six grandchildren that they gave me to love. Three from each one, both having two girls and one boy who currently range in age from seven months to seventeen years old.
Also, I am grateful for my dog Hilda. A deaf white boxer that my wife and I rescued over eight years ago. All she wants is to show us, dog love, and to be loved back. This is shown by following us all around the house to be near us. (She has strategic spots close by where she lays to keep an eye on both of us.) And sleeping with us in our bed until she eventually decides to move to “her” own spot close by. And, we show love back by petting her and holding her head while looking into her eyes when talking to her. She may not be able to hear but she knows we love her.
Speaking of my wife. I must include her in what is a talk about having gratitude. This is more than just being thankful. Having gratitude is a way of living life that I would not trade for anything. And a big part of that includes the love of my life.
I first met her in high school in 1976. She was two grades ahead of me and not that interested in the class clown. But we started dating in 1978. I wrote about it in my book, so for this writing, I will add that we have spent over 44 years together (43 of them married.) They have not all been bliss. But I am grateful that she became the person she is. Although always a wonderful person. Like me, she also grew and still tries to improve herself. She’s a loving wife, mother, and grandmother who lives to be those things. Never being an enabler in my drinking days greatly contributed to the morning in 1996 when I woke hungover and finally had enough of the way I was living. It was tough finding our way together after that morning when she miraculously decided to stay and not leave with our children. But we did find our way. Which included finding greater happiness together, and how having gratitude plays a big part in that happiness.
Naturally, our kids and grandchildren make us extremely happy. (Except in times when they aren’t behaving very well for one reason or another.) But that’s part of having grandkids and we never stop loving and caring about them.
I know that I love my whole family more than life itself. And that’s saying a lot because, boy, do I love life today. One filled with unconditional love for myself and others. And one filled with gratitude for who I have become. Although I have grown a lot through the years, I don’t pretend to be perfect or that I have a perfect life. I believe that as long as I live humbly and with gratitude, not only will I remain sober, but I’ll continue being the type of person I always wanted to be and living the kind of life I always wanted to live.