Staying Alone

Today’s Reflection

The relief of temporary sobriety is like the warm embrace of our first drink.

We find comfort, companionship, reprieve, hope and enough short term amnesia to look forward more than backward.

Many people can piece together a good bit of sober time that looks pretty healthy. And many times it is pretty healthy.

When I came fully out of the mental glaze that marked my first weeks of sobriety, I wouldn’t say I looked healthy, but I was on the way.

This was when I had some big choices to make. They felt vaguely important, and they were certainly being touted as such by the recovery community. But, as days went by and I stood in the shadow of inaction, it became more and more comfortable to huddle down with my thoughts and not actually do anything.

Turns out, you can do a lot in recovery without actually doing anything. You can go through the motions and look pretty good while continuing to rot away on the inside.

Isolation helps this process tremendously. And for an introvert like me, it becomes very attractive to sit on the sidelines, thinking my way through many actions that I figure I’ll one day actually take.

The suggestions of getting a sponsor, working the steps, passing it on, etc seem like great ideas that will probably come to pass for me if I keep coming back.

I fall victim to the proximity trap of believing I’ll get the benefits of the program through osmosis and good intentions.

I isolate myself from the healthy people in recovery trying to insulate myself from the piranhas.

I couldn’t recover alone, though. And reaching out for help in sobriety became as necessary as reaching out for sobriety was in the first place.

God, I’m not you; sorry for acting like it.

Tuesday Deep Dives into the Big Book of AA

My good friend John and I have begun a deep dive into and through the Big Book of AA.

We’ll release our conversations every Tuesday on the regular Progress and Perfection podcast feed which you can find wherever you get your podcasts.

We’re on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and all the major podcast players.