The greatest thing I have ever done in my life is get sober. For 8 years I lived a shell of a life that was only down spiraling to my doomed fate. Through some kind of miracle, I was able to get pulled out and saved by God as I understand him. It was one thing to get sober, but it is an entirely different thing to stay sober. In a perfect world you would quit drugs and then that would be it! Life is better without drugs and you never turn back to them! Unfortunately there is a lot more to recovery than that and learning to sustain a strong recovery is vital to your sober life.
For me, my first year sober was the most amazing time of my life. I had completely surrendered to whatever was out there and asked it to guide me and show me a life. Suddenly everything started to fall in place and I knew I could thank everyone but myself! When I get my hands on my life, history shows it does not end well. There was such an amazing flow to that first year of recovery because of my constant state of surrender. After a year came a new job with more responsibility, a new relationship I was in and some more general pressure in life. Things became less simple.
This is what happens in recovery for everyone who stays sober, as you continue down your path your life becomes more full and complex. It becomes a lot harder to just surrender and let go off control completely when you have so many moving parts coming into your life. That 'pink cloud' feeling also goes away, sometimes it takes a few months sometimes it takes over a year or longer! I remember around the end of my second year having to face my depression again.
The most important advice I will give to anyone who wants to keep their recovery strong is to make sure you have complete transparency with at least one person in your life. There needs to be someone you can turn to when you are feeling a certain type of way. Holding in your feelings inside your head can be deadly in its consequences. e
I have also recently found taking better care of myself has done wonders for my recovery almost 5 years down the road. Eating better and exercising simply makes you feel good naturally. Isn't that what all us addicts/alcoholics want? We want to feel good! The past few months I have created a major turn around on my health and it's one of those things where I wish I had started earlier. The effects are simply remarkable.
Sustaining recovery requires you to be completely honest with one person in particular. That person would be yourself. Once you ride the wave of sobriety it is easy to get an ego and feel like you've 'got this'. Let me assure you, we should be grateful for every good sober day we have in life because you never know when things are going to drastically change and you life will never be the same. When that event does happen, you want to make sure you have the necessary tools to handle it. Stay humble, transparent and honest with yourself and you can face anything in this world and walk through it staying sober.
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