Hope for the Heavy Drinker

Quote by me.

I’m here on the same mountaintop where I got sober over a year ago. The sun is rising, and I can hear the wind whispering in the trees. And here’s what I want to tell anyone who’s losing hope of ever getting sober.

• I lost hope hundreds of times. On the day that I quit drinking for good, I had no idea that that day was it. It was just another desperate attempt to end a battle that had gone on for far too long.
• I didn’t have a moment of clarity or a parting of the heavens to let me know that this was the day. (As the author of “Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget” will tell you — epiphanies are cheap. I had had hundreds of epiphanies, but that didn’t stop me from drinking.)
• ALL I did, the sum total, was to decide I would not drink that day. That was it. And it was a decision that I would repeat over and over again.
• Giving up is not an option. Life won’t let you, because life loves you. You will be bombarded with signs from the universe to quit drinking. And you will never run out of chances to quit.
• Thousands of people stop drinking every day. Every single day, lots of people are able to stop drinking. These people are often more hopeless, with worse circumstances, and are farther down the rabbit hole than you are. So why not you? Why not today?
• You absolutely cannot imagine how much better life will be. Just like you can’t really “remember” physical pain, you can’t remember how amazing it feels to wake up happy to be alive, anxious to start the day, loving what the world might bring you. You will experience days like when you were a kid, without a care in the world.
• It is so worth it. If you could zoom forward even a few months or a year into sobriety and look back on how far you’ve come, you would quit drinking RIGHT NOW. If you could see the future you — healthy, confident, serene — you would be thrilled to jumpstart the journey NOW.
• Yes, you will still have problems, but now you can learn from them. You will understand so much more about why things happen and how you can change your relationships for the better. And these problems will eventually fall away. Life will get so much easier.
• Millions of people want to help you do this. The world is at your feet when it comes to recovery. There are books, bloggers, support groups, AA, SMART Recovery, addiction therapists, new friends, rehabs, vitamin supplements, yoga groups, and angels all at your beck and call. All you have to do is reach out.

From high on the mountain, I give you my hope. Please take it. I don’t need it anymore.

💕