I started cycling and actually tracking mileage at 41, almost 42 years old so I’m shorting myself… meh, maybe 1,200 running miles but when you’re already above 65,000 what’s 1,200 between friends?!

At 50 years old I feel better than I ever thought possible.  I wouldn’t say anything silly, like “I feel better at 50 than I did at 30″… I most certainly do not.  However, between not drinking or using drugs, not smoking, eating a balanced diet and enough exercise to choke a horse, the equation isn’t exactly rocket science.

While a clean, active, happy existence isn’t a promise of longevity, if I’d kept up the way I was when I was a kid, there’s no question I’d be worm food already.  According to doctors, I’ve been alive 20 years longer than if I’d kept drinking – my liver was that cooked.

Life, after sobriety, doesn’t necessarily come at me any easier but I sure do react to it a lot better – and therefore life itself is vastly better.

Let’s hope in another decade I’m celebrating another 60 or 70,000 miles… and continued recovery.  Life does get better, as do I, if I work for it.

Enough that I feel sorry for those who wait for it to happen to them.