I saw someone neck-deep in fighting last night. She was about two hours from her last drink and it was the every bit the mess you’d think it would be. A couple of people were like moths to light with her, but I tend not to fawn over someone who is actively drunk. There’s the normal, “I don’t know why I can’t get it” blubbering, and I know, I’m supposed to be all weak-kneed and emotional about how hard it is, but I’m a little more of a realist. The “I don’t know why I can’t get it” blubbering while hammered at a meeting is a part of my past. I was a completely different person in the morning… because I wasn’t done, and that’s why I don’t get all motherly over someone actively drunk at a meeting. She wasn’t done either, and it took all of about 30 seconds to get her to admit this. “I don’t know why I can’t get it” turned into “I don’t want to get it” pretty fast.

Let’s just say that’s not my drama to get involved in. I can relate, but only in that when I was actively drinking, I’d tell you anything. Once I sobered up and alone, I was going to try to find another angle that would finally get me to drinking like a normal person again. I wasn’t ready to stop fighting, that’s just the way it was, until I was done.

I had to run out of options before I’d stop fighting to stay drunk. I didn’t fight getting sober, I fought to stay drunk.

It wasn’t until I believed I had nowhere left to turn that I was willing to stop fighting to stay drunk and let recovery happen. Perhaps it’s semantics, maybe it’s overly highbrow, but I do believe there’s something to that finer point.

In any event, including the one from last night, I am so fantastically grateful for my recovery. January’s Daily Reflections mainly center around the First Step so after reading the thought for the day at the meeting last night, before the late disruption, I spoke about how I regularly think back on how miserable I was before I arrived at treatment ready to give up. Hopeless is a good word. Contrast that to my usual mental state today and it’s no wonder I have a spring in my step. As I’ve said before, the hardest thing I ever did or ever will do in my entire life, I did at 22-years-old. It’s a toboggan ride after that, baby. Arms up all the way. Or a 100K with my wife and friends on my Venge.

I don’t remember my last drunk. I was too hammered to remember that. I remember how I felt after my last drunk, though. And today I have no desire to go back to that. For that I am grateful. Even more grateful for seeing firsthand exactly how hard it is to be done.