Five Months

I woke up this morning to an alert on my phone reminding me that I have reached 5 months of sobriety.  Exactly 150 days as well.  It was a wonderful feeling.  As I reflected on this throughout the day I thought quite a bit about what I have learned in the past 5 months and wanted to share a few things here.

First off I think the main thing that I have learned is that while things are better, they aren't perfect.  Recovery is a process.  There are still good days and bad.  Ups and downs.  Sobriety is still a very, very long way from perfection.  I still do stupid things all the time and have to try to work on improving.  I am grateful for much but also very aware that there is much still to do.

Another thing that I am becoming more and more aware of is that this is a process.  Sometimes when I daydream I think of my life 2 to 3 years down the road.  I think of what it might be like to have years of sobriety, to be an advocate for the program.  I imagine what it might be like to speak at a fireside or serve as a missionary or facilitator.  These are good thoughts, but in my daydreams, one common thread is that I am doing so much better.  My recovery is something of an afterthought.

I have heard others share similar thoughts in the meetings that I attend.  I think it is probably pretty common when you are struggling with something significant to imagine what it might be like to be on the other side of the trial.  But here is the thing.  I have been attending recovery meetings for almost 4 years.  I have had over a year of consecutive sobriety in the past, I have had months of sobriety on more than one occasion and one common thread remains the same in all these experiences.  When I am doing what I need to be doing, my life is wonderful.  Not perfect, not addiction free, but still wonderful.  Because the Savior is part of my life and I am able to withstand the struggles that come my way.  When I fail to do my dailies, attend my meetings and connect with family and friends, my life is a struggle.  How many days, weeks or months of sobriety I have doesn't really play a role in how prepared I am to withstand temptations on that given day.  This is a one day at a time process.  All I can control is today, and even then it is only through the grace of God that I make it through.

So I guess in a nutshell, what I am trying to say is that I am slowly coming to understand that it isn't my trials that are going to change.  They will likely always be there.  Maybe not in this exact state and level of strength, but I am always going to be tempted.  I will always to some degree, be an addict.  What really has to change isn't my trials or my level of struggle, but rather what needs to change is me.  The more I do to prepare myself, to have the Savior in my life, to not be willing to compromise my integrity, my values and my family.  That is where the change comes.  Inside of me, within my heart.  Until the desires of my mind and my heart are simply replaced by the desires to do that which is good.  In Ezekiel Chapter 36, we are promised;

26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.

 27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. 

The Lord has promised that the change will come.  He hasn't promised to remove my trials, but he has promised that he will change my heart and fill it with his Spirit.  That is really what recovery is all about.   I was given this trial to bring me closer to my Savior.  To get me off the fence that I sat perched on for so many years.  Knowing what I was supposed to do and filled with enough faith and testimony to never fall off the deep end entirely, but never humble and faithful enough to really immerse myself into the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  

Five months is wonderful.  I am humbled by it and grateful for it.  But ultimately, the only day that really matters is today, and today I go to bed sober and facing forward, and that truly is wonderful!

~~~ Tim