I wouldn’t be able to face the beast of addiction head on without the support of my larger-than-life group of friends and my family. I am fortunate that I can rely on them while I make this huge lifestyle change. But I’ve been thinking about what would happen if I didn’t have them as a safety net - if that rug was pulled out from under me. I’ve been thinking a lot about the strangers who have reached out to me for words of advice to help curb the tempting taste of liquor and how they might not have as much luck in people as I do.
I don’t know where I would be without my community - which is comprised of the friends I speak to every day and the family I get to spend time with almost every Sunday. I do not think I could have made this amount of progress without their shoulders to lean on. They have seen me in my darkest moments and are never shy to share their pride as I crawl my way out of them. They are always there to remind me why I’m doing this - I haven’t seen myself so clearly as I do through their eyes. I have learned to be more kind and compassionate toward myself by learning it first from them.
When I first stopped drinking, I was told by someone else sober that I would lose a lot of my friends. These are the “party-friends” - friends that you can only hang out with while consuming booze (how many of those do you have?). Fortunately, I had already started to distance myself from these people months before I quit. It just so happened that when the pandemic/shutdown began, these “party-friends” could not stop their chaotic behavior. They gathered in large numbers and consumed massive amounts of booze as if there wasn’t a deadly virus sweeping across the globe. It was easy for me to back away from people who let alcohol wipe away any sense of caution or care for themselves or others. I am lucky in that a vast majority of my loved ones are the compassionate and caring type - people who will avoid drinking in front of me and most likely slap a glass of champagne out of my hand if I ever grabbed one. They are the people who remind me every day that what I’m doing is right and good. Their pride in me reminds me to be proud of and kind to myself.
I sometimes get this sense that they are all that is holding me together right now, and that without them this bright world I’ve built for myself would crumble into pieces. I start to wonder if I rely too heavily on the help of others - that maybe, I’m addicted to people and that I am just hanging on by a thread (the thread being their words of encouragement and praise).
I know I wouldn’t be here without them. I would still be drinking every day. The truth is that my community reminds me every day of my worth, and it is something I am just starting to scratch the surface of as they patiently stand by me. I felt very lost for a number of years. I did not see the light that so many people around me seem to have always seen in me, and could not understand it when they used to try to explain it to me. Alcohol was eating away every sense of my being. I have learned so much about myself in these nearly 9 months. I have learned how difficult the path of recovery is, how impossible it would be without a strong community, and how much alcohol was dimming my light.
There is nothing like the comfort and safety that a strong community has to offer, whether or not they are sober. If you are lucky enough to be surrounded by people who raise you up, encourage you, listen to you, and spark your growth, then there’s very little you can’t accomplish in this world.