Sobriety is...

Boozing is living a wild, crazy, blurry, detached and numbed-out life that is sometimes fun and sometimes sad and sometimes downright miserable (when you get to where I was with my boozing).

Sobriety is not. Sobriety is not grand gestures and exciting developments. Sobriety is all the little things.

It’s the lovely conversations at the end of a party, the quiet cosy conversations that are real and memorable.

It’s getting up at 11pm to rub a sick child’s back and feeing so grateful to be fully alert.

It’s the delight in an empty recycling bin.

It’s driving home at midnight. I love driving home in the dark so much.

It’s hearing people talk about their own struggles and not inwardly running a mile, but listening, really listening.

It’s that beautiful moment after you’ve stared down a pang and resisted the urge to drink, it’s gone away and you realise it was lying to you and you didn’t want/need/deserve the drink after all. That is a truly beautiful sober moment.

It’s waiting, waiting for bad moods to pass, waiting for glum phases to end, waiting for the light to return. Knowing that it always does.

It’s really appreciating a hot cup of tea, really appreciating each and every sip. Or really appreciating a small sweet square of chocolate as it melts in your mouth.

It’s looking in the mirror and knowing that whatever is looking back at you is real, not some blurry distant mirage.

It’s just the underlying beauty in the knowledge that you are sober. You are not drunk any more, you are sober.

That’s what sobriety truly is. It’s that little gold nugget of truth that you tuck away inside and nurture.

I am not drunk any more. I am sober.

Love, Mrs D xxx