Why I Choose Hard

Everyone has her own reasons for choosing to be sober. Often the motivation is due to repercussions from a particularly devastating binge. Other times it is the culmination of a series of worsening issues affecting health, relationships, job, or all of the above.

Once you are here, doing the work and making the lifestyle changes, what is it that drives you to continue? Let’s be honest, sobriety is not all sunshine, rainbows and unicorns. It’s downright difficult. It can be soul wrenching. It changes the trajectory of our lives and our relationships. Sometimes it means saying goodbye to people and habits that are no longer good for us. Becoming sober is as much a process of mourning as it is of rebirth.

So, what is it that keeps you on your sober path? For me, more than anything, it’s seeing and feeling the light coming back into my life. I often imagine I am sealed in a pitch-black room. Each tiny shuffle I take in my sobriety represents another pinpoint of light breaking through the darkness. As I inch further in my sobriety more light begins to stream through the walls and I not only see the brightness, but I begin to feel its warmth as well. As more holes of light accumulate, they start to overlap, changing individual spots into larger openings. I begin to see beyond my murky space.

I have a few windows now to gaze out on my world. What was once a dark and lonely place is becoming brighter every day. It’s warm and inviting. Someday, there will no longer be a wall at all; I will be out in the open with no need to hide. The shame and anxiety of those days marred by poison will be long behind me and a future filled with promise and hope will be stretched out before me. For now I am staying the course, even though it’s hard and it sometimes hurts, and it can feel scary. I choose my hard because there is light and life ahead of me.  

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Statement 6:  Life can be ordinary or it can be great.
Greatness is mine by a conscious effort.

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Bonded, Becky
(24 days sober with WFS)