Three Things You Stop Doing When You Get Serious About Sobriety

And no one can help you do them or do them for you.

Photo by Kyle Broad on Unsplash

I’ve dabbled in sobriety like I’ve dabbled in writing. It’s an on-again, off-again love affair that can be chaotic, liberating, painful, and confusing.

“I often wonder if all the writers who are alcoholics drink a lot because they aren’t writing. It is not because they are writers that they are drinking, but because they are writers who are not writing.” ~ Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones

There are three absolutes I’ve discovered that we must do if we are going to remain strong and sober.

There’s no way around them because if you are serious, you cannot be a hypocrite, liar, or user.

You can’t be any of those those things and succeed.

You stop being a hypocrite.

Every time I relapsed, there was a period of hypocrisy between falling off the wagon and admitting that I had.

Talking the talk but secretly not walking the walk.

I tried to hide it and did well until something inevitably went wrong.

And something always goes wrong.