XII
I love the Rolling Stones.
But lately, it has not felt like time is on my side.
Time has felt more like an enemy than an advocate. Every second of my day has been crunch time—not like Super Bowl crunch time. My hours have been compacted and filled with endless tasks and responsibilities.
It took two weeks to try and find time to celebrate the birth of my daughter with some colleagues. They were going to join me at my house and have a cigar while my older two watched a movie. Then, that afternoon, my son and daughter crashed into each other on their bikes. My daughter lost her thumb nail in the accident. So, instead of celebrating with friends, I was in urgent care, holding down my daughter while a doctor re-set the nail into her thumb.
That scene describes the role of time in my life recently—painful and inconvenient.
I don’t really have time for anything.
If it weren’t for my son joining a play this fall (his first speaking part, actually—we’re thrilled for him) I wouldn’t have any time at all. But here I am, using the only two hours I have in the week to reflect on how little time I have.
It’s nice here where I am writing, outside the church where his rehearsals are. A small picnic table is underneath a canopy of trees. The leaves crunch underfoot each time I shift.
It feels really good. So good that I don’t begrudge the busyness. It takes moments of reflection like this to look up from the drudgery and realize I wouldn’t have it any other way.
This is because having it any other way would not include my three wonderful children, a career I am passionate about, a group of friends to smoke cigars with, and these precious thoughts I have to share with you.
Long term recovery has taught me to measure time in a different way.
Early recovery was all about how many days, minutes, even seconds I could go without picking up a drink or a drug. It was helpful to watch sober people pick up coins and keychains to designate how long they went without drinking or using. You mean to tell me you went one year without picking up? This was baffling to me. If you’ve ever had that monkey on your back, then you know how impossible it seems to go days on end without picking up.
Enter the mantra: One Day at a Time.
You focus on the day ahead, not the eternity of days beyond. It may be impossible to fathom going years without a drug, but couldn’t you just go without one today?
Taking sobriety one day at a time allowed the days to add up without my sick thinking to stop me and say hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing? You can’t possibly go a lifetime without picking up. Nobody could! What a boring and meaningless life that would make.
Eventually, though, with enough of those 24-hour intervals under the belt, a lifetime sober began to sound really appealing. When I began to feel better about myself and happier about my prospects, a lifetime sober began to sound like a worthy goal.
Still the snake slithered in the grass.
A lifetime sober? No problem. You’ve been sober for years now. That’s no goal. A real goal would be winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. Set your sights higher. Sobriety will take care of itself.
Whether the voice inside my head tells me that dying sober is impossibly difficult or incredibly easy, it is wanting the same thing. Just have a drink already.
I’m thinking about time because I celebrated twelve years of continuous sobriety yesterday, the 13th and I haven’t had much time to think about it.
12 years.
That’s 4,378 mornings knowing exactly where I will wake up. It would be 4,380 but I can’t count the first two mornings because they were the end of a sleepless bender.
That’s a really long time. I don’t think about it much anymore. But each time my anniversary comes around, I have to. I am forced to remember where I was 12 years earlier to the day. And it scares the shit out of me.
Anniversaries are weird in that way. Birthdays celebrate the joyous day we came into the world; anniversaries celebrate the distance we put between our lives and that demon we know as alcoholism.
I wish I could bottle the magic of that ODAT mindset in all areas of life.
It’s really powerful. I mean, who could fathom paying the bank all that money for a home loan? But, one month at a time, it can be done. I think of one of my favorite authors, Anne Lamott, describing how her brother got behind in a school project researching birds. When he asked Lamott’s dad what he could possibly do the night before the project was due, the dad said, “Take it bird by bird, buddy.” That’s the stuff right there. Palaces are made stone by stone. Novels are written word by word. The journey of a thousand miles begins by taking one step forward. We build a rolodex of clichés from this simple premise: one day at a time.
It cures much of my twisted thinking.
It saved me from rushing a novel or some other book out in a self-publishing format. What’s the rush? It will get published, one rejection letter at a time. And if it doesn’t, I will be no less fulfilled writing a thousand words twice a month about the miracle of the mundane—the bliss of using my two hours each week to empty my thoughts on to the screen and start all over from my beginnings with each post.
Much like sobriety, anything you commit yourself to can be taken a day at a time. It’s not good (for me anyway) to imagine running 10 miles. I can feel my knees aching just thinking about it. I imagine getting short of breath before I get through one; running nine more is inconceivable.
Then I grab a bite to eat with Damien and Jo of the #recoveryposse. Damien explains how he couldn’t run 10 miles either. But then he started running half a mile this day, and a mile the next. Now he’s running between six and ten miles a week. This is how good things are accomplished.
So whether it is a creative or physical goal you set for yourself or a long term project you are planning, doing what you can for today is enough.
It has to be.
It’s all we have.
As I heard a friend of mine say last week, “no matter how many years of sobriety someone has, whoever woke up the earliest has the most sobriety today. And today is all we have.”
With 12 years sober, I’m more convinced than ever that it is true.
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Congrats, Mark! Over the weekend I saw some pictures of all of us at dinner for your 10th. I know you miss Larry. Sorry we won’t see you at the concert.
I saw those too! They were brought up as a memory in FB. Those two years flew by.
Congratulations, Mark! I thank you again, for showing me the way!
Big Hugs!
xo
Wendy
Thank you Wendy!
Congratulations mark!! Another fine post on the further adventures… Busy, busy, busy…I know you wouldn’t have it any other way. Love to all the clan, johnny
Thanks Johnny. Nice to hear from you.
Blessings Mark on your quietly celebrated milestone and (the best gift of all) the ability to show up at the ER and be present for your daughter. I remember my first visit to the ER without concern for what others might notice or smell—it was a blessed moment.
I’m living the dream, yet another glorious day—
And even this dreamer had two trips to the ER, one with each kid, a broken computer, myself a broken toe, a job-relocate, and something else I can’t quite remember, during the past 30 days.
Any way I look at it, I am living—fully living. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I’m (almost) glad I can’t bottle and sell it because I think I might have tried. I’m working toward OMAAT (one moment at a time). I’ll have forgotten that in 20 minutes or so, but then I’ll remember that I forgot and I’ll be good to go. Until I forget, again.
You are a gift for all. Thank you for sharing your journey.
What a gift to share this journey with you, Lisa. I was just mentioning you, actually, to someone. I was going to link you in to an article too, if that’s okay.
Congratulations Mark! Inspiring and motivating post. Thank you for sharing.
Much respect!
Cynthia
Thank you Cynthia.
Congratulations, Mark! Twelve years – that is remarkable. And for some that is a lifetime.
One day at a time is a helpful strategy outside of the recovery world, too. When I find myself in a daily sprint toward a finish line that keeps moving farther away, I begin to take it in steps.
Thank you for taking a couple of hours to reflect on the mundane. It is where life is lived. And it’s a miracle.
Thank you and my continued thoughts are with you sorting everything out.
Congratulations Mark! I am approaching a sobriety anniversary as well and have seriously relied on the one day at a time concept. Not only for my recovery, but more frequently for my task-heavy life. Bird by bird indeed. It’s the only sane way.
Thanks man! Enjoy that mountain winter! I miss that life. Tasks are odaat required. A men. I drive myself crazy if not.
“No matter how many years of sobriety someone has, whoever woke up the earliest has the most sobriety today. And today is all we have.” – beautiful Mark, thanks for sharing and congrats.
Thank you Nelson. Very glad to re-connect.
Thank you for your brilliant post. One day at a time, such a simple mantra but so powerful.
Thank you Sharon.
First, SO much congratulations on 12 years! Second….thank you for sharing this truth about time.
Thank You Colleen!
Very thoughtful. In Thomas More’s “Utopia,” the greatest happiness is “good health.” You never realize that until you do not have it.
So true. I have to read Utopia. Never have.
As a practicing alcoholic I brought a a lot of chaos into peoples lives. As a recovering alcoholic I bring harmony, tolerance and love into any space that I enter. Time seems to bend when I focus on the gift that I have been given and the gift that I get to share with others. The focus of my life is to be present in the moment and given that I have found a way to live with peace in my heart the present is pretty sweat. So grateful for people like who continue to share their stories and show courage in action. Inspiring people to find their own recovery one day at a time.
Thank you, Matthew. I’m with you there. From active alcoholism to sober alcoholism is going from night to day. Such wonderful opposites into my life if I keep working this thing.
Big hugs brother. Your stories are inspiring