33 Years

For 33 years I haven’t picked up a drink or a drug.

For 33 years I haven’t woken up in a stranger’s bed.

Or in a pool of own sick mixed with vodka.

For 33 years other alcoholics have guided me in how to live a life of honesty, accountability, prayer and service.

There’s no way to get from who I was to who I am without them and without God.

“Grateful” doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel. Indebted. Flabbergasted. Teary.

I’ve buried a lot of people I loved in those years - friends, lovers, and family who never got here, who died as a result of their addictions. I will never understand why. Not really. So gratitude to me isn’t just noticing how (so-called) “blessed” I am and having the good manners to say thanks. Gratitude is my duty and my delight. I don’t “deserve” the life I have anymore than they “deserved” for theirs to end.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the opposite of gratitude isn’t ingratitude, it’s entitlement.

So I am spending the day in looking at my life in complete astonishment.

Thank you God.

(and thank you to all the drunks I’ve met in church basements)