Nothing good ever came from the bottom of a bottle

I hear that every day in meetings. A story of someone getting a case of the "fuck-its" and going out and drinking again. A friend in my group said it best: "I've never heard it being a success...someone going out. I've never heard the kids are okay, the jobs okay, the wife's okay...every thing's okay." Never for this alcoholic was anything okay from drinking. It got worse and magnified times ten. My ex said that I loved alcohol more than him or myself. That's not true. What is true is I chose alcohol over absolutely everything. I chose it over my relationship with him, my family, my friends, my pets, my jobs...absolutely everything. In the end I lost everything. Nothing good ever came from the bottom of a bottle.

Now through sobriety I am rebuilding. Some relationships did survive, some are thriving, others are new. My life is generally in order and manageable today because every single day I make a new choice. I choose sobriety above all else. Nothing good ever came from the bottom of a bottle. That was what I shared today. I made a choice every single day to drink. The problem with my alcoholic mind was I didn't think I had another choice. "God, I have to have a drink to stop shaking." "God, I have to have a drink to be functional." I never had just a drink. It was truly sad and it is still heartbreaking for me to think about what happened, but I do think about it, every single day. And every single day it reinforces for me that only through the universe looking out for me, and the choice I made to make a different choice, I am sober. The possibilities while drinking were few. The possibilities because I'm sober are infinite. That is my choice. The world I have created for myself in sobriety is a pretty safe world. There are many things that are out of my control. It is the things that are in my control that I now choose to focus on. Is my life perfect? Far from it. This is what is certain today: Because I am sober I have a life today, and I am truly grateful for everything I now get to do and every possibility of what I can be.