On the beautiful possibility of simplifying your life a little further
It was almost 12 years ago now that I got sober, quitting alcohol and drugs (not caffeine!) cold turkey. The first 12 months were full of new experiences and discovery, an extended honeymoon period that eventually faded into a relatively comfortable, sustainable sober life. Now here I am, more than a decade later, never having regretted or considered going back on my decision. Getting sober was the best choice I ever made.
A big part of my recovery has, admittedly, been finding all sorts of other ways to indulge my inborn excessiveness: all the coffee, junk food, books, nice clothes, travel, sex, and sparkling water. When you’re an addict, pretty much anything, no matter how ridiculously gratuitous, seems safe and sane compared to your experience with drugs and alcohol, and therefore, a large part of my approach has been to just swap-in safe addictions in place of dangerous ones. As I’ve written here before, drinking too much coffee or having a 10+ hour Lord of the Rings marathon with multiple pizzas, six-pack of soda, and frightening amounts of sweet snacks isn’t actually going to make me miss work on Monday, land me in jail, or otherwise significantly derail or destroy my life. As humans in recovery, I think we should encourage this kind of safe…
