One Day at a Time

Today for me I have been sober for 3 years, 11 months and 6 days.  I am a few weeks away from 4 years; today hitting 4 years IS NOT my primary goal.  Tonight I want to go to bed having SUCCESSFULLY gotten through the day, sober.  Then, tomorrow, it'll be 3 11 7 for me.

And, yes, I do count those days very publically as many of you know.  Actually, I write the day count with a marker on my arm that is visible to anyone I come into contact with.  Honestly, it's MY primary benefit:  being 'vocal' about my day count helps me to SECURE the sobriety.  That way, if I'm ever in a bar listening to a friend play music, I avoid the temptation TOTALLY because my sobriety day count was my #1 priority every day.

(And, by the way, the few times that I've been in a bar to hear a friend sing and play guitar, I carried a Dr. Pepper in the bar with me, I held the Dr. Pepper the ENTIRE time, and when asked if I'd like another soda I just held up the Dr. Pepper and said, "No thank you, I'm good."  I was NOT going to chance it.  Yep, sobriety is my NUMBER ONE priority.

NO

MATTER

WHAT

I also want to influence others to be TOTALLY sober.  Do drugs, no alcohol, no tobacco.  Sure, medically one can say that 'it's ok to drink' or 'it's ok to smoke' on occasion, and I'm not going to argue that.  (Believe me, there is TONS of data that lead me to want to argue that, but I won't.)  For me, I WILL REMAIN completely sober FOR THE WHOLE DAY TODAY.  I desire to influence others to also stay COMPLETELY SOBER.

COMPLETELY.

Check this out:  in our culture, you know what some scientists say is harder than marijuana, harder than alcohol, and harder than caffeine to OVERCOME the addiction to it?  TOBACCO.  Especially SMOKED tobacco.  My mother, who has been an angel in all of her support for me through my battle with drugs, through my accident, and through my recovery, recently JUST STOPPED SMOKING.  She smoked cigarettes for OVER 40 YEARS daily.  But, she decided personally that she could overcome that and as of today SHE has been totally off of tobacco for almost 2 months.  (And, yes, mom, I still count your days to the day, too, thanks to my MS Excel spreadsheet, so technically, you've been off of cigarettes for 1 month and 20 days today.  Good job, mom.  I'm so proud of you.  I love you.)

For those who are battling one of these for themselves -- drug use like I battled, alcohol use which is a problem for some, or tobacco use which my mom just overcame, let me say this:  please do not OVERSTEP your boundary.  You are not magical.  You cannot say that you're going to be off of it UNTIL ETERNITY.  You HAVE to look at your situation and say that you'll do it primarily for TODAY.

Now, for those analyticos who are reading this (Hmmm.... how do I know what in the world an ANALYTICO is?  Because YOURS TRULY is one himself, that's why.)  This isn't a 'poor man's philosphy,' and this isn't a 'loser philosophy,' this is 'WHERE IT'S AT' totally.  ALL great accomplishments in the WORLD have been done because the achiever (like you and me) sets a goal and does all that she or he can do TODAY.  They don't take this whole year all together or this whole month all together or this week all together.  No, they don't.  No, we don't.

We take it one day at a time.