Time does make sobriety easier, but it doesn’t ever make the urges go away. It doesn’t make it any easier to sit alone with your thoughts. My problem has always been linked to running away. I used my addictions to escape my thoughts, my pain, my reality. Over time I have built a life in sobriety that I don’t need to escape from but now and then those old pieces of me resurface and I’m faced with them once again. That’s when the struggles hit the hardest. That’s what I’m forced to sit and bask in all those things I spent so much time escaping from.
It is in those moments that the urges hit full swing, that the passing thoughts of “just one more time” creep in. Just one more drink, just one more night that I don’t have to think, one more escape. One more time. The reality is, yes, I need one more time. Just one more time to stand up out of those crippling thoughts and push forward. Stand up one more time out of the darkness and turn the light on again. One more time of not giving up. One more time of one more day. And when I push through just one more time and the next day comes, I’ve got another one more time.
We can all do this. One day at a time. One more time. Every day. That’s sobriety. A continuous cycle of just one more. Take it as it comes, one more second, one more hour, one more day. That’s all that we can do. Together we can make it through anything, because we do recover!
