I used to have a grand picture in my mind of what my sobriety would look like. I imagined myself as successful and happy, the exact opposite of my life on drugs. It took a while to realize that none of my dreams will come true just because I’m sober. Sobriety won’t make me happy or successful. In sobriety I can just as easily be unsuccessful and unhappy. For a while, I was.
Drugs and alcohol prevent us from making our dreams come true. It’s only possible to accomplish our goals without drugs and alcohol dragging us down, but it’s not a certainty. Hard work and dedication are still necessary. You can only get what you want if you try as hard as you can to get it. I believe that everyone in sobriety is capable of accomplishing their goals, and it saddens me to see people who don’t believe it or who don’t understand what it takes.
“One step at a time” was the most helpful piece of advice for me. My goals themselves seemed unreachable until I broke them down, step-by-step, and started at the beginning, a little at a time. What is your goal? What are you dreams? Start today by making a roadmap for reaching them. What is your “Step One?” Start there.
I finally accomplished my goal of publishing two ebooks. How to Have Fun in Recovery and 365 Ways to Have Fun Sober are finally out there for the world to read. Of course now my next goal is for my ebooks to do well, and getting this far has given me confidence in myself. I’m so proud of myself, and that’s a feeling I haven’t felt in too long. I want everyone else to feel that way, too.
