TAKING IT ONE DAY AT A TIME WAS ONE DAY TOO LONG

My goal everyday is not to drink just for today. Not tomorrow, not next week, not forever. Just for today. Simple, right? Practically anybody can do that! Come on, its only one day, 24 hours, right? So when I learned that not drinking one-day at a time was one of the foundation slogans of Alcoholics Anonymous, I thought, no problem I can handle that. As frivolous as it was, I stopped drinking all the time. I never realized how long twenty-four hours; one day at a time can be, especially if you’re serious about trying to stop drinking.

In the beginning of my sobriety it took a lot of effort by me not to drink. Many of those first days I just couldn’t shake the urge. There was something inside of me insisting that I needed a drink to survive. Whether I wanted to drink or not had nothing to do with it and taking it one day at a time was one day too long. If I had a chance to succeed at sobriety I needed figure out a way to shorten this one-day at a time idea. Whether it was hours or literally minutes I needed to find something that worked for me.

As I started putting days together I felt that I was accomplishing something. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but I did know I didn’t want it all to be for nothing. There were times that I knew I was in jeopardy of not making it through the day without picking up a drink. By breaking the day into smaller pieces enabled me to cope with the urge to drink and maintain my sobriety one small piece at a time.

Early in my sobriety there wasn’t much clarity, but somehow I knew that I did not want to drink There were days and then there were days. Some days it was enough just to let the urge to drink pass. Other days, it just took more effort not to pick up that drink. My hope was by delaying and not giving in to my addiction the urge to drink would pass. And if it meant not picking up that drink hours or minutes a time, so be it.