The Difference

Early in sobriety we find our goal-setting abilities to be necessarily short minded. I remember clearly the emotions pulsating through me as I anxiously clutched onto my 30, 60, and 90 day celebratory coins. They represented accomplishment and a real sense of pride. Only a few months prior, I was stripped of my old identity, of who I thought I was. Naked without the masks I carried with me and would interchangeably wear to hide my pain and fear from the outside world. Those coins meant the world to me. They were how I judged myself in early recovery. They gave me identity and a much needed boost of self-esteem.

I think, like so many of us trudging our way through our first year of overcoming a major life obstacle that requires a complete overhaul of our thinking, we count those days because those days are all we have. A major life change requires we toss out our old habits, behaviors, and can even mean we've removed previously constant figures from our lives. Once they are gone, we feel bare and our ego is left wanting. How we felt about ourselves relied on those old entities, even if they made us hate ourselves, so now without them we don't know how to feel. So we count days. We count them a day at a time, an hour at a time, or a minute at a time but we count them. We find us telling ourselves, just 3 more days and I'll have 90 days since (blank). We need those days to tell us we're doing good. They serve as a barometer of our success. To give us confidence. To offer purpose.

Eventually, those days add up into months and those months add up into years. With that, we're introduced to new people, behaviors, ideas, ways of thinking, and goals. We begin to find purpose and learn what our true selves are passionate about. We become whole again and those days don't give us the same sense of purpose or pride anymore because we have new, incredible things to look forward to now. I remember asking a friend of mine what it felt like to celebrate 40 years of sobriety. The day I asked him was the day after his recovery anniversary and his response was "Wait, was that yesterday? Oh, it's just another day. I look more forward to the other 364 days of the year."

While I still think it's an important exercise to celebrate milestones in whatever type of recovery one is experiencing, the beauty of overcoming major adversity is that we get our lives back. Hell, some of us never even had a life to begin with and those people finally get to start living. The difference between those first few days of sobriety, getting out of an abusive relationship, leaving a job you've hated for years, overcoming an eating disorder or mental illness and being multiple years away from that pivotal turning point in your life is that you've got perspective now. We've stood face to face with life's hardships while gritting our teeth and tightening our grips and counted the minutes until that hardship finally got far enough away from us that we could start living again instead of just surviving.

The difference is that we are now in the "what next" chapter of our lives instead of the "brace yourself" part. Not to say we won't have to brace ourselves again, but at least now we know we have braved a storm or two before and will survive to see another day again. The difference is now we get the chance to make a difference in other people's lives who are currently counting days.

Embrace that difference. Take a moment to feel gratitude for what you've overcome. Admire the times you were vulnerable, bare, and needed help. Look back at who you were and be proud of where you are today. You survived. So, until the next time you need to start counting, make the most of your life today.

-Blake E. Cohen

BlakeEvanCohen.com