i meditate upon this saying almost every single day and it helped get me to where i am today — one year alcohol free and 696 days cocaine free and counting!

a good friend told me this shortly after i was divorced a few years ago and sinking deeper and deeper into my addictions, he was my high school boyfriend and we’ve remained friends in the two decades since those days but he’s seen me through my highs and lows, he truly loves me for everything that i am, and he believes that i can achieve my dreams. he’s wise beyond his years and these words he shared with me when i was living through the most traumatic time of my life have endlessly kept me holding on to hope.

and he’s absolutely right, the past does not define the present. it informs who we are, where we’re at, what we’re experiencing... but ultimately we have a choice to make every day that creates the “now” that we’re living and the future that we’re building. every day i wake up and choose to not have a drink, to not anesthetize myself to the world and my feelings, to be and stay present and mindful.

i’m not the same woman who would escape my life through substances anymore.

i remember in a moment of struggle during early sobriety i called another friend up crying, it was all getting to be too much and i asked him with despair in my voice “does it ever get any better?” and he answered me with the knowledge that he’s acquired through decades of sobriety, “it gets different.” it was exactly what i needed to hear, it helped quickly cut through the pain i was processing and reframe my expectations for the future.

so on my sober anniversary i thought i’d share what i have learned, from one addict to another — it’s not productive to think about progress in such simple terms of black and white, good and bad, better or worse. but trust me, friends, it does get different. xo