Recovery has taught me that I don’t need the whole staircase. I need the next step.
And then the next one.
And then the next one.
Some days you won’t understand why you’re doing any of it.
Keep going anyway.
Because eventually there will be a morning, a conversation, a moment of peace, or some tiny ordinary piece of your life when you suddenly realize:
Oh.
This is why.
I wrote this on my phone, but I have to post the link from my computer because I deleted my Facebook app because social media continues to have more toxic content and fear mongering than positivity. And like our almost 13-year-old says, “you can’t have a positive life with a negative mindset.”
We are headed to visit Family this weekend. A weekend to be present with our children.
To put the phones down.
To laugh.
To make memories.
To actually be where our feet are instead of constantly consuming what everyone else is doing, saying, arguing about or buying.
And I am just so damn grateful.
Not because everything in my life is perfect. It isn’t.
But because I am finally learning that peace doesn’t come from getting everything I want, having everyone understand me, or being validated by the world around me.
Sometimes peace is incredibly simple.
It’s my kids.
It’s my family.
It’s a book instead of a scroll.
It’s prayer instead of panic.
It’s presence instead of distraction.
It’s trusting God instead of trying to control the outcome.
It’s realizing that the life I kept searching outside of myself for is happening right in front of me.
This is why.
Maybe choosing your hard was never really about proving how tough you are.
Maybe it’s about choosing, over and over again, the things that bring you back to what matters.
And maybe, if you do that long enough, you realize something pretty incredible:
You weren’t missing out at all.
You were finally learning how to be here.
962 days without alcohol.
But God, it has become so much more than that.
Because somewhere along the way, recovery stopped being only about what I gave up.
It became about everything I got back.
My faith.
My presence.
My health.
My mornings.
My family.
Myself.
962 days without alcohol—and a life I no longer need to escape from.
God, I am grateful.
🙏🏻🫶🏻🥺🤍
