Today I mark 32 years of sobriety. Abstinence, sobriety, and recovery are often conflated. They’re not the same things.
I mark the beginning of my recovery in 1990, when I began individual counseling with a trauma specialist. Though I’ve lost track of the specific date, it’s early in the year, so 35 years ago.
I got sober because drinking was interfering with my recovery, my need for which reaches from childhood with multiple, intertwined, roots. For me, sobriety was just part of my journey through recovery. I say “I got sober,” not just “I stopped drinking.” Abstinence was as necessary for my sobriety as sobriety was for my recovery, but I don’t equate sobriety with abstinence. Today, I have the occasional glass of beer or wine with dinner. I am still sober.
Abstinence is not the same as recovery. I got sober because drinking was interfering with my recovery, my need for which reaches from childhood with multiple, intertwined, roots. For me, sobriety was just part of my journey through recovery.
Recovery is not black and white, it’s not binary. Recovery chooses life. Those choices take many different forms, as varied and creative as we are. Real people are complex, their lives, complicated. Recovery is equally complex, and highly individual.
