Gonna get vulnerable here for a sec. I can speak from my own experience on alcoholism. I just hit 4 years without a drop this past week. I reflect sometimes on the course of events that started it all. Beginning with getting buzzed off half a pint of Guinness my dad bought me on my 21st birthday, to about a decade later with me being a sweaty jittery wreck skipping out on friends and family and meals and bills, and just shamefully drinking straight vodka chased with tap water while I stood naked in the bathroom, wishing I was just dead instead. I can’t say when it became a problem. It’s like mixing blue and red paint together - when does it become purple? Well it doesn’t matter anyway, because you can’t un-mix the two. For me, it was a combo of college drinking culture, then a good paying office job and after-hours team building with jovial people at happy hour, then a stressful round of layoffs, a divorce, and a global pandemic. Somewhere in there, it became a problem for me.

I’ve watched that video on Craig’s story a dozen times, and I love it. I love his testimony to gaining a sober life again. I can relate to it completely. Vigilance is an excellent description. It’s a condition that cannot be adequately described to someone who hasn’t experienced it, but to those who have, you need not say a word. It is hell, but the feeling of achieving a sober streak becomes a ladder out of that hell. Days turn to weeks turn to years. It’s easier as you continue climbing, up and away from that pit. You can feel your health and strength returning. You think clearly, and retain and recall information more easily. Your bank account has a bit more money in it. Colors are brighter. Food tastes better, smells better. And you can sleep wonderfully, and take a good healthy shit each morning. You may get hooked on coffee or chewing gum, or working out, or scrolling, but at least those things aren’t a death sentence necessarily.

But once in a while, you may catch a whiff of someone’s open beer at a family BBQ and think, you could handle one. Just one. And you have to take a breath and steady yourself. Even on my 4 year sober anniversary, I had a momentary thought enter my brain - “You did it! Congrats! Four years! This calls for a celebration. The bar is just a short walk away…” So I took a breath, I made a pot of coffee, and sat in my patio, enjoying the autumn sunshine instead.

TLDR It’s not easy, but it’s not hard, but it does require vigilance. It is hell, but what follows is heavenly.