Finding Passion In Sobriety

I once loved to write. When I was younger I wrote poetry and dramatic stories about love and beauty. My muse was always some girl, usually a crush. I was very good at expressing myself with words when I wanted someone to know how I felt inside. I was passionate.

When I got sober, it felt like I lost it. I stopped writing. Well, I also stopped chasing girls. I met my current girlfriend early in sobriety, but I only wrote her a few things. For some reason, things I used to do with ease became very difficult when I got sober. Simple conversations were hard to have at times. People started making comments to me about my forgetfulness and naivety. I had always been so sharp. Did I get permanent brain damage from all the drinking? Was my body just adjusting to the lack of chemicals?

 Around my 2nd sobriety birthday, I started going through some serious growth and searching. My sponsor and I had a conversation about my passions for the future. I was at a crossroads. I had abandoned myself to God and admitted to my inner most self that I had no idea what I was doing. I thought I knew who I was in my disease, but I came to realize it was a façade. My sponsor gave me a few simple suggestions and one of them was to start writing again, because I told her I used to write. So, as though I’d been given a school assignment I started to write a story about an experience I had in sobriety.

A friend of mine (David) happened to also be celebrating 2 years of sobriety. He didn’t know about the direction my sponsor had given me to write something or about the searching I was going through, but he asked me to write something for this blog. I felt God’s tug at my heart as my friend told me something I will never forget. He said if I believe with all my heart that I am a child of God, then I must be destined to do great things and should be open to finding out what they are.

Also around this time I went on a retreat with my sobriety family. It was amazing! It was at these types of women’s retreats that I fell in love with the fellowship. I went to my first sober women’s retreat when I was 30 days sober. I will never forget the experiences I had there. I have been going to retreats as often as I can since then with my sobriety family. There is something special about getting to see anywhere from 60 to 200 sober women all in one place that made me realize I was home.

As I was writing, I realized that it’s experiences like these that make me passionate today. I am passionate about sobriety and the fellowship in sobriety. I realize now that my passions have not gone away, but that God has redirected them to be useful to other people. Towards the beginning, sobriety can feel like a bright light shone onto unadjusted eyes. I hope, however that you continue down the path and hold to the assurance that even the most painful of circumstances can be used by God to help others and even the dimmest moment can lead to a bright future. This is a great truth for me.