25 life lessons from 25 years of recovery from alcohol.

On this day 25 years ago, when life seemed hopeless, it happened. After another drama-filled and noisy failure of a night, I careened into my third rehab. I was sharing a room with two heroin addicts and a park drunk. We were all in withdrawal, none of us could sleep, and I was still hanging onto the thought that I was too good and too successful to be sharing a room in a psychiatric ward. During the third night of no sleep, as I watched the park drunk from Newcastle strike out in the shadows to a ghost in his dreams, the metaphor of his sallow fist hit me. I could not go any lower. This was my last chance. I had no more excuses. I was alone in rehab, ignored by my wife and my sons were shielded from me. My parents were in shock and pain at the shell of a man their boy had become.

It was May 7, 1998, and I haven’t had a drink of alcohol since that ugly night. A quarter of a century!

It has been a helluva ride and if I knew how hard and how demanding it was going to be I don’t think I would have started the journey. My family, my loved ones and I have paid a huge price. However, the life lessons I have learned and adapted to on the way have taught me how to smile again and live with abundance. So, for those with an inquisitive mind and an open heart, here are my 25 life lessons from 25 years of recovery from alcohol:

1. Own your destiny – addiction is a reason but not an excuse and how we live our life is our choice alone – denial and self-pity are corrosive friends and dangerous enemies.
2. Don’t sit in your back story – our past is our greatest asset but there it should remain. My family and friends do not need an active drunk to be replaced by a dry drunk. Drinking alcohol is a beautiful privilege and a wonderful social lubricant, but it is poison for yours truly.
3. The need to succeed is also the seed of despair – explore your passion and purpose not the almighty dollar. Money is merely a means of exchange.
4. Perfectionism is a myth – addiction has many faces and all of us use different forms of escape to get through the day. The modern busy lives we lead just amplify our natural, anxious state, and the methods we choose to calm the storm merely whip up the wind. We must accept that reality and realize that all we can control are our choices.
5. Every person has the right to make their own choices even if you think they are the wrong ones – maintaining your own boundaries without self-righteousness is true grace.
6. Be inquisitive – question everything and embrace your way of thinking while ignoring mainstream advice. Just because ‘they’ all do it doesn’t mean it is right.
7. Live with abundance and an adventurous spirit – accept change, sing songs, laugh often, forgive quickly, and don’t take yourself seriously.
8. Be part of the solution and not part of the problem – there are good examples and bad examples and being earnest is not an attractive quality, even though it is sold as one 😊.
9. An evolved human being has a mental, physical, and spiritual approach to life – feed the mind, body and soul with healthy food, great books, lots of water, exercise, stretching, love and meditation. Start the day with this routine and you will probably end the day well.
10. You are not important – we are one of 8 billion souls on Earth and every great idea and conspiracy theory we so passionately own as our own has been thought of millions of times before.
11. Self-awareness and freedom of choice are the pillars of a life well led – put silence between the outside stimulation, your reaction, and your resultant behaviour. The longer the period of considered silence the longer our communion with God.
12. Family and community are everything – helping others is the key to a calm mind and a happy heart, so if your family is absent create a family in a like minded community. We are not unique so go and find your running mates.
13. Kindness matters and good manners come for free – fierce behaviour usually manifests from fear.
14. Swim in the ocean – it is a unique place on Earth where a human being becomes an animal, so the fear and self-doubt created by society is washed away in the cathartic bath of a salty sea.
15. There is no such thing as a weekend or Mondayitis – each day is a blessing so let your life be framed in fluidity and not someone else’s paradigm.
16. Winning at all costs is an invention from people who don’t like losing and at the end of the day, who cares?
17. Observation has shown me that most of what I was taught, and my belief systems, values, and ethics have created dissatisfaction, resentment, and fear – I am just another human being and when I embrace that concept, I can be anything I choose to be and pleasantly present for all those I love.
18. I live in a world that prospers on fear. Fear of failure. The Western world survives on selling the fear of going without – this is the Western myth: the more I gather and own will make me well. Our reality is the exact opposite because the more we own the greater the separation and the sicker we can become.
19. Humility is not a weakness it is a strength – accept your light side and dark side with all your cracks, fissures, and imperfections. The light shines brightest through the dirtiest windows.
20. I’m hardwired, in my belief system to fail by believing I’m not good enough – dreams and hopes of childhood are sold as adult concepts and images few of us attain let alone truly need.
21. How I behave, react and participate with people, places and things is up to me – the gift of freedom of choice.
22. Live without expectation because life in a big city is annoying – when I enter any relationship without expectation, I am not needy. It is a pleasant state of mind for self and others.
23. We are all given a quota of energy each day so how are we going to use that fuel – do you waste it on resentment, anger and fear, or cruise the highway of love?
24. We must try and end each day with love – don’t put your head on the pillow until you forgive yourself, forgive others and say sorry, when sorry is necessary. If you fall asleep with a pout you will wake up with a grudge.
25. Finally, after all the sacrifice and the wasted years, I can look in the mirror and smile back at the man I have become. We alcoholics and addicts pay a huge price to achieve sobriety, so do our loved ones. But it is a daily price I am prepared to pay. Proud is a word I rarely use when I refer to myself, but I am proud of the difference I have made to my life and the lives of those I love, and the people and causes that I fight for and support.