Maybe it’s the potential for a great acronym? SAS, but no, it’s more than that. There’s a significance to the number 7 in a great many traditions, including the belief that life progresses in 7 year cycles. The completion of 7 years of sobriety feels like a significant milestone and I’m grateful to be here. Thanks to all of my Soberistas sisters and brothers, thanks to Lucy and Sean for that wonderful sober space. A special thanks to all of those who started out before me and helped me to believe that it was possible, doable, and most of all enjoyable! (I didn’t believe that at first either)
I’ve been happy and contented for the most part over these 7 years. Stopping drinking wasn’t the silver bullet that propelled me forward into “happily ever after bliss”. It was the starting pistol that fired that bullet and here I am today, 7 years older than when I started the journey, living in a body (spacesuit as Ram Dass puts it) that has served me well so far and is glad that I’ve slowed down a bit now. Life in the fast lane of heavy drinking and smoking and partying wasn’t even possible any more with any degree of independence, it had to stop. It never really had looked like the Baileys advert (I know, it’s beyond crass, but there’s a fabulous looking cake in it!). In fact it was looking less and less attractive as time passed. Sitting up late into the night in order to drink as much wine as possible … not sociable, not connected, not a party by any stretch of the imagination.
It had to stop and I stopped it, 7 years ago today. I planned to stop on this date and I did, and it is the best thing I ever did. Just one thing more it allowed me to do, it gave me the courage to successfully stop smoking 7 months later (yeah, I know!, another 7) because when you’ve been a drinker and you’ve managed to stop for 7 whole months you realise that you can do anything. No challenge that life can throw at you is too difficult to face because you are a warrior. So if you’ve stopped for 7 minutes, days, hours, weeks, months or years a great big WELL DONE to you, may it open many doors for you and may you walk through with the confidence of a warrior because “we can do hard things“. If you’re struggling, bloody well done, keep going. Long stretches of sobriety can only be good for your body and soul, one day it’ll stick.
The path is the goal, every day that I’m on the path I am achieving the goal.
Namaste and many blessings, Nana Treen xxx
Womanwalksintoasupermarket 