Success Is a Funny Thing in Recovery

Success is a funny thing in recovery. When I first got sober, I wasn’t exactly worried about becoming too successful. 😂 I was trying to stay sober, figure out how to live like a normal human being and stop creating chaos everywhere I went. The idea that someday I might have a family, a career, a home, money in the bank, vacations, grandchildren and a relatively peaceful life wasn’t exactly what I was focused on. I just wanted to stop throwing up. Then something strange happens if you stick around long enough. Recovery starts working. Life gets better. Not perfect. But better. And eventually some of the things that once seemed impossible become normal. Somehow, you stop worrying so much about getting sober and move into staying sober. You begin to feel like a functioning member of society. When everything is falling apart, recovery has your full attention. You know exactly why you’re going to meetings. You know why you’re calling people. You know why you’re working the Steps. Your ass is on fire. Motivation is fairly easy to locate. 😂 But what happens when life isn’t on fire anymore? What happens when things are actually good? The bills are paid. The family is doing okay. You’re busy. Work is going well. You’ve built a life. That’s when complacency can sneak in without making much noise. Not necessarily: “I can drink again.” More like: “I’m okay.” “I’ve been sober a long time.” “I’ve heard all this before.” “I’ll get to a meeting next week.” I have done that countless times. Here’s something I don’t talk about much. I no longer feel that desperate need to go to meetings. I still have the desire to go, yet I don’t make nearly as many as I would like. The truth is, meetings just aren’t the priority they once were. I could give you all the reasons I don’t go more often. It really isn’t a very long list. Mostly? I don’t feel like it. 😂 Now, if somebody newly sober said that to me, I’d probably tell them: Get your ass to a meeting. If somebody with my time said it, I’d probably say: You should go. There are probably a lot of people there you could help. My days of believing, “Oh my God, if you don’t get to a meeting you’re definitely going to drink,” are over. I don’t believe that is true for everybody. Obviously. Especially since I’m sitting here telling you I don’t go as often as I probably should. 🤔 But let me make something very clear. I don’t believe I’m cured. I don’t believe I no longer need AA. I don’t think I’m better than anyone else in the rooms. I don’t think I’m somehow different or unique. I could drink again just like anybody else. Right now, I seem to get a lot of what I need through reading, writing, online recovery and staying connected in other ways. My guess is that will change again. I can absolutely see myself going back to meetings regularly someday. I just can’t tell you when that day will be. And I think that honesty matters too. Recovery changes over a lifetime. What kept me connected at five years may not look exactly like what keeps me connected at thirty-eight. But I still need to stay connected. I also think my definition of success has changed enormously over the years. When I was younger, success probably looked more like money, possessions, career and having the right stuff. I still like nice things. I’m not going to suddenly pretend I’ve taken a vow of poverty. 😂 Money is great. Let’s be honest about that. It gives us choices. It lets us do things. It makes certain parts of life easier. But money has never been the end-all, be-all of my existence. Success for me has come in a lot of different forms. One of the first times I remember really feeling successful was when I tore apart my first house and put it back together. I started with a hammer and a Wonder Bar. That was pretty much the master plan. 😂 I completely gutted an entire Cape down to the studs and rebuilt it. I had help from friends in AA. Some helped for free. Some I paid for their time. Either way, I did it. And I’m still proud of that. At the same time, I was running the landscaping business I had started with a friend. Eventually he decided he didn’t want to do it anymore. I kept going. I worked my ass off. I got the licenses I needed. I became the salesman for my company and probably its best worker. I expanded into sprinklers and commercial work. I did the right things. And slowly, the right things started happening. My marriage was going well. We had a beautiful baby boy. I was sober. Working hard. Living in a beautiful house. We had two cars. A motorcycle. A pool in the backyard. We went on family vacations. I was living the dream. Then life reminded me that dreams don’t stay frozen in place. My mom got sick and passed away. I sold my business after she died. Several years later, my marriage ended. The divorce caused a level of chaos and pain I wouldn’t wish on anybody. Well... Maybe my ex. 🤣 It was not a pretty divorce. I don’t think many are. I’ll put it this way: My lawyer actually gave me a discount if I would settle because he didn’t want to deal with her anymore. What lawyer voluntarily gives up money? 😂 Then I met Kris. And suddenly I wasn’t only part of my boys’ lives anymore. Now it was Kris and me, the boys and three little girls. Talk about a roller coaster. The girls were four years old when we met. They’ll be twenty-three this December. Kris and I have now been together eighteen years. We have grandchildren. Another one on the way. I’ll be sixty on November 12. Sixty. How the hell did that happen? 😂 Kris has planned a trip to Hawaii for my birthday, and I’m sure it’ll become another one of those memories we talk about for years. We’ve been fortunate enough to take some incredible trips together. Italy. Bora Bora. Places I never imagined I would see when I was twenty-one and trying to figure out how to stop drinking. Bora Bora was for Kris’s 50th birthday. It was spectacular. Absolutely breathtaking. One of my favorite memories was watching her swim with sharks and stingrays. 😁 Then there was the trip through the Grand Canyon with my boys. Whitewater rafting. I planned that one when Peter graduated from high school. Peter was eighteen. Dylan was fourteen. Trip of a lifetime. Those experiences mean a lot to me. But even being able to take spectacular trips is minor compared with what I consider the biggest successes of my life. Being a father. Being a stepfather. Being a grandfather. Watching my children grow up. Watching them become loving, kind adults. Watching them become parents themselves. That is priceless. All the ups and downs between those moments were worth it. And there were plenty of downs. Let’s just say the teenage years aren’t exactly a fucking carnival ride I’m looking to purchase another ticket for. 🤣 When I look at the whole thing, it amazes me. I was a punk kid who happened to be an alcoholic and a drug addict. Now I’m almost sixty. A grandfather. A loving father. A stepfather. And, obviously, an absolutely outstanding husband. 🤣🤣🤣 That, to me, is success. Not because everything worked out perfectly. It absolutely did not. There was death. Divorce. Heartache. Fear. Mistakes. Financial worries. Family problems. All the normal shit that happens when you stay alive long enough. Success wasn’t avoiding those things. Success was being sober enough to actually live through them. To experience the good things. Survive the bad things. Love people. Lose people. Build things. Watch things fall apart. Build again. Raise kids. Travel. Laugh. Cry. Make mistakes. Become a grandfather. And still be here for whatever comes next. None of those things happened because I became some brilliantly successful human being. They happened because I stayed sober long enough to participate in my own life. That may be the part I never want to forget. Everything I have today sits on top of one incredibly simple decision I have repeated thousands and thousands of times: Don’t drink today. The danger for me isn’t having a good life. The good life is the gift. The danger would be forgetting how I got here.