Twenty-one Times Around the Sun

So, today marks 21 years of sobriety for me.

Please, for the love of sanity, don't react with any suggestion that I should be proud. It's just another day. The only thing I did right was, 22 years ago, saw a flash of light, like a spark on a subway track that lights the way the train is headed for a split second, and summon the courage to walk down a flight of stairs.

The rest was other people taking care of me, loving me when I was incapable of doing that, and what we call "Higher Power," be that God, the group, or the program.

The downside to the anonymous nature of the program is that you are limited in who you can publicly thank. My calm and always grounding sponsor, the wonderful couple who drove me to weekend meetings when I didn't have a car, all the many people who cared for me then--thank you, with all my heart.

One man I can thank publicly, though he is no longer with us, except in memory--Phil P., who hugged me as a newcomer, hugged me harder when I moved back to New York City after a few years away, and was my friend. He's the only person I know who wrote his story up for the Big Book He died in 2016, and I miss him still.

By a strange fluke, I had a mutual friend with Jonathan Larson, and Rent was a signpost on the way to that stairwell. So I remember:

There's only now, there's only here
Give in to love or live in fear
No other path, No other way,
No day but today