best day

“My worst day sober is still better than my best day using.”

This sobriety idom’s become the recovery equivalent to that archaic meme: “Still a better love story than Twilight…” You hear it all the time in the twelve step rooms. But what does it mean? You got fired. Your car’s on the fritz. Your wife left you. How in “Higher Power”‘s name is this a better day than the numb bliss I still miss after two and a half years clean? I was just reading a thread debate about exactly this (between a few sober folks) the other day, when it dawned on me. Duh. Because it’s not about the day. It’s about us. Any one of us.

See, the big “aha” came one day when I lost my top outside.

Wait, lemme backtrack a second. I’d had a terrible month. My foot was effed up, so I couldn’t run for a while – my newfound addiction. My car had been having issues. My heart had relationship issues. (*Insert a bunch of other irrelevant boring, first world problems you don’t care about – and honestly shouldn’t – here… and then skip to now*)… where I’d hung my tee shirt for Muay Thai out to dry on the balcony after washing it. And it fell. Down into the bushes below. And I was late for class.

At first I was pissed off, but then I realized something.

Three years ago, my back was so bad that I could barely walk – much less run. Now I run so much, that I got a tarsal injury, which needed a little break. Three years ago, I was such a child woman and so helpless and so afraid of doing business with people, that I’d pawn off getting my car fixed onto my mom. (Yep, not my most proud admission. Sadly, also not even close to my most un-proud admission.) Now, I just take it in. And pretend like I shouldn’t get a gold start for handling my biz. Three years ago, I was in so much pain, the mere notion of doing martial arts would have made me audibly guffaw. And last night (after finally retrieving my uniform from the shrubbery), I got my green belt.

“I lost my top in public today because it wasn’t dry.
I lost my top in public in the old days because *I* wasn’t.”
#perspective

But that’s not all. Sure, my problems today pale in comparison because many of them come from all the stuff I never would or could have done during active addiction – that are just routine now. But they also pale in comparison because I actually handle them. Why? Because I’ve learned how to, by attending enough meetings and seeking enough supplemental spiritual tutelage to know how. I seek it out actively and drill it into my head the way I drill Muay Thai and Jeet Kune Do combos during class.

And that’s the whole point.

As popular as that “worst day/best day” idiom is, there’s a more popular one. In fact, it’s so catchy (and factual), that one girl from my old home group would say it at the end of every meeting I’ve attended. And that’s this: “It works if you work it!” Your worst day in recovery is better than your best day using not because’ve some sorcery they dole out along with keytags. Nay, sir. It’s ’cause you’ve been on the spiritual grind. And, as a result, you’ve gained that brand of awareness you need to order to recognize which life-elements you can modify, and which you’ve gotta simply surf through serenely. Yeah, my foot was injured. Yeah, I got rejected from the program I wanted to get into. Yeah, my car started having problems.

But you know what makes that day better than my best day using?

Beyond perspective?

That I’m not running on said effed up foot away from problem-fixing and toward pill-fixes. That’s what serenity is. It’s not sitting on a tranquil lake in a canoe and enjoying the sonorous chorus of late summer crickets and toads (lovely though that is). No. It’s the capacity to look at life’s arising issues – each of ’em – like video game demons you slay one at a time. And each one of those is a win, because A.) It’s daily self-validation that nothing’s a match for the bad-assery baton my clean club’s passed on to me. And B.) Procrastination is like problem fertilizer. The more I put off solving the problems (which is what I’d do if I were using), the more they transmogrify into leviathan nightmares, waiting for me when I next exit my haze and have to face reality. Spraying resolution napalm on problems now, rather, prevents that amplification of catastrophes from coming at me later.

(Well, until tomorrow’s next set’ve probs, at least.)

That, my dears, is why a horrible sober day beats a seemingly ideal one while using.

But for those of you vexed by the use of “we” or “our”, I say “our” because I’m referring to those’ve us who do the work, implement the principles, and thus reap the rewards. (Which you’re totally invited to be a part of. #youcanSOsitwithus.) Because it’s not about the day being bad or good at all. It’s about you, me, “us” – and our respective efforts. It’s about the proactive brain-training you put in at the sobriety dojo. It’s about your sudden Chuck Norris level capacity to handle bad shiz with the fierce grace. The ability to pummel the onslaught of obstacles with serenity fists. And, above all, it’s how you can now remain cool, calm, collected, and (obviously) clean even as SHTF – without having to fake it or layer life with a chemical glaze.

That’s why it’s better. Because we are.

Best of luck getting struck with this epiphany, my ex-chemical comrades.

It’ll come… if you keeping coming back.