I recently watched the Diane Sawyer interview with Matthew Perry, and there were two things said that really resonated with me.
First was when Matthew Perry said, "For whatever reason, because I'm famous, more people will listen to my story." I appreciate that he realizes it is not Matthew Perry that is important to the rest of us, it is the knowledge that even a person who comes from a happy home with strong family support and bonds and has all the "stuff" money can buy is not immune to addiction.
The second was when Diane Sawyer commented "I know it's not right to ask a person in recovery how long they've been sober because that is their personal journey."
In all the years I have not taken a drink or a drug, I have never heard that before. It got me thinking: I understand the strength it can provide to proclaim we have X days or Y months or Z years clean so we can wear it as a badge of honor to prove to ourselves-and to our addiction- that we can do it.
My wonder is, at what point do we begin to focus on living clean rather than getting or staying clean? I've met a lot of people in "The As" (AA, NA, and so on) proud that they have been going to a meeting everyday for years. I recently went to an AA meeting to get my anniversary coin and mentioned that this was the first meeting I had been to in a year. When my coin went around the room for each member to comment (a tradition I believe imbues the coin with the experience, strength, and hope of everyone in the room), one member imperiously stated, "Well I've been coming to a meeting everyday for 26 years and I didn't realize you could stay sober without a meeting every day."
I did not feel the shame he was offering me: I felt sad. For him. What must it be like to trade the active belief that one cannot live a day without alcohol with the active addiction that after decades of sobriety, one cannot live a sober day without a meeting?
I would NEVER have found sobriety without years of daily meetings. And yet, there was a point at which I was no longer in AA, AA was in ME, and I knew it was in me to stay.
At that point, when people began to ask me how long I had been clean and sober, I began to say, "All day today" because today amd for the rest of my life, I know that today is all I have...and all I need.
What say you?