8 Things Right Now at 8 Years Sober

Eight mini essays about life at eight years without booze.

Eight years sober or transfiguration to crone.

Every year since getting sober, I’ve commemorated my soberthday through an exceedingly long piece of writing. I have a history of writing to prove a point, deliver a sermon, impart a message, but these posts are generally times when I write what I want to write without thinking of the audience, who might read it, whether they will find it useful. I write these for myself as a documented history of where I am so I can remember where I was so I can remember where I am going.

There’s the tendency to cringe when I read back over past posts; I often want to say “silly girl you knew nothing,” but the thing about growth is that there is no other way to today; you don’t get to jump through the stages, you have to live through them, embody them. I wonder if in five years I’ll scratch my head at these words, at the woman writing them. I hope by then, I’ll just bow to her.

1. Losing Center

I started Tempest, now a recovery company that employs sixty-ish…