Milestones - Celebrations

November 29. Hey everybody & happy new week to you all. I had a busy monday but it was all positive stuff so it really was not a bad day, in fact I'd say it was a good day. After the excitement & newness of this weekend, brought on from my shop's grand opening, I had thought that today was going to be a drag due to all the work I have been doing. It was the exact opposite. I didn't make a great deal of money like on the weekend days, but I did make enough to make me feel the day was worthwhile. I met many new people & there was a steady movement of strange faces as people kept coming in to check out this new marketplace. While greeting the people who came by to see my wares, I was also stocking merchandise into display cases. The once large pile of backstock is finally seeming to be managable as I work it a little each day & I am on track to be caught up & moving on to another focus for the business by this weekend's onset. Mom had to visit my grandma, who originally was going in for a procedure but it got delayed until tomorrow. She made her way back to me & even helped me get some work done for a while before we closed up for the night. I left an hour early because on Monday's I have one of my favorite groups, MARS. It was a small group there but they are always the best because we often get the best talks & the most sincere advice/guidance. Afterwards my friend dropped me off at my homegroup to catch the last half of the celebrations going on there. 4 people celebrated a combined total of 96 years of sobriety tonight, that number is staggering & is also a comforting message in itself. To me it is anyways, it says so much, in fact it's enough that I want to write about it.

Celebrations in sobriety are something that have multiple values. What I mean by that is this.. The first year a person celebrates it means so much, a milestone, a heartfelt moment of accomplishment & grace from our higher power. It is encapsulated into a day or night which everyone celebrates the hard work & dedication as well as the miracles that led up to that day. Later years it is often said by people, "This is not a celebration for me, but a celebration for the fellowship itself & the 12 Steps". What is meant by that is at some point we are no longer celebrating for ourselves, to bask in the amount of time we have been sober & hard at work in our spiritual lives, but rather we are celebrating to honor that which made it all possible & to show others who have not yet reached a milestone that the fellowship & the steps do in fact WORK. These values combined make celebrations of sobriety an important thing to us all, new & seasoned alike. We offer eachother these honors & sometimes tokens of accomplishment to keep the message alive as well as raise hope in our hearts. I remember at my 1 year celebration, the outpouring of people who came to support me & celebrate the success of spirituality in my life. Not one person there could deny the miracle at hand, the values of a celebration turning out to be beyond priceless.

To keep it simple, we celebrate because it's the right thing to do. When compared to the celebrations in our past, active addiction that is, there is not the negatives that constantly ruined our lives & these types of events. For once we gather without alcohol or drugs, not to have a bash filled with trouble & chaos, but to just wing it & enjoy the calmness & serenity that comes from sober living. Tonight that 96 years of combined sobriety, among a mere 4 people, was more than I can put in words. To see that there is a solution, beyond the shadow of a doubt, there is LIVING PROOF that it "Works if YOU Work It!". I can only hope to give to others one day the same sense of hope & amazing belief in my higher power's grace, the same way these others have done for me tonight. I only was able to capture a fraction of the moment, catching only half the meeting by the time I arrived, but that fraction was multiplied by the memory of my own celebration & it has filled me up with goodness tonight. Everyday we are sober is worth celebrating, because any day we do that we stand as living proof to any who doubt it, that there IS a solution. Good Night.. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy