Outside the Prison Gates

   The prize for surviving is surviving. Simple, easy, like breathing when breathing is easy. Nothing good, nothing bad, could be made better by a drink. I would not have believed that forty years ago. For thirty years I could not have believed. "I came to believe," as they say in A.A., that nothing would be better with a drink, be made better by a drink.

   Evening Meditation:

 

   In sobriety, I stand guard outside the prison gates of addiction in a proactive stance to block my entrance back in, my picking up, to block, to stop insanity, to stop. That a prison guard, too, is in prison is one of the ironies of sobriety that I shall have to abide. Stop. Do not go in there. Stop. Do not go in there.

   This prison guard is somehow free. 

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 71)