Six Years Sober...Still Becoming

What I have lived, what I have learned, and what I have yet to discover.

At 13, I had my first drink. It did not end well.

At 59, after 46 years of drinking and thousands of “day ones,” I finally found sobriety.

At 65, on October 18^th, I  am six years sober. When I look at everything that has happened in those six years, I realize how much life I have been here to experience.

In the past six years, my children have gotten married. Our family has grown. I have two grandsons, with a third on the way. There are people in my life now who have only ever known me sober. That means more to me than I know how to explain.

In the past six years, my father passed. Sobriety did not spare me grief. I had to learn how to live through loss without the escape I had turned to for so much of my life.

In the past six years, I retired. I stepped away from a career in which I had been successful and began a new career doing work I am passionate about in a way I never thought was possible. I am still learning what it feels like to build a life around something that matters so deeply to me.

I spent a month in Greece as part of completing 500 hours of yoga teacher training, and am now working toward my breath work certification. I keep finding things I want to learn, places I want to go, and ways I want to grow.

I helped start The SOS Collective. A community where women can find support on their own sobriety journeys. I know what it feels like to keep starting over. I also know what it means to have women beside you who understand.

In these six years, I have found my voice. I blog regularly, taught several classes, am working on new workshops, and I am in the process of writing a book.  Writing has been challenging.  But putting my experience and ideas, my voice, out into the world is perhaps the biggest challenge I have given myself. 

And in these six years, I have begun a completely new relationship with myself.

This is the change that is hardest to put into a few sentences.

For so long, I could tell you what I did, who needed me, and what was expected of me. I was less practiced at noticing what I felt. What I wanted. What I was reaching for when I poured a drink.

I am learning to notice my life.

What brings me joy. What hurts. The ways I still dismiss myself or fall back into something familiar. Noticing that I am indeed blessed with limitless possibility and I can always choose differently.

Some days, I feel deeply connected to who I am. Other days, I catch myself doing something I thought I had moved beyond. I am learning how to meet both versions of myself with curiosity.

I used to think there would be a point when I would have myself figured out. When I would understand why I did what I did and know exactly how to move forward.

I am making peace with the truth that there is no endpoint.  I am a complex human being. We all are. There will always be something I have not noticed, something I do not yet understand, something new to discover.

For perhaps the first time in my life, that feels exciting.

At 59, I could not have imagined the life I would be living at 65.

I wanted to stop drinking. I wanted to stop breaking promises to myself. I wanted to be free.

Six years later, I am living a life I am still learning how to inhabit. There has been grief. There has been extraordinary joy. There are questions I cannot answer and parts of myself I am only beginning to know.

I am grateful to be here for all of it.

Six years sober. Still learning. Still becoming. And excited about what I have yet to discover.

There is no shame here. Only freedom. ❤️

Much Love, 

Lisa

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Lisa Hamil is a founding member and host for The SOS Collective, an online international women’s recovery and support group. However, this blog and any classes or coaching offered by Lisa Hamil LLC are separate from and not affiliated in any way with The SOS Collective.