Just Guyton

September is National Recovery Month, and I’ve been thinking this morning about what recovery actually looks like in my life.

It doesn’t look like perfection.

It definitely didn’t happen overnight.

In fact, it took me 18 years to get four years of sobriety.

Eighteen years ago, my father held the door open for me as we walked into my very first AA meeting at the Silver Dollar Club in Daytona Beach.

At the time, my dad already had a couple of years clean and sober.

But he never told me, “I think you need to go to a meeting.”

He simply told me that he needed a meeting and asked if I would go with him.

So I did.

And by the end of that meeting, I knew I was exactly where I needed to be.

That clubhouse is no longer there, and I don’t even live in that state anymore.

But what I learned there stayed with me.

That was my introduction to recovery. I didn’t walk through those doors and magically figure it all out. I stumbled. I started over. I went back. I tried again.

I have ten white chips to prove it.

But I firmly believe that some of the things I learned inside that clubhouse planted seeds that stayed with me long after I left Daytona.

Eventually, those seeds grew.

There was a time when I would wake up whenever I woke up, and my day would begin by getting high.

I told myself I needed it.

I thought it took away my sadness. I thought it erased the memories that tortured me. I thought it got rid of my anger. And for a long time, I was convinced it helped my anxiety.

Today I understand that it was actually contributing to my anxiety.

The truth is, I wasn’t trying to feel better.

I was trying not to feel at all.

It numbed everything.

It even gave me friendships with people I probably wouldn’t have otherwise chosen to spend my time with.

I was existing.

But I wasn’t really living.

Today my life looks very different.

My alarm goes off at 4:00 AM, and one of my first thoughts is:

Thank you, Jesus, for allowing me to wake up. 🙏

I start my morning with prayer and gratitude.

I work out.

I make my one cup of coffee. ☕

Then I simply live my life.

I take care of the things that need to be done. I write. I cook. I laugh. I spend time with my husband and my family. I appreciate things that once might have seemed completely ordinary.

And one of the greatest gifts recovery has given me is something I once didn’t know how to have:

a healthy relationship with another human being.

My life isn’t perfect.

Neither is my recovery.

But today I am actually present for both.

When I think about how I got here, I can say it very simply:

God has done for me what I could not do for myself.

Recovery didn’t erase my past.

It changed my relationship with my present.

I no longer wake up looking for a way to escape my life.

I wake up grateful that I get another day to live it.

So during National Recovery Month, if someone who is still using happens to find their way to these words and thinks, I could never get where she is, I want you to know something.

If a girl like me—who loved to eat pharmaceuticals, chase them with alcohol, and smoke trees—can get clean and stay clean and sober by the grace of God, one day at a time, then so can you.

Eighteen years ago, my father held a door open for me.

He never told me I needed to walk through it.

He simply invited me to walk through it with him.

It took me a long time to understand everything that was waiting on the other side.

But I kept coming back.

Today, I’m four years sober.

I’m not numb.

I’m not just existing.

I’m living.

And I am eternally grateful to be here. ❤️

Happy National Recovery Month.

— GUYTON