Mark, as always, a very insightful place you're at in recovery. I hear you inventorying yourself and where you're at right now, and that is great. But any good inventory has to include more than just "well, I'm sober". I realize that on some days, when all else fails, that at least we were sober through it is the one bright spot. But you have so much more in the "assets" column than you realize.

There will always ALWAYS be a handful of problems to recognize about ourselves and our behavior and thinking, and work on through recovery's tools. But any journey of healing requires that we give ourselves a pat on the back when it is due.

You are right, you are very fortunate that you are not in the positions (on either end of it) that your coworker/her husband are in. But the high's and low's you speak of in regard to yourself, the irritation, the strong emotions you face right now, are actually part of the journey itself. And while self-evaluation is a very important part of sobriety, overly-criticizing one's self at every turn can do more damage than good. I have myself gone through periods of insane neuroticism beating myself about the head with the baseball bat of perfectionism with regard to mental and emotional reactions and practices. In my own history, this has led me to feelings of futility at times, which fueled engines inside me that along with other factors, would take me back out.

You are just about at one year of sobriety. One year of recovery through a completely new set of ideals. One year without the drink that you clung to for decades of your life. One year of beginning to delve into the realm of choosing old ways of thinking to toss out. Your journey has just begun, and by God, you WILL be angry, you WILL feel helpless at times, and you WILL act a'fool (as do all of us, even the most elder among us) and it won't mean that ANYTHING is perpetually wrong with you, nor that you are not working a great program. And this is the time to accept that, and know how to pick your battles going forward in this coming year.

Steps 1 through 3 are essentially about making a decision to turn thoughts and actions over to our HP. We have to come to a full knowledge that now is not the time to fall back on self knowledge, and trying to change thoughts and behaviors based on our own self-knowledge. The scarey thing here is that now aware of a handful of our liabilitites, many of us tended to haphazardly and without knowing it turn again to "self" to stop the ingrained thinking and emotional responses. But aren't we in fact just doing what we always did, trying to make things better on our own strength/knowledge/power? We can't forget, when we seem to be hitting some brick walls, that we need to LET the program work ON US, as we work the Steps. We don't work the steps while simultaneously straining and srtuggling to "fix". We can't put the cart before the horse and expect the cart to do the pulling. The real "workhorse" of the program is the Higher Power. The Higher Power often needs us to figuratively "be still" in order for some of these problems to be solved.

People with decades of sobriety still have issues, like wanting to be taken care of, popping off emotionally, getting into modes of selfishness and self pity, feeling less-than at times. The trick is learning how to be relatively serene and peaceful, and loving of one's self throughout the lifelong proccess of letting go of the old, and LETTING (not forcing) the "new" come flowing in. Being at peace even while knowing darn well we are still whacked-out to a degree. Being OK with the fact that perfection is nowhere closeby.

One the subject of perfectionism, (I bring this up because I recall being devastated when realizing after the first time I hit a year, that I was nowehre near being what I "wanted" to be at that point), I heard someone say this about it: "Perfectionism is actually ego-driven and narcissistic. To require perfection of one's self means that one actually believes perfection can actually be ATTAINED by him! How haughty!" I liked hearing that, and kept it with me. It helped me to get away from reverse-humility at times.

I am writing a book here, and did not mean to. I just wanted to throw out some snippets, to try and help you with the stress level that seems to accompany certain milestones in sobriety. While I by no means feel that I am an expert in this in any way, going on a humbling 2 years sober, what I do have is over a decade worth of learning in AA, despite several painful relapses after some years. I believe there si something to be learned out of these experiences. I mean only to help another avoid the same cycles I went thorugh to get where I'm at today on the inside, irrespective of "tiemlines".

I am so happy for you, and proud of you, Mark. You are so admired here for what you are trudging through in recovery, and how well you show us HOW you get through it. You come here no-holds-barred, and tell us how it is with you, and we all feel connected. I hope you take some time to reflect on who YOU have become over the past year, and that you can take some time to appreciate and pat yourself on the back for sticking through this. Do something nice for yourself, you truly deserve it!! You work so hard on recovery, you do need to unwind and take a refreshing breath at times. We all do!

((((((hugs)))))))
Joni