We Get To Live

The bottle once whispered

a promise of silence,

a numbness to carry me

through nights too sharp to face.

But the silence was hollow,

and the ache never left

it only grew teeth.

I know the shadow of that hunger

how it claws at your chest,

how it tells you alone is forever.

I know the shame,

the mornings with no light,

the mirror that felt like a stranger.

And yet;

here I stand

barefoot on holy ground

breathing air I thought I’d lost.

We do not walk alone anymore.

Hands find ours in the dark

voices say, “me too”

and suddenly the weight lifts

because it’s carried together.

Sobriety is not perfection

it is practice

the daily work of tending a garden

we once abandoned.

The soil is stubborn,

but the roots take hold.

And slowly,

green shoots rise where there was ruin.

Now, we get to feel our feelings

every trembling joy,

every sharp grief,

every sunrise that tastes

like mercy on the tongue.

Grateful.

That’s the word that keeps circling back.

Grateful to be alive,

grateful to remember,

grateful to begin again.

We are not what we were.

We are what we choose today.

And today,

we choose to live.

Addiction takes and takes, until it convinces us we are nothing but the hollow it leaves behind. Sobriety, though, is the quiet miracle of learning to live again; one day at a time, with hands reaching out so we don’t have to walk alone. It isn’t easy, but it is sacred work: to feel fully, to face ourselves honestly, and to discover that life, in all its rawness, is still a gift.