10 Months

Hi. I'm Joe. I'm a recovering christian. And today, April 19, 2012, I have been clean for ten months.
I walked out of the church on Fathers' Day last June and have stayed out and away ever since. A couple of times early on, it was difficult, because I had developed habits over 30 years that, while destructive and painful, were very, very familiar. Those comfort zones are hard to step out of, even when they are killing us, and they surely were killing me, one miserable day at a time.
Ten months later, my blood pressure is corrected. I haven't had but one migraine headache in all this time, where the routine had become 3 to 5 per week. An awful lot of the frustration and anger that had become my constant companions are just distant memories now. I feel better than I'd felt in, perhaps, 25 years.
I have a new job. I work for people of integrity and honor, which I hadn't believed in at least a decade, previously. The schools bring their own challenges, but there is never a day when I feel that I am mission-less, making no difference in a deadend, dying institution. The stress level in my life is now miniscule.
The hebrew bible tells the story of Joseph. You know, the guy with the technicolor dreamcoat. No, not Donny Osmond, but the character he portrayed. Joseph had a bunch of the sorriest brothers the world has ever had to offer. They wanted to kill him, but were a few cojones short. So they sold him into slavery. Years later, we're told, the tables turned and the rich and powerful Joseph found those bastards in the palm of his hands. He screwed with them a little, but in the end, let them off the hook. He showed he was better than they were. Not that it was all that difficult to be better than them!
It's probably a good thing that Bishop Dick and the Dickettes don't find themselves in the palm of my hand. Allstate, I ain't! But I get Joseph's story in ways that I never did before. The cowardly predators that sought my life didn't get the job done, either, and, indeed, that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger.
I am the strongest I have ever been in my adult life. I have found truths that would have been terrifying earlier, and embraced them fully. I know the difference in reality and bullshit, and where each resides. This improvement could never have happened while in the grasp of the church. I am fortunate. I got out just in time.
Free at last, free at last, I am truly glad to be clean, sober and free!
Ten months and counting!