Dylan Stafford

It’s 6: 33am on Monday morning. I have about 20 minutes until I need to be on the road to arrive at work in time for an 8am conference call. 8am? What was I thinking?

Last week, I celebrated 10 years of continuous sobriety. Not since 2001 have I had a drink. There is a website that lets me calculate the exact number of days since my last drink. It even estimates the number of heartbeats since then, approximately 315,556,546 if their math is correct.

I’d still drink if I could. Drinking was fun as hell when I was a teenager and everything was adventure. In my twenties, drinking was a 50/50 deal, sometimes an adventure and sometimes a train wreck. By my early thirties, when I quit, drinking had become, for me, more and more of what doesn’t work.

For most people, drinking is good times and fellowship and release from care and worry. If it could be that for me still, maybe I could still participate. But, just for today, I’m going to ask God that I don’t drink. For today only, I’m going to ask for protection from my fear and worry. What will I ask for tomorrow? That is tomorrow’s deal.

It’s worked for ten years so far. I hope it can survive a little ol’ Monday in March.

Shower time.