THEIR BEST LIVES
We asked these clean and sober individuals with different lengths of recovery time about the tools they use to live their best lives
BY PAULO MURILLO
BEING OF SERVICE
“I’m doing everything that I did 17 years ago. I go to one meeting every day. I’m involved in the program of recovery, I’m of service. I stay busy. I’m a secretary now. I have sponsees. I have a big sober family and we’re engaged every day—we read the Daily Reflections. I share and reflect on that. I just surrender to the Program, because the disease is active in my mind and in my life. When the work gets me tired, because it can get very repetitive, I get more involved. I throw myself into service more. Before I got sober, I was in my disease. My only way of living was the bottle and my negative mind. I was living in fear, it was all the about self, about being unhappy and acquiring toxic relationships. I was busy with my men. I wanted them to love me and praise me and that was my life. I was mentally sick and emotionally bankrupt, and now I’m busy being of service.”
—Claudia Estrada, sober since May 15, 2008.
STAY PRESENT
“I stay sober by practicing honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness. Today I show up for myself and I’m part of a community. I stay present, making sure that I’m always open minded when I meet with my sponsor and I follow that direction and I get out of my own way. Before I got sober, I was self-centered, I was ego driven. It was debauchery. It was self-loathing. It was just me in my own way and in my own mess. It was desolate. It was dark. Now I’m a proud product of the Van Ness Recovery House. I wear that like a badge of honor. The Van Ness House showed me the tools that it takes to work a program. It’s a program of willingness. Then there’s also the daily work. You can get sober, but you have to stay sober, and that’s where the daily work comes in. I’m closing in on eight years this fall, and I feel lucky.”
—Kasey Nelson—sober since December, 21 2017.
MY PERSPECTIVE
“I have a morning routine that includes journaling and prayer and meditation. I don’t do it perfectly, but when I do it, my day tends to go a little bit better. I try to reach out to other sober people on a regular basis. I just keep up with them and talk about what’s going on with me because if I don’t, I tend to keep everything in. That’s when my disease kind of takes over. I try to be compassionate towards myself, because I have a pretty negative narrator, and I try to catch that when it happens. I try to redirect the thinking or the thought patterns about whatever’s going on in that moment because my inner saboteur will try to take over. I go to meetings, take service positions, fellowship… These tools have changed my outlook and my perspective on things. It’s given me a sense of a Higher Power that I didn’t even know existed.”
—Drew Ransom, sober since January 4. 2024.
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