I spent four hours at the Paseo fest yesterday selling beer at the booth by the main stage and my sobriety was on the line.

Just last Thursday, a friend bought me a cranberry and tonic on the art museum roof and didn’t notice the bartender assumed vodka went with that.

These are critical moments for me.  For me, to drink is to die.  For me, a beer, a glass of wine or a mixed drink is poison.  It doesn’t just poison my body, it poisons my mind and heart.

Thank God I’m sober.

I get praise at times due to my long term sobriety — 11 years this June 22 — but it really IS a sheer gift.

It’s not something I earned or deserved.

It’s not something I’ve done with willpower.

I tried to stop drinking many times before June, 1995, with no success.

Alcoholics Anonymous gave me the tools to be sober.

It’s the most important and best decision I’ve made in my life.

I don’t work the program perfectly by any means.  You want to be a perfectionist, you can pick apart how well I measure up to working the program in all my affairs with no problem.  Child’s play.

I am sober as a matter of what theologists might call “grace”.

A power of unqualified love in the universe helped me in 1995 and still helps me today.

Thursday, I reacted to a sip less than a gargle with Listerine as if it were lye I were drinking.  It really hit me how close I came to losing my sobriety just by thoughtlessness.  AND I woke up Friday feeling like I was hungover, but knowing it was all in my mind. 

Damn good reminder of the bad days before I quit.

Last night, I sold multiple beers to people who became, not surprisingly, increasingly intoxicated.

They thought they were having a good time and maybe they were.

I can’t tell you how glad I was not to be them.

I remember all too vividly such Paseo fests.

I also remember the guilt and remorse.  I remember being baffled about how I could have slipped past the “one or two” I swore I’d have and then stop.

I remember the sunburn and headache and bad belly.

I remember the shitty taste in my mouth from too much beer the night before.

I remember the ugly women I flirted with, to the consternation of my wife.

I remember the lowlifes I hung out with.

( Well, of course, the folks I hang out with now you might say are lowlifes, but they’re a much much higher level low life. )

I remember puking and falling down and hurting and scraping and cutting and bruising and not knowing where the injuries came from when I woke up.

How could I sell beer for four hours and not be tempted to take even one single sip?

EASY.