I met a truly extra-ordinary person today through my job. Working as a gad-about reporter, I’ve met everyone from Tom Cruise to Desmond Tutu, but the young woman I met today made as strong an impression as anyone I’ve ever shaken hands with.

She’s 23, African-American, works full time in non-profit, is the mother of two, guardian of 2 more, in recovery on several fronts, as well as being a survivor of some really horrific abuse in her childhood.

But none of this is not what most impressed me about her.

What got to me is that this young woman’s heart still sings.

By this I mean she’s still reaching out to other people, to new experience, to life–with undaunted energy, curiosity, and optimism. That kind of living, to me, is what living in recovery really is about.

Wow! I felt humbled before her. And terribly grateful to have met her. No matter how broken our worlds may be, there are people like her around to remind us that a wonderful life is out there, just waiting to be grasped.

I’m really really interested in what sobriety does to one’s spirituality and faith. So, I’m asking anyone who wanders by this blog to take a moment and describe their sober relationship with H.P. and the changes that have come from it. And in the spirit of openness, I’ll go first.

I had no faith at all in H.P. when I got sober. I came to an acknowledgment of God retroactively–by tracing my sober life backwards, seeing all the good changes that had happened in my life (and my head) with God riding shotgun that I’d never been able to pull off on my own. With God as my partner, I’ve been able to keep my temper for the most part, cut off the loop tape of sorrow that used to run almost non-stop in my head, like and trust most people most of the time, not take myself so seriously.

Okay, that’s it for me. So what’s different in your sober life and head from a spiritual point of view?

I suppose there’s no greater gift that sobriety has given me than my regular Sunday morning yack with my daughter who lives in Colorado.

I give myself about an overall  D+ as a mother (I had my good moments, but stability wasn’t my forte when she was growing up), but over the last couple of decades of my sobriety we’ve re-discovered each other as people. I made amends, she forgave, and then we both put the past behind us and got on with enjoying each other as parent and child.

I believe we best express our relationship with H.P. through our relationships with other people. And first and foremost in expressiveness is our relationship with our family. I never hang up the phone on Sunday after my daughterly gab-fest without saying hallelujah,  it so good to be sober!

Before I became a broadcast journalist, I co-owned a couple of restaurants –one of which, for a brief time, was the Blue Moon Diner in Charlottesville, Virginia. My partner was a glorious woman named Maggie Cox; friend supreme, chef supreme, character supreme. We had a blast, serving a combination of traditional diner food and whatever we could dream up in the decrepit kitchen. I baked fresh apple pies and biscuits every day and if there was any apple pie left over from the day before, we gave it away at breakfast.

The place was too small to support two family units, and, besides, I can see in retrospect that I was beginning my precipitous slide. Between then and now is my bottom, my bounce, and the long, upward climb–made in partnership with H.P.–into today’s welcome sobriety.

The Blue Moon diner just re-opened, yet again, under new management. I have business in Charlottesville today and have made plans to meet two ladies there for lunch. This has, of course, got me thinking about my own diner days; and, you know, just because I was on my way down when I was there doesn’t diminish the good times I had there with Maggie Cox.

As the promises put it so well: We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. Sobriety is about self-acceptance, not self-hatred.

I’m really looking forward to lunch.

I enjoy all elections, but I’m particularly enjoying this one ! Yesterday was my state’s (Virginia’s) primary, and I was on the road all day–driving almost 300 miles, visiting out-of-the-way polling places, phoning in hourly reports to my station. I don’t think I’ve ever seen people waiting in line as cheerfully as the voters I talked to within the collection of elementary schools, Ruritan Halls, and Rescue Squads I visited. We were all so engaged with our country’s political process–as though, somehow, we were at the beginning a grand housekeeping of our country’s ethos. I felt like high-fiving the world!

Come to think of it, a sober life, for me, is full of fully-engaged days like yesterday. A lot that I do really interests me–days are no longer just a string of tasks I do because I have to or I think I should. Looking back, I can see that, when I was drinking and using, a good day was the one I’d gotten through, not the one ahead of me.

It’s difficult for me to express how grateful I feel to be going through life the way I am now–as opposed to the way I was slogging through it a couple of decades ago. I know, down in my gut, that my engaged life is a small miracle that has been granted to me–that is granted to every alcoholic and/or addict who lives  another day without using, without doing anyone harm, maybe getting a little something accomplished–and, hopefully,  enjoying  the heck out of being alive and sober.

It’s 4 o’clock Friday afternoon. I’ve been on deadline all week and, man, am I pooped. I spent the day (after filing my story) cleaning up my e-mail and trying to clean up the inside of my head. I think, you know, that I must be really, really tired. I have a tendency to push myself to keep going. The more I get done, the more there seems to be that I want to do or try.

My office at work has a window. I sit facing it. with my back to the door and, as I have a very friendly back, nobody takes offense at this. I look out onto a scraggy patch of grass with a scraggy fringe of wood behind it. Charlie hung a bird feeder on a pole outside the window, and I keep red rubber garden shoes in my office so that when I fill the bird feeder and scatter seeds on the ground, I don’t track mud onto the carpet. (My mama would be proud!) I think of my scraggy grass patch as Martha’s Nature Preserve.

Okay, so I’m sitting here, staring at my computer screen, working my tired self into a frenzy thinking about what I can get done before going to a 5:30 meeting. Then I look up and there on the ground is a flame-red cardinal, pricked by afternoon sunlight. He is so beautiful, and I’m so lucky have an office with a window through which I can see him.

Something in me relaxes. You know, I decide, I’ve earned a break from my usual state of driven productivity.

I’m thinking now about shutting off my computer in a few minutes and heading out to get a cup of coffee before my meeting. There’s a little shop close to the church in which we gather. Who knows? I might see some sober friends there.

I could tell them about seeing that cardinal and relaxing and they would understand.

“Underneath the fume and fuss, Life is just asparagus.”

I wrote it years ago, but don’t you think it soooooo describes a sober attitude???

. . . even though I thought it was just a great game–everything, that is, except the outcome. I did want the New England Patriots to achieve perfection since that is denied to the rest of us humans.

What I want to write about is the novel experience of stability. Before I got sober my life was tumult on two feet. Without drugs and alcohol, I’ve managed to live with the same guy for fifteen years, have the same job for 8, the same cats for over a decade, and live in the same house for 5 years. And I have no plans, at all, to change any of the above. I guess this is just what happens when one doesn’t drink or use, partners with H.P., goes to meetings, and keeps on Stepping.

When I was drinking and using I wouldn’t have been able to tolerate so much tranquility. I would have had to do something to shake things up, cause a little chaos, do a little damage, inflict a little pain, get that edgy feeling back. Instead of living a life that actually does feel pretty happy, joyous and free, I would have had to go after a life that felt angry, despairing, and self-destructive. Happy, joyous, and free would have seemed way to boring when I was slow-dancing with Bourbon.

Of course, I sometimes miss the edge. I guess I’m lucky in that I get to flirt with it professionally–meeting deadlines definitely kicks the old adrenalin flow up a notch. But I do not miss at all the knowledge that how I live damages other people. Nor do I miss feeling of spiritual isolation that came with my drinking.

It’s a rainy Monday. I’ve got a lot on my plate today. I’ll get done what I can, then, the end of the day, I’ll go gratefully home to the same old man, old cats, old house. And shout hallelujah for them all!

If this is sobriety, bring it on!