Sober Day Counter: Is It Helpful?

Back when I attended alcoholic anonymous, I dreamt of the day that I would proudly stand in front of my community and my sponsor — with cheery voices singing a slightly off-key “happy birthday” — and receive my one-year, three-year, even five-year chips, honoring the time I’d stayed sober.

I was in awe of old-timers who had decades of sobriety under their belt, who would quietly make their way to the front of the room as someone called out a seemingly impossible number like, “38 years? Anyone with 38 years this month?”

Those celebratory moments left a big impression on me, especially when I was new to my sobriety. 

But a small part of me couldn’t help but notice that, as inspiring as the fanfare was, it also left me afraid. 

I couldn’t help but wonder, “What happens if I fail? What happens if I keep failing?”

Counting Sober Days

When I began counting my sober days, I started to notice just how much my mindset mirrored so many other areas of my life. 

In particular, as someone in recovery from both an eating disorder and substance misuse, I couldn’t help but notice the parallels.

There was my good pal, “all-or-nothing thinking.” 

I thought, I either succeed or I fail. And if I fail, I have to start over. 

There was “deprivation as moral purity”. Or, put another way, I am good because I deny myself this bad thing.

There was perfectionism baked into it, too. The only recovery that “counts” is recovery that is flawless — no sips, slips, or blips allowed.

There was also a kind of performativity, where being seen in my good behavior gave me this false sense of belonging and even superiority — much the same way that I needed to tell anyone who would listen about my veganism and my so-called “healthy lifestyle.”

That’s not to say that every person who is counting their days or years of sobriety is doing so with this mindset. 

But so long as I attached this kind of importance and meaning to my sobriety, it was not going to be the celebration, nor source of pride and gratitude, that it was intended to be. 

It was just another pedestal that felt good when it was good… but so shameful when I inevitably fell off.

Tying Self-Worth To Days Sober

Tying my self-worth and my days sober too closely together meant that it was just an extension of the self-loathing that I felt underneath it all. 

And in an attempt to compensate for that shame, I went looking for whatever “good behavior” would redeem me.

But it was that feeling of not being good enough that drove me to make myself smaller in the first place, and it was that same feeling that made me desperate to escape my own life by whatever means necessary.

Being who I was felt intolerable. 

And I was doing everything I could to numb the deep well of shame, whether it was dieting or drinking or both. 

Without doing the inner work, every change I attempted to make in my life felt like a covert punishment. 

Why I Stopped Counting Sober Days

As it turns out, suppressing the behaviors you’re ashamed of is not the same as building a life worth living, and feeling that you deserve to have that life.

So I stopped counting how many days I was sober for. 

Which is to say, I stopped measuring my worth by how “well-behaved” I was, and decided that I would find a way to accept and support myself every single day, whether I stayed sober or not.

At the time, it was difficult to explain to my sober friends why I needed to distance myself from this practice. I eventually left AA, conveniently at the start of the pandemic, at a time when most folks were struggling to get to meetings and the shift to virtual was happening. I also found an amazing recovery coach to keep my support system intact.

Of course, I’m incredibly grateful for my time in AA and the community that I found there. At the same time, I’m also grateful for how my journey deepened when I shifted from “how do I stay sober?” to “how can I accept myself, even and especially when I’m not proud of myself?”

I’m grateful for how loosening my grip around perfect adherence to sobriety, rather than sending me into a catastrophic relapse, actually allowed me to see more clearly how perfectionism (and the ways in which I insisted on measuring it) was part of the problem for me, not the answer.

Learning To Love Myself

Looking back, I needed to knock down this pedestal that I climbed onto, and figure out how to love myself from the ground up.

Because when we hit “rock bottom,” it makes sense that we crave a redemption narrative. It makes sense that maybe some of us climb onto these pedestals exactly because we’re trying to distance ourselves from who we were when we were at our lowest.

But healing, for me, has required more than just celebrating the days I’ve been sober without faltering. 

It’s honoring that the drunk in the alley and the anorexic counting almonds were both me — still someone who was doing his best to stay alive, still someone who was coping the only way he could at the time, still someone who deserves my gratitude, respect, and care.

What I realized is that you can have 38 years of sobriety and still hate your own guts. 

You can have a collection of chips and a birthday cake and everyone singing to you, and still not believe you deserve any of it.

I can’t tell you how long I’ve been sober now, exactly, but I can tell you my life got so much better when I stopped using that number as a way of avoiding the deeper healing that I needed to do.

I count every day I’ve been alive now — 33 years, every day a miracle — because each of those days made me who I am, and by embracing all of them, I’ve never loved myself more.

Are You Drinking Too Much?

Is drinking affecting your job? Is alcohol harming your health or relationships? Does your drinking worry you? Ever tried to drink less but failed?

If any of this sounds familiar, and if AUD runs in your family, Oar Health might be right for you. Oar Health offers medication FDA-approved for the treatment of alcohol problems. A daily pill to drink less or quit.

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