Hope is the Thing With Feathers

It was mid-summer in Rochester, Minnesota, and I was six months sober. I had so much indecision, shame, guilt, anger, sadness, and depression that I had begun to feel overwhelmed, even though I was gaining new tools for living through my AA meetings. Some days I was only able to climb a few inches toward sobriety, and some days I fell down a few feet, and some days I did not have sobriety in my sight at all. I was filled with feelings of “I can't do this,” then “I don't want to stay sober,” and finally “I want relief, just for awhile.”