What is a sober birthday?
The original 12 Step program, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), pioneered the concept of a sober birthday. Sober birthdays mark the day we stopped using drugs and alcohol. Getting sober is a kind of rebirth, and a sober birthday celebrates the day a new, sober self is born.
Why is it important to stay sober?
A person can go for years without drinking, then one day relapse by thinking they can have “just one”. While it may begin with just one, typically within days, weeks, or months, substance use will escalate back to previous levels of consumption and beyond.
While a meaningful, good life is possible after addiction, it is only possible through choosing to live in total abstinence from all mood-altering chemicals.
What is Alcoholics Anonymous?
Alcoholics Anonymous is a 12 step program. AA is self-run and self-organized on a fully volunteer basis, as a fellowship of recovering alcoholics.
Although AA features an element of spirituality, sharing that a spiritual awakening is usually required to be able to recover from addiction, AA is not part of any religion. The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.
AA works for spiritual-but-not-religious people, religious people, agnostics, and atheists equally well, provided they are willing to surrender their egos to a benevolent healing force of some kind in order to be able to recover.
Alcoholics Anonymous is, as the title implies, fully anonymous, meaning that membership in the group is protected by a vow of anonymity, and no one may reveal another person’s membership in the group. Also, what is shared within the walls of an AA meeting is considered fully private and confidential, not to be shared outside of meetings.
Alcoholics Anonymous is free to attend. Collections of small donations are accepted but not required, used for fees related to renting space to meet, publishing pamphlets, maintaining websites, and outreach in jails, hospitals, and schools. There are no AA employees, and there is no permanent hierarchy or leadership, though there are temporary service positions, such as being a chairperson or speaker at a meeting.
There are AA meetings all over the globe, and every major US city will have multiple options for meetings every day. There are also online meetings that are easy to attend from anywhere with an internet connection. You can find meetings on the Alcoholics Anonymous website.
AA is based on the 12 Steps of Recovery, which are psychologically healing actions recommended to all people who are seeking to recover from the nightmares of addiction to substances. AA has been effective for millions upon millions of people, who are able to now live joyful lives in recovery.
However, AA only works “if you work it”. This means that while everyone is welcome to attend no matter where they’re at in their journey, and all are encouraged to take on board only what feels right for them, positive results require people to attend regularly (often daily for the first several years of sobriety), to complete the 12 Steps, and to work with a sponsor.
What is a sobriety chip?
AA believes in celebrating sober birthdays by handing out sobriety chips. These sobriety chips are small round medallions made in different colors to designate different lengths of time sober.
The most important chip is considered to be the 24 hour chip, given to members who have managed to stay sober for their first full day. In the first year of sobriety, many different lengths of time are honored, such as 30, 60, and 90 days. After the first year of sobriety, birthdays are generally celebrated annually.
Many people find that having a sober birthday celebrated has more meaning and impact than they could have imagined, and that to be cheered on, honored, and congratulated for the hard work of staying sober after addiction is very helpful for healing the heartache and loneliness that can haunt the lives of people prone to addiction.
What is an aftercare program?
Aftercare refers to any kind of ongoing treatment that takes place after a person has completed an inpatient substance abuse program or outpatient substance abuse program. Villa Kali Ma has an aftercare program, for example, through which we stay in contact with our graduates once they leave our doors.
Aftercare programs usually involve a combination of follow up check ins with treatment providers, and activities that help a person stay in contact with the recovery community. Most aftercare programs strongly recommend involvement in 12 Step as a way to better ensure a life of continued sobriety after all the hard work of treatment.
Why is an aftercare program important for sobriety?
Aftercare programs are important as a way to bridge what is learned in treatment into our work and family lives. Aftercare programs provide continuity and support in the form of friendly faces, and reminders of how bad addiction was and could become again if we aren’t vigilant, accountable, and engaged in the community.
Aftercare is an important way to gradually adjust to greater levels of independence, while still maintaining as much connection as we might need to feel safe and strong in our new lives.
What happens to the sober birthday date if a relapse occurs?
Relapse is a feature of the disease of addiction, and it’s not uncommon for people to relapse several times as a process of coming to terms with the true dangers of addiction.
Many underestimate the deceptive nature of the disease until relapse teaches us to be more emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually ready than we were before, to change in the ways that a life in recovery generally requires.
When a relapse occurs, the date of a sober birthday is amended. It is the humbling nature of addiction that any of us may need to ask for a 24 hour chip all over again. There is never any shame attached to relapse, however, and 24 hours are as celebrated with AA as 20 years.
How to assist a loved one struggling with substance abuse?
It’s not easy to help someone who has a substance abuse problem. We cannot do the work of getting sober for another person. We cannot even make the decision to get help, on their behalf. It must come from them.
All we can do is make it less convenient for them to stay in their addiction, and to speak the truth to them with kindness and consistency.
If your loved one knows and acknowledges that she has a problem, and she is willing to seek help, this is a special window of time in which to take action right away to help her.
Support and encourage your loved one to enter treatment and/or to go right away to an AA meeting. If she wants that, you can even come with her – there are designated open AA meetings in which it is ok to attend even if you are not an addict. By being willing to sit in the room yourself and be present for the reality of addiction, you will learn a lot yourself as well as help your loved one know that you are willing to be in the difficulty with them.
However, if your loved one is fully “in her disease”, denying the impacts of her addiction on you, others, and herself, the best thing to do is to let go of trying to control her. Instead, tell her the difficult truth, hold strong boundaries, and do not skirt around the issue. Judgment isn’t helpful, but directness and firm limits are.
Very common is that a person goes in and out of willingness to admit there is a problem. Again, AA can be helpful here. Go to AA with them, or support them to go, whenever they have moments of clarity or willingness.
Keep in mind that even if your loved one seems not to have been positively affected by an AA meeting, or even scorns or mocks the group, this doesn’t mean it won’t help her later on. The truth about the nature of the disease which is talked about openly within AA has a curative effect on addicts and will plant seeds of recognition and insight in her mind. Many people who circle back to AA do so because a seed of truth planted during an AA meeting many years before has sprouted now, bringing courage and willingness.
It’s important for people just to know on some level that a solution exists. Even if a woman needs to spend many more years in the disease as a part of her process, exposure to AA makes it more possible that the life-affirming part can gather inspiration and strength to overcome the lies of the inner addict someday.
Villa Kali Ma can assist you with staying sober
The good news is, it is fully, realistically possible to recover – once you want to recover. Yes, it takes some emotional courage, hard work and a willingness to be changed, but it is largely a matter of surrender and diligence.
No woman needs to know beforehand exactly how she’s going to manage it, nor to feel herself capable of it. All she needs to do to begin, is to honestly say yes to the following question: are you willing to get better?
If she can answer yes to that and can make a decision to enter the unknown of it all, to surrender all her burdens to a benevolent, healing process, she has what she needs to get there.
Recovery requires learning how to live a life more aligned with who we really are, in our best and highest natures. Villa Kali Ma was founded for just this purpose, to help women find out for themselves just how wonderful life can be, through the path of recovery.