We Are the Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life

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And here is the thing we must know about our things if we are ever going to survive them: We believe we can bury them, when the truth is, they're burying us. The will always bury us, eventually.” What I mean by faith is simply this: when you enter into an unknown place, one where you haven't yet developed the skills to operate - and especially one where you don't even want to be - you have to rely on some idea that you will be carried through it and that it will be better. I guess I didn’t know if I would connect with her or could relate to what she would have to share. By the way, this says way more about me than it says about Laura. My insecurities highlighted Days later, I'm still thinking about parts of Laura's journey through active abuse of alcohol to the freedom of sobriety. Her words are startling, beautiful, and easy to understand. I will not be the only one who says that they relate to Laura and her story. I will be one of many who say, "This is ME!". I think that is the mark of an artist. The ability to write in a way that vastly different people relate because the author is inhabiting a space that is fully human. Loneliness started to abate only when I began to really let people in and tell them the truth, and that took a long, long time.

We Are the Luckiest - Foreword Reviews Review of We Are the Luckiest - Foreword Reviews

Because sober or not, until you start to tell the truth, you're going to be desperately lonely. Perhaps this is obvious, but I'm pretty sure it escapes most of us. I hadn't noticed the totality of the distance I'd created between us until it was so big that I could physically feel it...Loneliness started to abate only when I began to really let people in and tell them the truth, and that took a long, long time. The antidote to loneliness wasn’t just being around others or sharing common ground. It was intimacy.” Dani Shapiro, New York Times bestselling author of Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love

We Are the Luckiest Quotes by Laura McKowen(page 2 of 2) We Are the Luckiest Quotes by Laura McKowen(page 2 of 2)

My drinking — and whatever it is you do to feel better — was born of a natural impulse to soothe, to connect, to feel love. And although alcohol hadn’t actually delivered those things, it was absolutely yoked to them in my mind. In my heart and body, too. It was just what I knew.” It’s supposed to be difficult. It’s supposed to take everything you have. It’s supposed to take longer than you want and to change you, completely. This often won’t feel good when it’s happening, but nothing worth having ever does." If something is keeping you from being fully present and showing up in your life the way you want, then deciding to change that thing is an actual matter of life and death, you know? It’s the difference between existing and actually living.” Not because I was committed to forever, but because I finally realized the future was built on a bunch of nows, and that was it." Moving toward sobriety was not easy, which becomes clear through the brutal personal stories shared, but the painful truth is that addiction is too big a problem to be faced alone. A moving account of the ups and downs of Alcoholics Anonymous, what it’s like to go through withdrawal, and the struggle of rescripting life so that what we are addicted to is no longer a part of it, the book is raw, deep, and hopeful.

I chose to read this as I’m working with many people at various points in their sobriety journey. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting but after finishing this book, there are words, emotions, and stories that I think will always stay with me. I’ve already found myself loaning ideas and quotes from this raw and captivating book both with my patients and in my personal life. The truth is alchemical. It transmutes the bitterness of pain and dishonesty and shame into something else, something we can actually live in and stand on...it is that important. It is also difficult to do because - for many of us - it's in conflict with how we've learned to get our needs met. This is the 10 percent withholding. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but right then they agreed it was okay to lie to each other - even if only a little...But they were always operating just left of center, hovering around the truth of who they were, unwilling to life the film from their eyes. Laura was the first person I found online in 2014 who was telling the truth about addiction & recovery. Ever since I found her, I’ve read every piece she has written, taken her online courses, and even participated in one of her yoga workshops and I don’t even yoga.⁣ For most of my life I believed I had to lie to get what I needed. I'm guessing somewhere inside, you believe this, too...While lying almost works, just like drinking almost works, neither will ever take us all the way home. While the path may be longer and harder and a little lonelier at times, honesty will always move you closer to love, not further away.

Laura Mckowen Quotes — Niche Quotes 61 Laura Mckowen Quotes — Niche Quotes

How fragile this was. How powerful. They were just words: sounds I could make with my mouth. But if I never made them, he would never know, And strangely I believed I wouldn't have to know either. I believed if I could only hang on for long enough, eventually it would all disappear inside me, like salt dissolving into water.”

Which is the way we fool ourselves, isn't it? Life isn't a comparison game. It's not about whose stories are the most awful, or who really deserves the biggest shame. It's not even about the stories we hold on to so that we can stay in the places we are, the places that don't serve us but are so hard to walk away from. I am not as bad as that, so I can keep doing what I do to numb my feelings, my life, my nows.

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I’ve found myself inspired to foster my wellness, presentness, and honesty as a therapist, mother, and human.We created The Sober 90 to provide a simple entry point for people who are new to sobriety. It's also perfect for not-so-new folks who need extra support and community.