Should We Be Counting Days in Sobriety?

When I break down my recovery, I found that the only time that really matters is the time I exist in right now. I can’t change my past no matter how hard I wish. The future will always just be out of reach no matter how fast I race toward it. Still, when I started my recovery journey, days mattered to me. Specifically, the days I stayed sober and the next mark on the timeline that got me closer to a year. For me at least, counting days was an important tool in my recovery.

If you have been following the Grateful Nuts for any length of time, you know that I was the genius who went to rehab to prove he wasn’t an alcoholic. Yep. Honestly, I did that. My thinking, which is a generous term for the brain function I had at the time, led me to believe that in three days maybe a week tops, I would be on my way home with a medical diagnosis of a terminal illness. That way, I could continue to drown my sorrows as the end approached. I did get part of that idea right. I do have a chronic, progressive, and FATAL illness. The thing I didn’t know was that it is highly treatable.

ANYWAY, I had a day-counting plan from the start of my recovery. While my plan was based on days until escape, then. I quickly discovered that in early recovery a ton of people count days. Whether you are in AA, NA or have an app on your phone to count days for you, counting days can be helpful. Putting little “Xs” on a calendar shows a line of progress. Counting days can help you plan for mini-sober celebrations. Or, if you are like me, it can become a competition that inadvertently keeps you sober.

In rehab, I waited a full 7 days before I picked up my first White Chip at an AA meeting. I would like to say that I waited a week so that I could be detox-drug free before I chose to join THE anonymous group of quitters. I would even like to say that I wanted to make sure I wasn’t joining simply out of the peer-pressure I felt at my first meeting. The truth, however, is I didn’t trust me to stay sober long enough for the white poker chip to get comfortable in my pocket. (But, I was so wrong!) In the upmost arrogance and martyrdom, I didn’t want to waste a White Chip. These people were nice and all, but there might be someone who really needed it. Thanks to one of my Wise Men, I picked up that chip, and started my journey of counting days until I could grab a red one.

At first, it was a secret, and somewhat deceptive, ambition. Outwardly, I pretended to be uninterested in counting days or picking up chips. It was beneath me. Inwardly, I was a excited to wake up clean and sober, but maybe not for the reason you think. To me each day meant I had healed a little more, and in my experience, healing always that I was able to do something again. Why would this be any different? (I heard that giggle.)

When I wrecked my knee in a bicycle accident, once my knee could bend after weeks of hobbling around the house, I was back on my bike again. Time and healing allowed me to once again try a similar stunt to the one that broke me. Getting over any illness meant returning to work and/or play. Heck, a few days after having an emergency appendectomy I was back on the job as sports reporter running the sidelines at football games. I knew that if I healed up a little bit, I would be back to drinking. This time, I would be smarter about the way I drank and it would stay under control. (Seriously, quit laughing.)

NOW, I know that I am never, ever, ever going to be able to return to a time when drinking was harmless fun. But in those first 14 days, I had a plan, buddy. And, that incredibly stupid plan, actually kept me sober long enough to get a new one.

My next reason for counting days was simply to win rehab! (Yes, I was, and to an extent still am, just that sick.) As with any group, there were people with whom I felt connected, and a few that I just didn’t like. Looking back, I am ashamed, quite honestly, that I didn’t see that we are all really the same. I wanted to be like a wise man whom I met there. He had entered treatment to make sure he didn’t relapse after a major surgery. I wanted to have 20 years of sobriety just like him, but I wanted it instantaneously. Worse than that I wanted to out-sober the people there I didn’t like.

Most of all, I wanted to stay sober longer than this guy who seemed to be sort of a hero to most people there, but I simply thought was an ass. This guy could quote passages of the Big Book from memory. He always had a drinking story that topped one that anyone shared. He knew a series of card tricks that he used to get attention when his blonde hair and blue eyes weren’t working. In my sick mind that guy had to go down.

He arrived about 15 days before me, but I was going to catch his days of sobriety. (Not the most thought-out plan, I’ll admit.) When he picked up a 30-day chip, I instantly wanted to make 30 days. There was no way I was going to drink before I got to that point. Remember, I am in rehab, no money, car, wallet, or even cellphone. I didn’t have any way of drinking. That didn’t matter, in my mind, I was in control, and by god, I wasn’t going to drink until I caught up with that guy.

Sadly, I won. Exactly one day after he left rehab, he was back in the detox unit. I was still sober, but the victory seemed hollow, shallow, and embarrassing. Still, when I picked up my 30-day chip to the applause of 100 people in recovery at the meeting, I felt accomplished and set my eyes on a 60-day chip. At that particular group, there was a 60-day chip. At my home group now, there is not. You have to wait 90 days, which I think is a crock of crap. As you can see, I still have a tiny resentment about that, but hey, I’m working on it.

I would never get a chance to touch that 60-day chip. Before I reached the 50-day mark, I was deemed to be safe from myself and sent out into the world. Technically, I could have stayed another 90 days in a half-way house, but that scared me more than returning home. On my last day, I was “gently escorted” out of the doors of rehab. (There may have been a slight struggle, and more than a few tears. What can I say? I’m a biter when I’m scared.) When I stepped into the dangerous world where I was free to drink, perhaps I should have restarted my days. After all, the real threat of me getting me, started outside of a safe environment. A few people who I have met do restart the count, but I was too proud of my approaching 50-day mark to drop back to day one. I also restarted my secret, sober competition with others in recovery.

At my second AA meeting after treatment, I met my competition. There were four or five guys who all had just a few more days sober than I, and I planned to hunt them down. (I really wasn’t… or was I?)

In this new surrounding, I first heard old-timers discuss counting only one day, today. I’ll admit, it took a few days to actually understand what they meant. One guy, who had been sober for 25 years would ask who ever was gathered before the meeting started, “Who woke up before 6 this morning?” Then, without waiting for an answer say, “You have more sobriety than I do.” However, I also heard a few people mention that they had been sober for more than a 1,000 days. Obviously, someone was doing some counting. And, at the meetings I attended, there were poker chips or metal coins that were handed out for 30 and 90 days of sobriety. (Oddly, they shifted to months after those two. I guess some people can’t math.) The chips were enough to make me realize that days matter. (“They really don’t,” said the narrator in Morgan Freeman’s voice.)

Each day I got up with the plan to stay sober and went to sleep still sober. Honestly, that was the important thing, but in my pre-90-day mind, there was a competition, and I could win it. The first guy who had a slight lead on me always mentioned the number of days since his last drink during each share. After a meeting, another guy asked me how many days I had, and then said he didn’t count his days in treatment because they weren’t real. Then there was a guy who claimed that he went to the most bare-bones rehab, because this time, he wanted a slap in the face to start his recovery. A different guy who was in a half-way house often vented about work and his roommates during meetings but was still a few days ahead of me. They all had one thing in common. Nope, not alcoholism. They were competition.

All of us were at meetings daily, and we talked to each other in a friendly way. It was almost like they didn’t know I was deadly serious about winning. Sadly, each one fell back into addiction. The day counter and the bare-bones rehab guys were the first down. It seems the guy who didn’t count his rehab days also didn’t count his pain-pill addiction until six months later. The halfway house guy got pissed off enough to move out, and in short order, wound up piss drunk.

Instead of notching each victory over a vanquished foe with a scratched line on the cover of my Big Book, I began to think I wasn’t really one of these people. You can read about how wrong I was in “What if I’m not an Alcoholic.” Then, one day, much like the battle to not drink, I just stopped caring about days. I was simply sober. I was no longer fighting anyone or anything. A new feeling of frustration filled me when one of my friends slipped or relapsed. I truly wished the best for each alcoholic and addict I met.

Still, the days kept passing and I stayed sober. Instead of waiting for a crowded meeting to pick up my next chip, I scooped one out of the chip holder at six months when no one was looking. It was easy enough. By this point, I was arriving an hour early for meetings because I enjoyed conversations on the porch. I left my nine-month chip in the holder. Then, during one of the porch meetings, one of the gruff old-timers who I trusted to help me stay sober noticed that I had been around for a while.

“You are getting pretty close to a year now, aren’t you?” he asked while we were drinking coffee on the porch.

“I guess,” I began. “It doesn’t really matter, though. I finally understand that. I wasn’t even planning to pick up my one-year medallion.”

Oddly, it was true. In those first 30 days of sobriety, that medallion seemed a bridge too far. It was like a treasure that could only be found by Indiana Jones in a labyrinth full of booby traps. Now, it seemed worthless.

“Imma tell you what I was told,” the old-timer began. “You ain’t picking up that chip for you. You are picking it up for that newcomer. They need to see that it is possible. Picking up that chip can give someone hope.”

When my one-year arrived, I picked up my medallion with little fanfare. There was no birthday cake or party as I have seen thrown for others. That was my choice. I still pick up my annual medallion in a similar fashion. It is not about what I have accomplished. I do it to show that it is possible to keep staying sober. Like so much I have learned, recovery is not solely about me.

I stay sober today for myself, and I stay sober to HELP others instead of trying to defeat them. Looking back on those early days of my sobriety, I needed the count. I needed to feel like there was a goal because simply staying sober today was not concrete enough for me. Then, it never occurred to me that “winning” my little competition meant some one had to relapse. I was so naïve about what could happen if an alcoholic decides to drink again. Today, I know that relapses can mean death. With that ever-present in my mind, I am ashamed of my thoughts in those first months and hope that it did not affect my behavior.

When I hear people mention counting days or using an app on their phones to count down to the seconds of their sobriety, I think back to my early days. I fully understand that today is the only day that truly matters in sobriety. But, I don’t steal someone’s sense of accomplishment or victory. Sure, I may roll my eyes when someone mentions that he or she has not had a drink in 5,325 days. That kind of seems an excessive number to still focus on counting days, But, I catch myself before I think to share some snide comment. If counting days is helping that person stay sober, that is all that matters.