This is the first entry in my Morning Drift series — a personal search and journal of gratitude, presence, and the shifting truths I find in sobriety. These aren’t polished guides or programs, just lived moments: presence, gratitude, reflections, frustrations, questions, and the daily work of finding balance.
A Morning Drive
It rained through the night, leaving moisture on the pavement and driveway, dotting my car with droplets — just enough to rinse the dust off the city. The humidity clings like a summer afternoon in the northwest Philly suburbs — thick, lingering, carrying an attitude all its own. There’s a smell here after the rain, one I seldom find anywhere else: sea salt woven into the wet air and lifted dust, a scent that could only be San Diego.
It was 5:30 a.m., and I was driving to work — something I never would’ve done this early in the past. Now, these early mornings have become a small joy of sobriety: clear, steady, present, and my own.
Gratitude in Motion
On my morning drives and walks, I envy people who say they meditate daily, write their gratitude lists, and somehow manage to find rhythm in it. I try, but my mind wanders. Often, my gratitude circles back to the same things, like repeating a daily prayer. Not a bad thing, just redundant. This morning had me reflecting on my journey to this moment.
Programs, Promises, and Problems
My journey to sobriety started when I went to the Sharp McDonald Center for a week — not the usual 30-ish days, but my plan, my choice. I wasn’t there because of some rock-bottom crash; I went in clear-eyed, knowing what I wanted. That clarity confused some people. Others couldn’t quite understand my strong character or why I wasn’t “broken enough” to fit their expectations.
I followed that with an IOP (Intensive Outpatient Program). At first, it helped, but after a while it became redundant. New people cycled in, the focus shifted, and sometimes the counselors seemed to take things personally, as if disagreeing with them invalidated your recovery. Eventually, I knew it was time to step away.
After that came Wednesday Aftercare, connected to the McDonald Center. It was supposed to be inclusive but leaned heavily into the 12-step format. Longtime members carried themselves with the air of authority: this is the only way. If you relapsed, the fault wasn’t the program — it was you, and they’d tell you why with all their “infinite wisdom.”
I’ve never personally relapsed, and that perspective shaped how I saw those rooms. Sobriety hasn’t been a constant fight for me; it’s been a choice — and, honestly, a relatively easy one. That doesn’t mean I don’t respect the challenges others face, or that I think it’s easy for everyone. Willpower, lifestyle, and circumstance all play their parts. But for me, recovery has been straightforward: one decision, made daily. That’s why I struggled with the message that relapse is somewhat inevitable — as if stumbling was built into the script. I couldn’t buy into that framing. For me, recovery isn’t about carrying someone else’s expectations. It’s about owning my decision and moving with my own way forward. And in those rooms, the promises implied — of community, healing, and belonging — often came with conditions I wasn’t willing to accept.
AA and Sponsorship
AA says it clearly in Chapter Five:
“If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it — then you are ready to take certain steps.”
— Alcoholics Anonymous, Big Book, Chapter Five: How It Works
This chapter is widely seen as the core of their program, introducing the 12 steps, a spiritual awakening, and a promise of recovery. But it never sat right with me. I didn’t want everything they had. I wasn’t ready to sign on to every step, every script. I only wanted certain things — the parts that made sense for me. And in those rooms, that kind of selective approach is often seen as doing it wrong.
On top of that, AA is heavy on the sponsor “requirement.” I’ve read the first 164 pages of the Big Book several times, looking for a reference to sponsorship — and it’s simply not there. Sponsorship came later, as tradition — and like many traditions, it hardened into fact inside the culture of AA. That shift is where the problem lies: what was once optional evolved into expectation. And that expectation has become a point of contention, pushing people away from a program that might otherwise help them — well, at least this person (me).
There’s also an unwritten rule of accountability — not just to your sponsor, but to the group itself. You’re expected to share, confess, and keep nothing back. At first glance, it looks like honesty and community. But to me, it often sounded like and looked like control. Step outside the beliefs of the group, make a choice that doesn’t align, and suddenly it’s as if you’ve sinned against the church — not just made a mistake, but violated something sacred in their eyes.
And here’s where I’ll be blunt — this is my opinion: the sponsor system always reminded me of Scientology’s “handlers.” In AA, just like in those groups, you’re expected to report everything to one person who supposedly has the answers, and if you don’t fall in line, you’re seen as not doing it right. That’s not what I needed. I didn’t need someone watching over me, measuring me against a script. I needed presence, not a handler.
I was also wary of the fact that sponsors don’t have any real technical or clinical training. Their only qualification is time in sobriety, which can vary wildly. I’ve even seen members go through sponsors like a kid with a PEZ dispenser — one after another, as if the system itself wasn’t enough to hold them steady. That didn’t give me confidence.
I know that may sound harsh, but it’s simply how it felt to me. And for the people it does help, I’m still grateful it exists.
“Nowhere in the first 164 pages of the Big Book is sponsorship required; it’s a later tradition, not part of the original foundation.”
— Cornerstone of Recovery, Sponsorship — How It Started, What It Is, and How to Make the Most of It
“No where in the first 164 pages of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous does it tell a newcomer to get a sponsor.”
— Big Book Sponsorship, AA Myths — Myth: Sponsorship
SMART Recovery
Then came SMART Recovery — Self-Management and Recovery Training — built around science, self-reliance, and practical tools. Unlike AA, which sometimes mirrored Catholic mass in its structure, SMART meetings were looser, smaller, and often felt unfocused.
One night I’d be sitting next to someone who smelled of weed and booze, just there to get their legal slip signed. Another night someone was explaining their experiments with Kava or Kratom, how it mimicked being drunk or stoned but “wasn’t.” Others spoke of addictions that shifted week to week, never clear, never consistent.
It often felt less like a support group and more like walking into a frontier saloon in Deadwood — unpredictable, rowdy, sometimes absurdly funny, with Kava bar cowboys swapping tales no one could quite follow. A recovery town without a sheriff.
And unlike AA, there were no sponsors and no real accountability. SMART was whatever you wanted it to be — which for some, might have been freedom. For me, it meant not much at all. There was also an underlying resentment of the 12-step programs. Many thought they were smarter than all that, self-managed, above the script. But from what I saw, that “smarter than” stance often looked like a shakier path — less structure, less grounding, too easy to drift.
To be fair, SMART has some valuable tools:
“The ABC Exercise is rooted in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy’s framework, breaking experiences into Activating events, Beliefs, and Consequences.”
— SMART Recovery, 4th Edition 4-Point Program Handbook
“The Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) is useful to take a look at the positives and negatives of a behavior.”
— SMART Recovery, 4th Edition 4-Point Program Handbook
Both help cut through excuses and show how thoughts and choices fuel behavior. Those tools stuck with me. But the meetings? Not so much. And still, for some people, I know those meetings might have been exactly what they needed — just not me. That’s why I kept pulling what worked and leaving the rest.
Finding My Own Path
The truth is, sobriety has been relatively easy for me. It’s not difficult staying sober — I don’t find it a chore. For me, it’s a simple choice, made daily. But I also know that’s not the case for everyone. Willpower, lifestyle, circumstances — they all play a role. For many, the fight is violent, daunting, and never far away. I respect that, even as I recognize my journey is different.
My approach isn’t tied to 12 steps, rules, or fixed strategies. It’s more about owning my shit, weathering the shit storms, and moving forward. Along the way, I’ve borrowed what worked: tools from SMART, perspective from AA, lessons from IOP, even bits of wisdom from Aftercare. A hybrid of all of it. But I never signed on fully to any one program, because they didn’t all fit.
That’s why I struggled with the message that relapse is somewhat inevitable — as if stumbling was written into the script. I don’t buy that. For me, sobriety hasn’t been about bracing for relapse. It’s been about choosing one path over another — and trusting myself.
In a way, I think I expected it to be harder — that I’d need to hit a deeper bottom to be accepted, or to stumble into some kind of magical enlightenment. But it didn’t happen like that. What I found instead was right here: all of this rolled into one, and most of all, inside myself. The hardest part of sobriety wasn’t saying no to booze. It was saying no to the established programs. That was tough — tougher than I expected — because it felt like swimming against the tide. In those circles, walking away feels like you’re breaking a rule or committing some kind of failure. I carried that weight for a while, the sense that I was doing it “wrong.” But once I let go of that and trusted myself, sobriety started to flow. And it flowed well.
Closing Reflection
I’m grateful for the chance to have experienced all of the above — each program, each lesson, each challenge — because they helped me shape my own path and flow with my own tide.
I know this has been a long post, and it leans on the negatives at times. But for me, it’s really about reflection and growth. The faults I saw in the systems were also the push I needed to find my own way. They forced me to define sobriety on my terms — and because of that, I’m stronger today.
Part one of the Morning Drift series — Tides and Truth: No single tide, no single truth…
Tides and Truth... 