Sobriety AKA Freedom

I have had very little, if any, exposure to drunkenness.  In fact, I can't really remember any at all.  Oh I'm sure I've seen tipsy-ness, but from my naive viewpoint, I typically just interpret it as uninhibited-ness and someone usually lets me in on the fact later that yes, that person was drunk.

"He was? ...... Ohhhhh."

I don't even know if I or any of my family, might be genetically predisposed to alcoholism and the inevitable grief involved.  I will never know whether or not I am one who can "hold their liquor".  Nor do I care.  I DO know that I will never be guilty of harming anyone by drunken driving.  I WISH I could be as confident of never being a victim of someone else's DUI.

This protected booze-free bubble in which I have happily resided as long as I can remember, is compliments of my religion.  To which I say Thank You.

Thank you Dear Religion, and thank you to He Who Authored It.  Thank you for keeping that potentially destructive, addictive liquid out of my little world.  Thank you for all the drunk-free parties, holidays, and wedding receptions.  Thank you for teaching me how to have fun, as well as how to deal with life's problems, while sober.  Thank you for all the money saved by not buying it.  Thank you for the protection as well as the wise choices afforded by an alert, rational-thinking brain.  Thank you that I will never be a burden upon my society, because of the slavery of substance addiction.

And thank you for teaching me that my mind, as a part of my body, is a gift from God.  A gift that is to be used as He intended it to be used.

Am I free to drink?  Yes.  I am free to make my own choices.  But with each poor choice, a bit of that freedom is lost ...  little by little ... until it's gone.  So because of the constraints that APPEAR to be part of my religion, I and millions like me, have been kept free.

Free to be sober.  Free to be happy.