The Karma of Sobriety

It's almost two years since I got sober
and while the desire to drink
hasn't scared me for awhile,
I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss
the rum.

All that talk by people like me
about the compulsion to drink
being lifted
makes me cringe,

because the memory
of that fantasy feeling
that got us here in the first place
where by being drunk
everything seemed perfect
doesn't just magically disappear
in a miraculous puff of pretty smoke.

So, while I could blather on and on
about how wonderful it is
to be awake again,
how important it has become
to live with integrity
again,
and how life itself
now makes it's own gravy,

the truth is that the part of me
that craves peaceful sloppy drunken oblivion
still lives down there somewhere
in the heart of this being.

That's the rub,
which makes this whole deal
special,
as people like me
stumble and struggle
and sweat our way
along the path.

Because we know,
in ways those folks
whose lives weren't blessed
with the cocoon of liquid bliss
cannot understand,
what illusion,
suffering,
and redemption
really mean.

That's the karma
of sobriety.