While building my training back up following my first ultra, I just happened to stop drinking. It wasn’t exactly planned or thought out; it just happened. I was in transit, and the transit got delayed. I ended up not drinking for a few days while trying to get back home. I just didn’t have the time or the means to do so. Thinking back on it now, I never thought I would be grateful for that flight being canceled, but I have a flight cancellation to thank for launching me into sobriety.

At that point, I had been taking on smaller stretches of sobriety: a few days, a few weeks. Sometimes I would only drink one day and then go for another week or so, but as I have written before, it never seemed to stick. Aside from generating more conversation and improving my overall awareness of what was happening, I also found myself getting more adept at not getting too far ahead of myself and noticing it when I was. It is an age-old adage in recovery, but it absolutely has to be one day at a time.

Often, when I would build up momentum with stringing days or weeks together, I would start to get ahead of myself. I didn’t exactly see it that way at the time, but I would start telling myself I had it locked down and was good to go. Something like, “Hey, you know I did about 18 days, that’s awesome, I’m good now.” “I’m good,” meaning I did not need to think about it anymore and could stop worrying about it as much. Sobriety, for me and many people who struggle with addiction, is best executed when it is thought of as something earned or granted daily. It needs to be renewed and instilled every day, not something you check off and forget about or only inspect every few months to a year. It takes consistent effort every day. That effort does get easier and reaches a place where overall it doesn’t feel like much strain, but it is still effort every day.

With improved perspective, I started to see this and recognize this pattern of failure. It is okay for me or anyone who wants things for themselves, like not drinking, “forever,” but “forever” just started, and that is all we can work with right now and all we need to worry about. In this stint that opened the door for me into more sustainable sobriety, I told myself that almost every day. It is just one day. Get through today. If you can get through today, that is all you need to worry about. I would repeat phrases like this to myself mainly in the hard times, but would try to remind myself of similar mantras whenever I could.

I found further similarities and comparisons in my training. As I started to set my sights further down the line at longer ultras, bigger mileage, and more intense training, I would get easily overwhelmed and want to quit. If I could similarly tell myself, “Okay, let’s just get through today,” or even, “Let’s just finish this run,” it always seemed manageable. I started to recognize more control I had in both my drinking and training. Control in that I can choose how I engage with myself to make sure it is manageable. The miles will be what they are; there is no way to shorten that, but how I comprehend them is my choice.