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What does the phrase “pink cloud” mean to you?

I ask because I have been rethinking it a bit recently. The way I used to think of it was as a general time period in early sobriety when you feel naturally high about being off drugs. Recovery is exciting, and you feel like there are no limits to a sober life.

But under that definition, I always thought of it as coming to an end, too. That life can’t just be a big, long pink cloud. That certainly was my experience. The electricity of early recovery began to wear off for me and life went back to normal, whatever normal even means any more.

So in my head, I always framed pink cloud as something short and sweet that will end and turn into something that is more of a grind—chopping wood and carrying water, as they say.

But I recently spent some time around newcomers who were either in the middle of pink cloud or coming out of it, and then I also was around some people with longterm sobriety of 10-plus years. I was struck by a few things that made me contemplate my own definition of pink cloud.

First of all, I enjoyed hearing about the newcomers’ excitement around early recovery. Those days are awesome—I wish you could bottle up that feeling and sell it. There is an optimism about the future and a relentlessness to be better than the past that I don’t always feel in my sobriety these days. People see a whole new world when they are off the sauce and getting acclimated to the world. It’s a beautiful thing to see.

Secondly, I thought about why that pink cloud feeling even happened for me. A big part of it was just escaping the physical misery of that first week without drugs and alcohol. I had headaches, body aches, terrible sleep and no appetite. I wanted to sleep all day but couldn’t sleep, and I had the worst case of restless leg syndrome in the history of humanity. It was miserable, but I was able to gut it out. To this day, I try to always have empathy for people who can’t get through that first week, because I get it. I still laugh about how the worst hangover feeling I have ever had was when I tried to stop drinking and drugging!

Lastly, I think I am done framing pink cloud as something that comes at the beginning of sobriety and disappears. It doesn’t have to be that way. Those long-term sober people I mentioned seem very happy to me, with plenty of pink cloud moments in their lives. I find that when I do the right things in recovery—which is a lot of work, admittedly—then I still experience stretches of pure bliss. Just this past week, I had an awesome lunch with two of my kids, one daughter won the science fair, another daughter got into the college of her choice, I had a work accomplishment that I was proud of and my wife and I talked about celebrating our wedding anniversary, rather than completely forgetting it until the day of. I don’t know that I would describe that as nonstop euphoria, but it was pretty damn great. So I’d say pink cloud is still available—as long as I am willing to float toward it!

This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:

How many AAs does it take to change a lightbulb?

Three. One to make the coffee, one to chair, and one to guide it through the Steps so it can learn to change itself.

(Credit: AA Grapevine, September 2002, John S.)

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