Why I Love That Tomorrow Is a New Day

Sobriety turns a new day into an asset

Have you ever had one of those days when you just wish you could crawl up in bed and go to sleep so that it’d be over? A day where no matter what you do things just seem to fall apart and nothing seems to go your way? I’m going to assume that the answer to that question is yes, since if you’re reading this you’re a human being like me, and we are all prone to having a terrible day every once in awhile.

The thing is that before I got sober and could accept that I had a problem with addiction, I didn’t know that tomorrow was going to be another day, in fact every day seemed exactly the same, a little like the movie Groundhog Day. Each day felt like it was a continuation of the misery of the day before and I didn’t know that at any point during the course of a terrible day I could attempt to restart it, and change the mental path that I was following. I believed that I had to just stay in the muck and feel like crap and what is worse is that my mind agreed with me on this.

My mind would forever tell me that nothing was ever going to change and that each minute, hour, and day was going to be equally as bad as the previous one. I would believe this and I would be unable to see past my current condition to the possibility of change and so I felt hopeless a lot of the time and defeated.

When I got sober I heard people say things like there is no such thing as a bad day, only bad moments. They told me that if you look at the bad day you are having you will more than likely notice that overall things were okay, but there were a few things that went wrong. And most importantly they told me that it is never too late to start your day over.

I learned that as people we tend to focus on the negative over the positive and we have a stronger tendency to remember bad things over good things. See I could have a day that was 90% percent great. I could wake up early, go for a walk, and have it be a beautiful day outside and feel peace, and then have someone cut me off or be rude to me and my whole day would then be shot. I could lose all perspective on my day in a heartbeat and if I don’t check myself when this happens, I could ruin an entire day for no reason.

I will say this though, I do necessarily agree with the idea that there is no such thing as a bad day, even though people in recovery told me this. I think that sometimes you just have a bad day. Things go wrong. You don’t get your way. You get some bad news or whatever it may be, but the beautiful thing is that tomorrow is always another day.

It sort of sounds like I am quoting Annie here, doesn’t it? Tomorrow tomorrow, I love you tomorrow, but she was right, if you think about it. We are only ever a day away from having a better day. Now this is not to say that there isn’t a possibility that you will have a bad week or month, but with each passing day there are infinite possibilities for how things will improve, if you let them.

Just knowing this sometimes give me courage to face a terrible day. Knowing that when I go to bed and wake up the next day there is a good possibility that the problems of the day will not seem so overwhelming and I will wake up with a new perspective on life. It is nice knowing this and it is something that I wish I had come to understand earlier in my life. I believe that it would have saved me a lot of mental anguish and sleepless nights.

The other thing that I have learned in sobriety is that you can start your day over whenever you want. Let’s say that I just wake up on the wrong side of bed. From the minute I open my eyes everything seems to be going to hell, whether it be problems with work, my kids, money, or whatever else you can think of. There are days when I wake up like this, but since being sober I have learned that I can take a pause from all of this, get quiet and attempt to restart my day. I cannot even tell you how many times this has saved me from acting out in some sort of way that would have resulted in my owing an amends later on.

That’s the thing about life, everything is fleeting, even problems. The things that we deal with in the day that seem like they are going to last forever are usually distant memories within a short period of time, and we mostly can’t remember what we were even worrying about. Think about a time a couple of months ago when you remember having a really bad day. Can you remember exactly why it was a bad day? Can you remember exactly what the problem was? For most of us when we do this exercise the answer is no, and this shows that no matter what problems we face, we will get over them and that tomorrow always brings a prospect for change.

Rose Lockinger is a passionate member of the recovery community. A rebel who found her cause, she uses blogging and social media to raise the awareness about the disease of addiction. She has visited all over North and South America. Single mom to two beautiful children she has learned parenting is without a doubt the most rewarding job in the world. Currently the Outreach Director at Stodzy Internet Marketing.

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