Every January for about six years, I told myself the same thing: This is the year I get clean. I meant it every single time. Wrote it down and everything. One year I bought a journal — a nice one, leather cover, like that would make the difference. Filled out the first three pages with goals and affirmations. By February it was under my bed collecting dust, and I was back in the exact same cycle.
Different year. Same me. The calendar changed. I didn't.
And that's the cruelest part of addiction, honestly — not the lows, but the hope that comes right before each relapse. You genuinely believe this time is different. You make promises to people who've stopped believing your promises. You throw stuff away, delete numbers from your phone, rearrange your apartment like a change of scenery is going to rewire your brain. Then something happens — a bad day at work, a fight with your brother, even just a Tuesday that feels too heavy — and the thread pulls and the whole thing comes apart again.
The Problem with "New Year, New Me"
I love the energy of a fresh start. I do. There's something about January that makes everything feel possible. But here's what I've learned the hard way: when the fresh start depends entirely on you being different, you're building on sand. Especially if you're an addict. Because we have proven — over and over and over, in ways that are humiliating to catalog — that our willpower has an expiration date.
I'd be so strong the first two weeks. Iron will. Going to meetings, calling my sponsor, eating vegetables like a normal person. Then week three hits and the cravings come back with interest, and all that willpower evaporates like it was never there.
The real fresh start — the one that actually stuck — wasn't about my new resolve. It was about God's old faithfulness. The same God who was there when I was using in a motel bathroom off I-40 was the same God who was there when I walked into my first recovery meeting. He didn't upgrade. He didn't change His mind about me. He didn't check my track record and reconsider.
He was just... the same. And for someone whose entire life was chaos and inconsistency, "the same" was the most beautiful word in the English language.
The Year It Finally Worked
The year I actually got clean — and stayed clean — wasn't the year I had more discipline. It was the year I ran out of myself entirely.
I remember January of that year. I'd just come out of treatment. I was staying in a halfway house with five other guys, sleeping on a twin mattress that smelled like someone else's regret. I had no car, about eighty dollars to my name, and a prepaid flip phone that could barely hold a charge.
And for the first time, I didn't make a resolution. I didn't have anything left to resolve with. No grand plan, no leather journal, no vision board. I just woke up on January 1st and said something like: God, I've got nothing. If you want to do something with nothing, here I am.
That's not a Hollywood prayer. Nobody would put that in a movie. But it was the most honest thing I'd said to God in maybe a decade. And He didn't respond with fireworks. He responded with Tuesday. And then Wednesday. And then the next day. Just... enough grace for each one. Not the whole year's supply. Just today's portion.
My sponsor Ray — who I've mentioned before because the man basically saved my life — told me early on: "Don't worry about staying sober for a year. Just stay sober until bedtime." I thought that was stupid advice until I realized it was the smartest thing anyone had ever told me.
Why "Unchanging" Isn't Boring
People sometimes talk about God being unchanging like it's a limitation. Like He's stuck or outdated. But when everything in your life has been shifting and unreliable — when you've been shifting and unreliable — unchanging is the most radical thing you can encounter.
It means His promises from last year still hold. His faithfulness from before I was born still applies. The love He showed on the cross two thousand years ago hasn't cooled off or gotten distracted.
I leaned on this hard in early recovery. There were mornings when I couldn't trust myself to make it through the day without using. Literally couldn't trust myself — I'd proven too many times that I was unreliable. But I could trust Him. Because He'd never broken a promise. Not once. My track record was a disaster. His was perfect. And His was the one that mattered.
What I Do Now Instead of Resolutions
I don't make New Year's resolutions anymore. I tried that for six years and all it produced was a collection of abandoned journals and a deep familiarity with the feeling of failure.
Here's what I do instead. I wake up. I make coffee — the cheap stuff, I'm not fancy about it. I sit down with my Bible and I tell God something honest. Doesn't have to be deep. Sometimes it's: "I'm grateful I slept." Sometimes it's: "I'm scared today and I don't know why." Then I ask Him for enough to get through the next twenty-four hours. That's it.
No five-year plan. No word of the year. No list of things I'm going to finally become. Just today. Just Him. Just enough.
Some people might read that and think it sounds small. Like I'm aiming low. But I spent six years aiming high and landing on my face. I'll take small and honest over ambitious and fake. Every single time.
The calendar turned again this year. It'll turn again next year. But the God who met me in that halfway house on a twin mattress is the same one who meets me now. He hasn't gotten bored of me yet. I don't think He plans to.