I lived in Seattle, Washington, for 44 years. I got sober in Seattle. Last fall I moved to Southern AZ to escape from the grey and the rain. This summer I returned for one month to visit family and friends. I didn’t expect to feel very different or see Seattle differently as it had only been10 months since I left.

I was lucky to have two very close friends who invited me to stay with them. Both were in neighborhoods I had not lived in. Staying with friends for two weeks each was wonderful and challenging.  I brought many things to feel at home and for the most part it was good and yet I saw my former city in different ways. It seemed that maybe it wasn’t ‘my’ Seattle anymore.

After 10 months in the desert, I have two great home groups and was learning to love the desert and cactus. I understood why friends who had visited me when I lived in Seattle from other parts of the country would say “It’s so green here!” It is! And the trees are so tall, not like the short Palo Verdes in AZ. The noises were different than I remember. Seattle is a big city so more sirens, more traffic noises, less bird noises and many, many more airplanes flying overhead to the airport.

In both of my friends’ houses there was liquor. Both are normies and I never thought much about it because they rarely drink (maybe they do when I am not around). I house sat for each of them for 10 days while they went away. While in the kitchen looking for something or in the basement looking for where the laundry was, I would see a cabinet of liquor or a wine cellar. I would find myself looking at the bottles as if I had never seen liquor before. Each time I asked myself if the bottles looked interesting to me. I was a stranger in a city that used to be mine. Before I got sober it would have been a great idea to have some? A lot? Instead, I found myself looking and then closing the cabinet and then didn’t really think about it until I was starting to write this blog.

I got sober in Seattle 34 years ago. My home groups were great, but most were still online from the pandemic and those that weren’t were not near me.  Thank goodness that my zoom meetings from AZ and from all around the country were still ones I could get to while in Seattle. I did get to spend time with my sponsor and that was a god send. In addition, my daily readings grounded me and when I felt out of sorts or unmoored, I would walk. I walked in familiar places with good friends and new places on my own. That’s where I talk to and experience God. Even though I was with so many good friends, I would be reminded that I am not alone.

The International AA convention was in Seattle when I was six months sober. It was the very first time I felt NOT ALONE in most of my life. Being back in Seattle, all I had to do was close my eyes and see myself in the Kingdome with 65,000 other recovering people. Seattle may not be where I live now, it may have changed some. I am so glad I went to visit, glad I could move anywhere and find AA, and glad that, one day at a time, a liquor cabinet doesn’t appeal to me.