Part 1 in a series.
What do you do when something extraordinary happens in your life, but you don’t quite know how to honor it?
I’m now 10 years sober, and for most of that time, I’ve struggled with how to celebrate my sober anniversary. It wasn’t an issue of realizing its significance; it’s that what seemed available for marking the occasion wasn’t really capturing what it meant to me. I wanted something more, but I couldn’t name it or find it. And because I didn’t see or hear anyone else asking for or creating something different, I started to wonder if I was just asking for too much. I knew that my life had changed, especially my inner world. But, year after year, as those changes became more and more profound, I really had trouble finding the words, activities or rituals that were right for honoring them.
In recovery, the tradition is to mark time. We collect chips and coins, celebrate sober anniversaries and tell stories about how far we’ve come and what we’ve overcome. These milestones matter. They recognize the work of recovery and the significance of a life changed.
But recovery milestones aren’t limited to the passage of time. They might be things like actually enjoying your first holiday sober; rebuilding an important relationship; reaching a personal goal you’re kind of surprised you even set in the first place; discovering a new, ordinary joy or form of creativity; or having a random moment when you realize that the life you’re living now is no longer essentially organized around the thing you’re recovering from. Some milestones are visible and easy to name; others are deeply personal or more subtle, recognized only by the person experiencing them.
Especially over the past few years, I’ve realized that marking time isn’t necessarily the same thing as honoring transformation. What rituals do we have for recognizing the many ways our lives change through recovery, beyond the number of days, months or years we’ve accumulated?
It took me a while to realize that I wasn’t just looking for a better way to celebrate another year sober.
In 12-step communities, there are already rituals for recognizing and supporting recovery. The opening and closing of meetings, the Serenity Prayer, collecting a sobriety coin or chip, being invited to “tell us how you did it”: These are all meaningful rituals. An ordinary object becomes invested with meaning. Time is marked. Someone presents a chip, someone receives it, and the other people in the group witness the moment. A person’s progress is acknowledged by a community, and a changed status is again recognized. These rituals are evidence that recovery already has a place for ceremony, symbolism and communal recognition. And I was lovingly held by the women in Alcoholics Anonymous. While I was still 12-step-affiliated, I’d collect my chip and be recognized and sincerely congratulated.
And then, simultaneously, the sober internet encourages us to treat ourselves on these anniversaries, whether with a nice dinner out, a gift to ourselves or a road trip. And I did those things too. I’d take the day off work, go to my favorite Indian restaurant’s lunch buffet and get a 90-minute massage and manicure at the fancy spa across the street. My husband would usually get me flowers, and we’d go out to dinner.
I don’t want to lose sight of the ways AA supported me or suggest that its rituals and traditions aren’t meaningful. And I don’t want to suggest that special treats aren’t a fun way to celebrate. They were, and they still are.
But despite everything I was doing to mark the day, I kept feeling that there was something I hadn’t figured out how to do or how to feel, somehow more symbolic or spiritual in a different way. And I felt a little bit quietly ashamed of that. Why wasn’t all of what was out there enough? What was wrong with me that I was so … ungrateful? Special?
I was having trouble distinguishing between being grateful for what recovery communities had given me and feeling that I wasn’t allowed to want anything beyond it. But wanting something more didn’t mean that what I already had was meaningless or insufficient for someone else. It meant I was beginning to understand what I myself needed and owning that. And there was something freeing about finally understanding that. There is also an excitement and a sense of freedom and possibility. I didn’t have to keep questioning whether I was being ungrateful or whether my expectations were unreasonable. I could stop trying to make the celebrations that were available to me feel like something they weren’t and start imagining what I actually wanted.
Over the past two or three years, I’ve been thinking about this desire for something else. And I’ve realized that the questions I’ve been asking myself have gradually evolved, from:
“How should I celebrate my soberversary?”
To …
“How can I celebrate my soberversary so that it feels more special, more meaningful?”
To …
“How can I make my soberversary feel like a joyful, sacred celebration?”
To …
“How do I honor the new person I am and the joyful life I’ve grown into?”
The “should” changed to “can,” which then dropped out. The act of celebrating shifted to a desire for a feeling. Meaning, joy and sacredness entered the picture. And the focus shifted from being about a particular day or duration of time to the person I am and the life I’m continuing to build.
Those questions also showed me some deeper, intersecting needs that I’d struggled to name and, first and foremost, had to learn to meet for myself:
Recognition: I did something extraordinary, and I want to acknowledge it.
Meaning: Something profound happened in and to my life.
Joy: I don’t want the defining story of this day to be about the terrible thing or life I escaped or overcame. I want to celebrate the beautiful things I’ve gained.
Sacredness: This is something set apart, worthy of intention, reverence, attention and ritual … outside of ordinary time and routines.
Witnessing: I wanted people who love me to really see and feel what my sober anniversary means, not just congratulate me.
Human beings mark and honor significant experiences and transitions through symbolic actions. We create traditions, rituals and ceremonies for weddings, births, graduations, retirements, citizenship, baby namings, homeownership and housewarmings, coming-of-age milestones, joining religious communities (e.g., baptisms, bar and bat mitzvahs, confirmations and first Communions), and death.
Sobriety and recovery are identity and life transitions worthy of ritual and honor, too. The changes can be profound, and they deserve more than a passing acknowledgment.
And yet, we don’t have enough diverse, joyful rituals, ceremonies and celebrations for new life in sobriety and recovery. Outside of 12-step traditions, contemporary recovery culture doesn’t seem to have developed much of a shared set of ceremonial practices or even a shared vocabulary for marking these transitions. And the rituals that do exist don’t necessarily emphasize joy, growth and, to use the 12-step phrase, “what it’s like now,” which I think is one of the key distinctions I’ve been looking for.
There are signs that we’re getting better at recognizing experiences that have historically been taboo or gone unacknowledged. In the spring of 2025, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce highlighted the renaissance in the greeting card industry, driven in part by small independent card makers creating cards for experiences often surrounded by stigma or shame, including serious or terminal illness, miscarriage, aging, menopause and addiction recovery. In the sobriety and recovery space, companies like Love & Recovery, Sobervation and the Recovery Cards Project are expanding our options for recognizing and celebrating recovery. I’m excited about that. Having ways to acknowledge an experience helps make it more visible, more speakable and more worthy of celebration. But a card, however meaningful, is just one way of marking a milestone, and it’s something we may or may not receive from someone else.
I want our rituals and celebrations to make room for the joy, connection and meaning that recovery makes possible: not just what we’ve left behind, but explicitly, what we’re building. We need more ideas, symbols, actions and invitations for honoring those experiences, whether they’re major turning points or quieter moments that might otherwise pass unnoticed. Some of these milestones might be shared and celebrated with others; others might be private moments that deserve to be honored, too. We might choose to mark them alone, with a close inner circle of friends and loved ones, or in larger social or treatment communities, depending on the year and the particular milestone.
I spent years thinking I needed to figure out how to celebrate my sober anniversary. What I eventually realized was that I was trying to find a way to give an extraordinary life transition the recognition it deserved. And now, instead of wondering why the usual celebrations don’t quite satisfy me, I’m having a wonderful time imagining what might. I’m thinking about what feels meaningful, what brings me joy and how I want to honor the person I’ve become and the life I’m living now. For the first time, I’m not just looking for a different way to celebrate. I’m beginning to create one.
I imagine I’m not the only person in recovery who’s felt that distinction, even without having the words for it. We already know how to mark the time. Now we have an opportunity to create more ways to honor what that time, and the life we’re building, makes possible.
So, I really do want to know: Does this resonate with you? Have you too ever wished for more meaningful, joyful or personal ways to honor your sober anniversaries or other milestones in recovery? I have some ideas, and I’d love to hear what you’ve wanted, what you’ve tried and what you still wish existed. And if you’re someone who wants to help imagine and create these possibilities with others, I’d love to hear from you, too.
Let’s start building a richer culture of honoring recovery together.
By New Contributor: Lauren Broyles, Director of Creative Arts Programming
Teetotal Initiative teetotal.org | @teetotal_initiative
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