We Are the Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life

Product Information

Most of my life up to that point had been a series of small or large acts of pretending, which made the ground I was standing on shaky and unstable. I was never going to feel whole standing on that ground, even when it appeared to be attractive, solid, and right, because it was built on falsities and my soul knew it.” The truth is alchemical. It transmutes the bitterness of pain and dishonesty and shame into something else, something we can actually live in and stand on.” No matter how far astray you’ve gone or how many times you’ve tried and failed before, as long as you’re still sitting here, breathing, and reading these words, freedom and joy are still possible. Laura has a way of making things that don’t make sense, make sense. And that’s an incredible skill for a human to have. Although this book is about sobriety, it’s also a book about growth, change, & evolution. It’s a book that teaches us that the things that break us, that we hate & curse, are actually the things that lead us to our magic, lead us home - to ourselves. ⁣ While I was reading this beautifully written, raw, and honest novel, a part of me was thinking, "Well my 'flaws', my 'addictions' are nowhere near that bad. they don't harm anyone. they don't make it so I can't live my day to day life. They are harmless compared to all this."

We Are The Luckiest – A book review - Waking Up The Ghost We Are The Luckiest – A book review - Waking Up The Ghost

This is the singular, hard truth I come up against every day: I am the only one responsible for my experience.” I'll never forget the day it hit me that things were altogether different...My mind started to wander, searching for the familiar grooves of worry or scheming or protection to run down, but there wasn't anything there but smooth spaciousness. There was the warm sun making rainbows behind my eyelids and my bare feet hitting the baking asphalt and a bit of chewed-up carrot in my mouth. I never really have. I don't like the taste of alcohol and I don't like the idea of losing control and not remembering what I said or did. I also don't like the way it makes me feel in my body. It's never been a struggle to not drink for me since I dislike it enough. So alcohol isn't my thing. We know we're lonely...but we don't really know why...I felt a nagging ache of separateness I could not name. Despite being surrounded by people, having a big social life, more plans than I had time for, and a solid group of people I considered friends, I still felt very much alone. I felt alone in my marriage. I felt alone in my friendships, And actually being alone by myself? Forget it - that was intolerable...The antidote to loneliness wasn't just being around others or sharing common ground. It was intimacy.

We Are the Luckiest : The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life

Over time, and with each right choice, I got stronger. I started to feel something magical growing inside me, getting bigger, more substantial, and pulsing with life.If something is keeping you from being fully present and showing up in your life the way you want, then deciding to change that thing is a matter of life and death. It's the difference between existing and actually living." The book closes with part of one of my favorite poems, from Rilke. She doesn't include the last lines, but here they are: The problem is, 10 percent of withholding, or secretiveness, will still eventually contaminate the whole...And keeping 10 percent of yourself from your partner, or whomever you could trust with your heart, will make you 100 percent lonely.”

We Are the Luckiest - Foreword Reviews Review of We Are the Luckiest - Foreword Reviews

Without missing a beat, he smiled, looked at him, and said, "Of course you can. Are you drinking now?""No.""And now?" I’m so grateful Laura had the courage to share her story and knowledge. We all benefit from the transparency and hope of stories like this. I will confidently recommend it to people for whom I think it is a good fit. Laura is lovely, her story is compelling, and I love the structure of the 9 essential truths in this book. Not because I was committed to forever, but because I finally realized the future was built on a bunch of nows, and that was it."

Customer reviews

Often for me, faith simply meant deciding to trust the people who had gone before me. Like the women whose books I had read...surely they couldn't all just be full of shit, right? I had faith in that.”

We Are the Luckiest Quotes by Laura McKowen(page 2 of 2) We Are the Luckiest Quotes by Laura McKowen(page 2 of 2)

Without missing a beat, he smiled, looked at him, and said, "Of course you can. Are you drinking now?" How fragile this was. How powerful. They were just words: sounds I could make with my mouth. But if I never made them, he would never know, And strangely I believed I wouldn't have to know either. I believed if I could only hang on for long enough, eventually it would all disappear inside me, like salt dissolving into water.” Most importantly, I found myself hoping that her words would be able to reach as many women as possible. Her story has the power to motivate others to consider changing their drinking habits to embrace a life worth living. Personal responsibility + change ain’t always easy

The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life

One stranger who understands your experience exactly will do for you what hundreds of close friends and family who don't understand cannot. It is the necessary palliative for the pain or stretching into change. It is the cool glass of water in hell.” Loneliness started to abate only when I began to really let people in and tell them the truth, and that took a long, long time. The antidote to loneliness wasn’t just being around others or sharing common ground. It was intimacy.”