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47 Gray’s First Sober Year This new life is better than a dozen beer-joint romances or a hundred drunks at fishing camp. My habit now is not drinking, and waking up where I belong. I can see colors again, and I don’t feel like a turd in the punchbowl whenever I go around people. I’ll mow the weeds for Sharon and almost enjoy it. She’s even given up checking my breath whenever I come home. I went shopping for our anniversary and wound up crying in the store, but not the kind of tears you cry when your wife catches you lying in the shed with your pistol jabbed up in your mouth and vodka running out your nose. The only thing she could think to do was check me into another detox, and this time it finally took. This year has made me somebody different— vodka never could do that for long. Some days when I wake up early and listen to Sharon lying there breathing, it feels like somebody snuck in while we slept and changed our sheets. ...

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