More than one year sober! 365 days of white-knuckling through cravings, dodging invites to “just one drink,” and relearning how to fall asleep without passing out. My reward? Last week, I was dangling in a wicker basket a thousand feet up, watching the world shrink beneath me.

The hot air balloon wasn’t planned. It was an impulse, like so many of my drinking decisions used to be. Only this time, the only thing I was drunk on was possibility.

As the burner roared to life, inflating that massive canvas of color, I couldn’t help but see the parallels. A year ago, I was deflated, empty, a shell of a person. Now, I was filling up with something new, something that could lift me higher than any bottle ever could.

The ground fell away, and with it, the weight of my past. From up there, the bars that used to be my second home looked like matchboxes. The streets I’d stumbled down countless times were just thin lines on a patchwork quilt of farmland and forests.

But it wasn’t all euphoria. As we climbed higher, the old fear crept in. Not of heights, but of falling. Of failing. The same fear that had kept me tethered to the bottle for so long. What if I couldn’t do this? What if sobriety was just another thing I’d screw up?

Then I looked down. Really looked. And I saw my life laid out like a map. The twists and turns, the dead ends, and the long, straight road that had led me here. To this moment, suspended between earth and sky, fully present and clear-eyed for the first time in years.

The silence up there was something else. Just the occasional whoosh of the burner and the whisper of wind. In that quiet, I found something I used to look for at the bottom of every bottle: peace.

As we drifted over fields and forests, I saw the world with new eyes. Colors were brighter, edges sharper. I realized I’d been living life through a foggy lens for so long, I’d forgotten what clarity looked like.

Landing was bittersweet. Part of me wanted to stay up there forever, floating above the mess and complications of life on the ground. But as my feet touched earth again, I felt something I hadn’t in years: grounded. Stable. Ready to face whatever came next.

That balloon ride wasn’t just a celebration of sobriety. It was a rebirth. A chance to see my life from a new perspective and realize that the sky isn’t the limit – it’s just the beginning.