There are moments in a life that split time into a before and an after. For me, one of those happened this summer, on a beach in the Dominican Republic, surrounded by people who understood me without my having to explain a single thing.

I went on Sober Vacation International’s annual resort takeover, Sober Village, not entirely sure what to expect. I only knew that I needed it. I was tired in the way that only people in recovery really understand — not the kind of tired that sleep fixes, but the kind that comes from carrying yourself for a long time. I told myself it was just a trip. Looking back, it was self-care in its truest form, arriving at exactly the moment I needed it most.

What I found there was a community. Hundreds of us, all sober, all showing up as our real selves — no pretense, no performance, no drink in anyone’s hand to hide behind. I met people who have walked this road for decades and people only weeks into their journey, and every one of them made room for me. We shared meals. We shared meetings on the sand. We shared the kind of laughter that reaches all the way down.

And then there was the off-roading. I climbed into that buggy and tore down the beach for the very first time in my life — sand flying, the ocean roaring beside me, the wind ripping the last of my worry away. I felt like a kid again. Free. Alive. Grateful down to my bones. I remember thinking: this is what recovery gave back to me. The capacity to feel joy without numbing it, to be fully present for the best moments instead of missing them.

What moved me most was learning that people have been coming together like this for forty years. Forty years of strangers becoming family. Forty years of proof that a sober life isn’t a smaller life — it’s a bigger, richer, more connected one than I ever let myself imagine. I stood on that beach and understood I had walked into something far larger than a vacation.

I am now just a week away from turning forty-six. As I look at the road ahead, my greatest hope is to keep building the relationships I began this summer — to find my crew, the people who will walk the next forty years beside me. The ones who show up on the beaches and in the meeting rooms and on the ordinary Tuesdays, too.

I am so deeply grateful. Grateful for my sobriety. Grateful for the people who carried me when I couldn’t carry myself. Grateful for a sunrise I actually remember, a first ride I’ll never forget, and a future I can finally look forward to.

This is what I am asking to be part of again. Not for the resort. For the crew. For the next forty years.