To celebrate or not??

Next month I will be 1 year sober. I've heard it called a Soberversary or a Sober Birthday. It's still a few weeks away and I'm amazed that after a few short months I can confidently plan for it. I am not tempted to return to my ways of old and know I will not. I revisit my last weeks of drinking and my day zero of stopping, recognising them as some of the worst days of my life. I know that I will do nothing to risk going back there, other than in my mind.

This commitment to long term sobriety seems to have crept up on me almost when I wasn't looking. In the early weeks I used to ask anyone who would listen 'How long would until be until I stopped wanting wine?', 'how long until avoiding it was no longer an active pursuit?''how long until I had a background, incidental "oh, I don't drink", it just not featuring in my life? Of course no-one could answer the question: its different for everyone, but many gave me the advice of just sticking with it day by day and with time, the day of that way would surely arrive.

And so it has. I am no longer overwhelmed by the thought of 'never' and 'forever'. I'm not pleased about it particularly, but I've accepted that's the way it has to be for me and I'm glad I've found this out and acknowledged it.

Sometimes I don't think about alcohol for several days at a time. And when I do, it's NEVER to think about whether to drink it or not. This is part of the reason I cannot keep going to AA. I cannot adopt the principle that every minute of every day I have to actively avoid alcohol else it will be waiting to trip me up when I'm not looking. I don't feel the need to be on my guard like this. I have faith in myself. This seems completely unbelievable and unacceptable to the ethos in AA though. They consider me fool-hardy with this attitude.

I don't know if I should celebrate 1 year sober. I feel both that it is a big deal, yet it shouldn't be; does that make any sense? Why should I give my last drinking day a thought? A moment more of my time? Or should I celebrate my new found personality, my new life that developed in the subsequent 11 months to date?

Any thoughts or experiences on this more contemplative subject?