Second Post: Covid 19, what else?

The SO and I indulged in incredibly risky behavior. Yes, we did. In retrospect two things are true: what we did seems even riskier that it did when we did it, and we're really, really glad we did it.
We got on airplanes and flew across the country, picked up an entirely unnecessary vehicle, loaded it in a moving van, than drove back to where we started.
Somehow, every morning during this trip I woke up even more grateful than usual that I no longer drink alcohol.
I say grateful, but I don't really know what that means. For many I suppose it means "grateful to God". Not me. I'm a devote atheist, proudly brought up by my atheist parents to be a good little atheist. The SO says I'm more religious than he, an agnostic, because I'm quite fervent about my lack of belief.
A fellow AA said to me the other day, while we were kayaking, that he accepted that I was an atheist, he guessed it was all right, but he just didn't know how I could live without God. He said he just gave his worries and doubts to God, and it was such a relief. Didn't I feel weighted down, with no deity to help me? I said, of course I have irresolvable worries and doubts, doesn't everyone? I didn't usually hold them close, they just go in the same bin with the real, exact facts about the Big Bang, and I'm free of them, for awhile.  I just don't label The Big Bin of Unknowing to a knowing God. I label it Unknowing and I'm done.
This is all well and good, but it's not necessarily the way to make friends and influence people in the South. I don't go around with a big A on my chest, but I do allow as that I don't go to church. Well, you believe in God, don't you, so that's all right. A lot of people don't go to church, and they're still Christians!
Oops. Sometimes I say too much, sometimes I regret I didn't say enough. After all, being told you're going to Hell doesn't mean much to someone who thinks Hell is an abstract concept.
Really, I was extra grateful those mornings, waking up on our journey. I didn't make exact comparisons to the trip we made, also with a rental truck, moving from Seattle to North Carolina. That was during my drinking days and I had all the work of drinking enough to be coherent, and not so much as to be incoherent. Raise your hands if you know what that juggle is all about.