Not something I ever wanted for myself. Not something I really knew even happened, until it happened to me. I hit a bottom that was sufficient (at least so far) to bring about lasting recovery. And honestly, that bottom was just the point where I put down the shovel and stopped digging. Amazing how much easier it is to get out of a hole of your own digging when you aren’t a million feet deep.
I don’t say this like it was some great idea I had, that everyone should have and then execute upon. No, I thought my life was over either way. If I kept drinking, I knew I was going to die but not until I hurt everyone I knew and loved. Getting sober was going to suck (and it did) but if those fuckers I kept hearing yammer on all the time were right (spoiler alert: they were) after the hell of early recovery dissipated, I would have a great life.
That has proven to be so fucking true. So true in fact that my drinking life often seems like a colorful disaster of memory. But it wasn’t, it was how I lived and loved and existed day after mother fucking day. I was a mess and every day it just got messier and if you got too close, you were similarly made messy just by association.
I am privileged to sponsor several women in the early years of their sobriety. And I often hear from them all the horrors and pain and anguish and fear that I felt. And it is a good reminder for me. One that waiting until I was older to get sober would have been a really bad idea and that it doesn’t ever get better if you are an alcoholic and continue to drink. Ever.
Sobriety has been an epic adventure. Kind of like surgery without anesthesia...well, that is what it felt like in the beginning. Today, it doesn’t feel that way at all. It feels light and airy and just life affirming. But that took some time to get to. Not as long as you might think, but I had to walk through some shit.
Getting sober, for me, has been about putting down the drinking and drugs. But it has been more about healing the trauma that caused me to drink in the first place. I am not blaming my addictions on trauma but I think my predisposition to addiction, a whole bunch of shit going down and then my response to all of that, resulted in me needing to drink as much as possible as often as possible.
Sobriety has been about uncovering all the stuff I didn’t want to deal with, didn’t have the skills to deal with and wasn’t even sure how to deal with, let alone cope with. But it was also about uncovering all the parts of myself that were covered over with distraction, addiction and the chaos that dynamic duo created. In short, my addiction was really to not being present. I was always seeking an exit. A way to not be where I was or to return to some prior state of being that I enjoyed more.
As I round out this 30th year, I realize that I am more present than I have ever been. I am more peaceful. I allow life to just do what it does instead of constantly trying to manipulate and control it. I feel like life and I have finally reached some sort of cease fire. Really it is just me stopping the pot shots at life when life is just doing its thing. I accept now I am going to have good moments, bad moments, horrific moments and fucking stellar moments. That is just living. And my childish, immature attitude that it should always be good and feel amazing is lessening its grip on my psyche.
I have had to learn some shit while getting sober. But I think I have had to unlearn way more shit. I got so many things so very wrong along the way. And it has taken me an embarrassing amount of time to sort through this shit. But sort I have done. Work I have employed. And feelings I have survived.
Today, I want for almost nothing. I am grateful for what I have and really, the bright spot in any day is helping others. Seriously. Which seems like a stretch for someone as selfish and self involved as me. When a sponsee calls me, I am so excited to answer. I can’t wait to hear what is going on, how they are feeling and then share with them my experience with those particular feelings, emotions or life events. I feel supremely useful and I find myself thinking about them, instead of me, a great deal of the time. Not in some codependent way, I don’t need to fix them, they don’t have to do what I say or even listen to me. I am just glad they are in my life and I pray, daily, that something I have survived can help them similarly survive. That is all.
In short, life and living has become much simpler lately. I just feel ok about it all. Something good happens, lovely. Something terrible happens, ok, not so lovely but I really do try to look at what I can learn or bring or something.
Getting sober was not easy, but staying sober is pretty ok. The payoff for the deal of short term pain for long term gain is immense and pays rich dividends the longer you remain.
I am so grateful for the bottom I hit. And all the other ones I have hit since I got sober. And for all the ones that will come in the near future because I know the hitting of bottoms is just part of any growth cycle. In order to change, you have to become convinced that the way you are living needs alteration, and in my case, that realization needs to come paired with a sufficient amount of pain to get my attention and move me through all my excuses, rationalizations and traumatic responses to get me to find the willingness to do something I am sure will not work, is dumb or will be painful.
My experience is hitting bottom is the only way I learn anything. I move at the speed of pain...although I need a lot less pain today to get my ass in gear! Which is progress!
Sobriety is the best thing I have ever become involved with. It saved my life. Fuck, it gave me a life worth living because I can tell you the way I was before sobriety can barely be called living. It was a nightly suicide mission I kept failing at and I seemed to have no choice other than to try again the next night.
Today, my life is peaceful and calm and mostly happy even when I don’t get what I want. I have been around long enough to know that so often the shit I want isn’t good for me so when I don’t get it I kind of feel the relief of the burden of my self. It is kind of cool.
Life in sobriety feels amazing. Certainly not all the time, but what I learned is this: when you sober up you feel better, you feel everything better and that is very hard for someone who is attempting to blot out all the negative feelings and only feel good vibes all the time! But if you persist in this amazing journey of coming to know yourself, you will find that in a relatively short period of time you will find peace within your own body, mind and spirit. You will grow exponentially and that growth will be supremely useful to others.
Surviving the darkest, fucking hard shit is what makes me interesting and helpful to others. And I will tell you there is no better feeling in this life than sharing with someone else shit that you were sure would kill you and having that be relatable and life affirming for someone else. And the love I feel internally being able to be expressed and given, for fun and for free, to others who seek.
I am so grateful I took my turn. I am so grateful I am still here. I am so grateful for this day: another 24 hours to live sober and free...one day at a time.
Again...still.
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