Today marks 25 years (more or less) since the last time I got drunk. I say more or less because I actually don't know the exact date because at the time I'd been trying to get back on the wagon for months and each day had been a failure, so I didn't put much stock in my ability to desperately re-attain sobriety. Once I'd finally gotten about a month under my belt I decided I might have a chance of maintaining, and I tried to piece together the date. I knew it was mid-April, but not idea exactly what day so I used a date that was significant to me in the sense of rebuilding myself, a date of life-changing, of trying to build something better from the broken pieces.
The first "16" to pique my interest was the date of my dad's birth. There's a lot of sorrow, and a lot of love mixed in with my dad. On one hand I wanted to grow up to be a cowboy just like my dad; to be able to fix anything, to be strong, to be self-reliant. On the other was the alcoholic who sat in the truck with his loaded gun ready to chase off any men who might try to take his wife, the man whose addiction lost the ranch, the man who told me on his cirrhosis-death bed that his biggest regret was "not being able to drink the way I used to."
Sobriety feels a bit like that confused ball sorrow and love. I am a different person when I have alcohol in my fuel tank; certainly not my best self (yet another mixed bag...unbridled rage feels like the power I so desperately wanted in my life...and bottomless sorrow leading to suicidal desperation), but alcohol was my first love, and as toxic as that relationship was, I grieve her. Sobriety allows for feeling sorrow in a much different way; more vivid, more precise, but the same can be said of love. And isn't sobriety an act of love, both for the self, and for those who love us?
I can't say that I got sober because I loved myself, but more because I knew the pain inside wasn't getting any better with what I was doing, and I was desperate enough to try something different, to break a family cycle. Some days sobriety is an act of self-love, but more it is an act of love for my loved ones...and because I have been sober, and done a shit-ton of work on my psyche I am able to love people furiously and I cannot stand to hurt them, and I do know that drinking would bring harm to the one's I love.
I first started trying to control my drinking when I was 17. I'd get weeks, months, even a year once, but once I started I couldn't modulate...all or nothing. And up until my last relapse, in spite of my attempts at sobriety, I never considered myself an alcoholic because I held my drinking up to my father, and "I certainly wasn't as bad as him." But when I relapsed that last time, I couldn't make it through a day without drinking; it was the first time I felt completely powerless to alcohol, and it scared me, but still I couldn't stop. The catalyst for this last round of sobriety occurred when I mixed an antidepressant with my booze, and was sure I was going to fucking die. I can still vividly remember lying awake in bed, eyes wide open, sure if I closed them I would never wake up again. Fear can be a great teacher. And after that night, I stacked one day on the next, until 25 years later, here I am.
I've never done sobriety pretty. I've never done recovery perfectly, whatever the fuck that means, but I've not been drunk in 25 years, and I've tried in that time to make myself the best version of myself I can be (again, not perfect, or pretty).
My sobriety anniversary always makes me think of my dad who didn't survive the battle with alcohol. I moved back in with my father right before I turned 17, and lived with him until his death, a few days after I turned 20. In those 3 years, even though he still drank (although significantly less) I was fortunate enough to build a relationship with my father, one that he was incapable of prior because he was passed out or too out of it to have any space for a relationship with anyone, including himself. And unfortunately, he was a man afraid of the word love, which meant I was too, and he died withoug us saying "I love you" to each other, and of my life's regrets that is the biggest because it was one thing I most definitely had control over. He was no saint, but rather a man with many flaws (like the rest of us) who dealt with his insecurities, and wounds by filling them with alcohol, and I miss him...and I miss the man and the father he had the potential to be.
Now that alcohol isn't an option, these days I alternate filling my wounds with food, spirituality, more food, acts of service, more food, fiercely loving my peeps, and more food. I'm trying to decide if the wounds are any smaller, or less fetid, but at the moment, in these uncertain times with my PTSD going full-tilt I really don't have the proper perspective to know. But I can tell you life is a little bit easier to manage, I don't live in the same terror I once did, and most importantly, I know love and I'm not afraid of it.
The first "16" to pique my interest was the date of my dad's birth. There's a lot of sorrow, and a lot of love mixed in with my dad. On one hand I wanted to grow up to be a cowboy just like my dad; to be able to fix anything, to be strong, to be self-reliant. On the other was the alcoholic who sat in the truck with his loaded gun ready to chase off any men who might try to take his wife, the man whose addiction lost the ranch, the man who told me on his cirrhosis-death bed that his biggest regret was "not being able to drink the way I used to."
Sobriety feels a bit like that confused ball sorrow and love. I am a different person when I have alcohol in my fuel tank; certainly not my best self (yet another mixed bag...unbridled rage feels like the power I so desperately wanted in my life...and bottomless sorrow leading to suicidal desperation), but alcohol was my first love, and as toxic as that relationship was, I grieve her. Sobriety allows for feeling sorrow in a much different way; more vivid, more precise, but the same can be said of love. And isn't sobriety an act of love, both for the self, and for those who love us?
I can't say that I got sober because I loved myself, but more because I knew the pain inside wasn't getting any better with what I was doing, and I was desperate enough to try something different, to break a family cycle. Some days sobriety is an act of self-love, but more it is an act of love for my loved ones...and because I have been sober, and done a shit-ton of work on my psyche I am able to love people furiously and I cannot stand to hurt them, and I do know that drinking would bring harm to the one's I love.
I first started trying to control my drinking when I was 17. I'd get weeks, months, even a year once, but once I started I couldn't modulate...all or nothing. And up until my last relapse, in spite of my attempts at sobriety, I never considered myself an alcoholic because I held my drinking up to my father, and "I certainly wasn't as bad as him." But when I relapsed that last time, I couldn't make it through a day without drinking; it was the first time I felt completely powerless to alcohol, and it scared me, but still I couldn't stop. The catalyst for this last round of sobriety occurred when I mixed an antidepressant with my booze, and was sure I was going to fucking die. I can still vividly remember lying awake in bed, eyes wide open, sure if I closed them I would never wake up again. Fear can be a great teacher. And after that night, I stacked one day on the next, until 25 years later, here I am.
I've never done sobriety pretty. I've never done recovery perfectly, whatever the fuck that means, but I've not been drunk in 25 years, and I've tried in that time to make myself the best version of myself I can be (again, not perfect, or pretty).
My sobriety anniversary always makes me think of my dad who didn't survive the battle with alcohol. I moved back in with my father right before I turned 17, and lived with him until his death, a few days after I turned 20. In those 3 years, even though he still drank (although significantly less) I was fortunate enough to build a relationship with my father, one that he was incapable of prior because he was passed out or too out of it to have any space for a relationship with anyone, including himself. And unfortunately, he was a man afraid of the word love, which meant I was too, and he died withoug us saying "I love you" to each other, and of my life's regrets that is the biggest because it was one thing I most definitely had control over. He was no saint, but rather a man with many flaws (like the rest of us) who dealt with his insecurities, and wounds by filling them with alcohol, and I miss him...and I miss the man and the father he had the potential to be.
Now that alcohol isn't an option, these days I alternate filling my wounds with food, spirituality, more food, acts of service, more food, fiercely loving my peeps, and more food. I'm trying to decide if the wounds are any smaller, or less fetid, but at the moment, in these uncertain times with my PTSD going full-tilt I really don't have the proper perspective to know. But I can tell you life is a little bit easier to manage, I don't live in the same terror I once did, and most importantly, I know love and I'm not afraid of it.
1 comment:
Hmmm... to know love and not be afraid of it. That's a beautiful thing.
Thank you for sharing.
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