Six years. Just for today, times 2,192 and countless other
“please let me just get through the next fifteen minutes” moments.
At times, my sobriety feels like my oldest and dearest
friend, while at others it is not nearly so comfortable. Sometimes it is
natural and a lot of the time it isn’t easy at all. As some of those reading
this already know, I’ve had some fantastically beautiful moments and some
devastatingly difficult ones as well over this time. Living clean and sober is
not always easy, but without fail it has been worth it.
You see, I spent fourteen or fifteen years operating from a
place where I had no desire to face anything or anyone, including myself. I was
boisterously fraudulent to others and a small, scared kid within my own mind. I
lied, manipulated and many times could think of nothing besides my own desires.
Selfish and self-centered at my core, my occasional grand generous gestures
were performed with a payoff in mind.
I had surprisingly low self-esteem and even today I am often
haunted by self-doubt. There are many things these days that just feel so out
of my depth and I know that I can’t handle them alone. It would be the easiest thing
in the world to pick up and act out instead of facing these things.
There are days when everything inside me wants a half-gallon
as if it were food or water. I want to
get stoned and watch movies all day, or get high and bounce around the planet
for a while. Many of you reading this post don’t want to see that or believe
it, but I don’t lie these days and I don’t try to hide things about me that are
scary. My sobriety is not guaranteed.
Sometimes I have no idea how I got through a day at the end
of it. Sometimes the past is a crushing weight on my mind. Sometimes I miss my
dad and my sister more than I can bear and I just sit and hurt and cry and
scream. Sometimes (a lot of the time, actually) I miss being able to not feel
the pain or the joy or the agony or the thrill. Some days I am THISCLOSE to the
liquor store and then I turn around and tell someone else how to stay sober,
just for today. Sometimes I just want the rollercoaster to slow down long
enough for me to jump off.
My peace today comes from knowing that at any given moment,
I am exactly where I am supposed to be. I know that what I think I want is
definitely not always what I really need, and that my own designs have been and
will always be flawed at their best. I do myself a favor when I allow awareness
to be present and can then self-correct when I am comparing myself to others
too much or I am getting inside my own head too much. I am at my best when I am
sharing the experience, strength and hope with which my struggles have blessed
me; when I am focused more on others than myself, I am focused an happy. The
balance can be delicate (as expressed in a recent post) but service to others
is ultimately service to myself and my sobriety.
Six years into what I pray daily is a lifelong journey I
wouldn’t change a thing. Six years’ worth of highs, lows and all that comes in
between GENUINELY felt and experienced; I was actually there for all of it and
none of it was chemically rendered or tinted. Real life, guys and dolls and I
am grateful for every wonderful, awful, amazing bit of it. It’s not often easy,
but it is always worth it.
