Alcoholism and drug-addiction are, unfortunately, common diseases that affect a vast majority of individuals around the world. Support and knowledge are superb weapons to use, but even those with long-term sobriety still experience those little sneaky thoughts that pop up when one least expects it. These thoughts offer solace and calm that are both deceiving and irrational, but are still unerringly insistent.
For most alcoholics-myself included--I've learned to work and think my way around these thoughts. Having a few twenty-four hours in the program, I've derived the necessary tools to overlook these, but still. . . getting kicked in the proverbial balls by these intruding images is more than a little disconcerting. Thankfully, I've never gotten as bad as Mike gets in this book (knock on wood), and while the user dreams are still present, they're less frequent. Plus, things look far less dramatic in the light of day, so I just trudge through hour by hour until the two a. m. dream is in the past.
I miss it sometimes-I'd be lying if I said I didn't-but what I miss is that first cold beer at the end of a long, hot day, or the complete relaxation among family and friends at an event where alcohol is present. I still attend these functions, but my guard is never completely down, and I always leave myself a way out if those old, jagged-edged thoughts start talking too loud.
Like many of my friends with whom I share this mutual disease, we can laugh now in the light of sobriety, despite the fact that the events we're laughing about were once fraught with humiliation, anger, and pain and/or terror. It's funny now. . . it really is, and we do have really obscure senses of humor. I guess we have to, if only to see how far we've come since those blacked-out, knee-crawling, messed-up days.
Life is awesome now, and I enjoy my family and friends a lot more than I used to. The laughter and joy is now pure and truly heart-felt, and not enhanced by the effects of booze or any drug. I enjoy my times alone with a good book, chasing my kid around the yard, or having dinner with friends and coworkers respectively. Things are easier to process these days, and memories last longer without being eradicated by vast amounts of booze.
I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, home of the Kentucky Derby and the mint julep. I have never had a mint julep, despite an entire lifetime of living here and drowning myself in booze for a large amount of those years, and I guess that's something I can say I regret. . .
But not enough to make it worthwhile to lose what I have now, each day, in the strong grip of my sobriety.
Sometimes it really is breathing through second by second, trying to hold onto something that seems as elusive as air, but then there are those times when life moves too damn fast without any help from me. Those times, I'm extraordinarily grateful that I no longer feel the need to numb my senses and be content to let life pass me by while muddling through an alcoholic stupor.
Life has always moved too damn fast and for too many years, I was too drunk to realize it. I've wasted incalculable seconds, hours, days, weeks, months, years letting this slide by me with barely a ripple from me in the passing of this time to account for my existence. I've wasted too much already-hindsight is 20/20, you know-and I refuse to let another second go by that I'm not wholly a part or completely aware of.
There is hope. There is peace. Thank God, I've finally found my own. . . second by second; twenty-four hours at a time.
