“Death needs Time for what it kills to grow in” – William S. Burroughs

VIII.XVII.MMXVI

I am grateful to have arrived at this point. Things are unfamiliar, and while there are things I have certainly attempted before, I’m experiencing how they feel for the first time.

We are on this earth for a finite amount of time. The worn out saying “live each day like its your last” is a bit short sighted of this fact, when you think about it. An addict point of view even. I think I would prefer to look at each day as being one day closer to being my last. The time I have left is what I want to cherish, but to say its duration is only going to be measured out 24 hours from this moment is not how I want to look at it. I used to do that, and I was reckless with my money, reckless with my relationships, and reckless with my time. Some patience was definitely needed, and its felt satisfying to work towards and achieve some goals that were not just going to happen over night.

Take that leap. Go somewhere you haven’t been before, even if its just the next town over. Think about it this way, if you are unhappy; what is the point of your “comfort zone”? Could such a thing truly exist if you were miserable or unsure about yourself? The whole point of being in a comfort zone is feeling secure and contentment, and when you think about it, feeling secure and content with sadness is how we get ourselves in a rut. A small step in a different direction towards something new could maybe change some things.

There is a misconception that getting sober, or getting over something that was killing you, is that its going to lead to you a promised land where you smile everyday and the sky is always blue. The journey of recovery shows you the truth, the ugly side of it. It is why it is so difficult. There is nothing happy about addiction. Recovering from a broken heart is the loneliest place on the planet. Encountering a mental illness and codependency is a torturous maze to wander. And when you rise above each or all of these things, what I want you to know is that you can feel again. You feel everything, and it should be one of your mightiest goals. You are in control and responsible for everything. Your successes. Your mistakes. You can experience happiness without waiting for the other shoe to drop, and you can smile without it being a mask for something tearing you apart inside. If you fail at something, you can actually learn from it and come back to it with a new plan, instead of it being another reason to bemoan your bad luck and act like its never going to change. Those are some of the things that can happen when you arrive.

One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things. – Henry Miller

You will see that you are not the center of this universe. When you are the addict, your world is yourself. It is always about what you have to have, right then and there until the cycle begins anew. Your current crisis is always the most critical situation you’eve ever been in, your problems are everyone around you’s to help solve. You feel as though to get anything accomplished it will take drawing in everyone around you and using every last bit of them up. Which is kind of what makes getting better so amazing, because it only happens through your final acceptance that its you alone that will make any sort of real lasting change in your life. It feels good to care about other people, and to know my problems aren’t some sort of death sentence to those that care about me.

“The light in me recognizes the light in you“…the Namasté greeting is one of the most beautiful sayings I’ve heard, but to me it is half finished. To anyone that has made it this far on their journey… the darkness in me recognizes the darkness in you. There is no way to traverse the awful things we must all get through without having the darkness engulf us at some point. Almost like you know it will hurt you to continue on to where you know you must go. The easy way out is just a return to what’s feeding off your dying corpse. Giving into the cravings, fearing the withdrawal. A parasite. To close the wound and kill the rot of what has gripped your life, its like you have to cauterize your own wound, knowing full well the pain it will cause in doing this. That is the only way you survive and walk forward. The scar it leaves is the darkness. I will recognize these scars, and anyone who has gone through it and looks upon me will recognize my own. They aren’t trophies. No one should be boasting. There are still so, so many things I will always be sorry for. 1 year, 6 months, and 15 days of sobriety. There is no clean slate wiped clean, that is just reality. When you get to the point of forgiving yourself, that is how you move on with it.

This is going to be my last writing on this story. It was mine to tell and at the very least, I was honest. Looking back at where it began, the person that sat down to write that first entry is now unrecognizable to me. So much had to change. There had to be so much failure to get to the point of true change. There is no reason to be bitter about any of it, the life I am able to live now would not have been possible without it. The worst things that happened make me appreciate everything I have now, and who I have in my life now, even more.

Chaos and Emptiness chao et inanitas

A path through turbulent times. That’ what this was, wasn’t it? Everything is different now, every fragment of who I am as well as every aspect of my everyday life. Hell, I even “think” differently. If I had to pinpoint what the biggest impact all of this has had on my life, it would be a lack of chaos…and no more feeling empty inside. My adult life has always felt like an impending car crash, and on the stretches of decent road there seemed to be a lifeless gazing out the window as things passed me by. I was always arriving somewhere, yet not here. Such a chaotic existence was miserable and depressing. This journey traversed a way beyond all of that. Sometimes I sit here in wonderment about the stability that exists now. I ask myself, how did it all happen? I think that is a calming and reassuring point in all of this journey being at its end. No more living in chaos, and having a calm sense of stability each and every day. There will always be clouds that pass through the skies occasionally, but it feels good to look at them with resolve instead of foreboding. I’m able to be who I need to be, even on the bad days. I’m capable of being a husband, a father, and I’m ready to begin a new journey.

When we come upon the time in our lives when it is finally time to change, we set out on our own soul side journeys. Mine lasted three years, and everything changed forever.

I understood myself only after I destroyed myself.

When I let go of my anger, I felt naked at first. It’d been a comforting cloak of nails my whole life it seemed. There was always an antagonistic pressure on me, whether it was real or self manifested. Combined with my addiction, there were storms to unleash. At my very core, I would say this shaped who I was. It defined me.

I think you’ll find many layers as you get and stay sober, almost like you’re peeling back each negative characteristic and aspect of yourself. You find there were many facets to your problems, that kept you befuddled, drunk, high, and detached from serenity and balance. Each step of sobriety involves acceptance of these layers and facing the cause of their existence. 

Sometimes when I’m at meetings, I look at those old timers, the ones with over twenty years of sobriety, and wonder what it is that brings them back every day. Do they still struggle with the demons? Do they feel a responsibility to help those trying to achieve sobriety? Is there continued presence here an admittance of no peace? I suppose I’ll find out someday. 

I love where my journey has me at in my life. I have no regrets about what brought me here, without the experience there’s no way I would have achieved anything lasting, with no hope of transcendence. There is no more lawless darkness within me anymore.

D’er mange ?ksarhogg, som eiki skal fella.

“…you seem like you see the world in color now” – my fiancée

I’m sitting in the coffee shop where we “met”. There’s a song playing right now, one that I like when Dax Riggs covers it, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. Fitting I would say, haha. He usually plays it in the middle of “What A Wonderful World”. I remember a year ago, sitting in this exact same chair in Maas coffee shop, next to the awkwardly placed pole. Flitting through Instagram, going to the coffee shops page, through the hash tags, through the wormhole and onto the other side. And here we are now.

That day, I was reading a magazine that was given to me by my ex’s grandmother. It’s called Natural Awakenings, and it’s printed locally. It focuses on natural methods of healing, both for health and substance abuse treatment, as well as yoga and nutrition. That’s where I found the rehab I ended up going to. I’m relieved that something of this nature is printed and distributed around here. I wonder how many other people have gotten a copy and changed their lives. 

There were a lot of days last summer sat in this seat while feeling lost at times. It felt like my emotions and inner turmoils were stacked up next to me on this counter, like some sort of office desk with an overflowing pile of paperwork. Now there’s just a nice stack of the magazine sitting next to me. 

There’s a guy at the end of the bar doing some sort of work. He just asked me if a political candidate had a DUI on their record, would that sway me from voting for them. Ironic I’d be asked to pass a judgement on something I was never caught for. 

I would implore anyone attempting to make a change in their life to give things the patience such an important task deserves. After all, this is your life you’re talking about. You never know what’s just around the proverbial corner. Or click.

“The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you’ll never have.”
– Søren Kierkegaard

Something that I had a very hard time with was letting go of people. I have wrote about how my codependency issues were just as detrimental as my dependency on alcohol. The aspect of letting go was codependency at its most crippling. A lot of it makes sense to me now, as I have been able to look back at my past and accept things, but at the time it was an all consuming issue in my life. Most people who are in a codependent relationship that can even acknowledge the door to escape does indeed exist, cannot take those final steps to leave the situation for their own good. It is a constant struggle within your own mind, as every minute “I promise it will change, please don’t leave” will cause yet another cycle to begin. To the outside world that can see plain as day all the damage this is causing and seems to think the truth is staring us in the face, this must seem pretty pathetic, right?

I had a counselor that I began seeing in the Fall of 2014. Right away she recognized my codependency issues. There were a lot of discussions that would end with me having to confront all of the stark realities of my situation and why they were so unhealthy and self destructive. I think because I had not yet come to grips with my drinking problem, a lot of this fell on deaf ears. Most of the issues came to the surface when I would get drunk, so there was this disconnect between those incidents and a sober encounter in a therapists office. The books she wrote down for me to read were scribbled on a note that I never even bothered to look at. Until I got sober.

One of the books was called “The Language of Letting Go”, and talked about moving on from destructive relationships and our inability to have control in those types of situations. The sooner we are able to accept these facts, the sooner we can make changes within ourselves; the only being on this earth we truly have control over.

Finishing our business from the past helps us form new and healthier relationships. The more we overcome our need to be excessive caretakers, the less we will find ourselves attracted to people who need to be constantly taken care of. The more we learn to love and respect ourselves, the more we will become attracted to people who will love and respect us and who we can safely love and respect. This is a slow process. We need to be patient with ourselves. The type of people we find ourselves attracted to does not change overnight. Being attracted to dysfunctional people can linger long and well into recovery. That does not mean we need to allow it to control us. The fact is, we will initiate and maintain relationships with people we need to be with until we learn what it is we need to learn—no matter how long we’ve been recovering. ? Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go

As I finally took the time to make the necessary changes in my life, I felt like I was able to accept the past and some of things that I was so disappointed about. It also let me find a silver lining. That was a huge relief to me personally. It was an experience that, while painful, ushered me towards acknowledging my self worth. There is nothing quite like the feeling of a broken heart; you can be consumed or you can grow.  To be able to look at the bright side even in the middle of a horrible situation was a very calming affect. It allowed me to let go, pick myself up and get myself to the point where I was ready to go forward in my life, in control of my life, and accepting of whatever may come my way.

Whitney,

I think it’s a good thing to acknowledge milestones, so I’d like to send you some thoughts on this first year spent in each other’s company. First as friends, then dating, then loving, and now engaging. Since one year ago we texted one another, moving from the digital social media realm to the good old fashioned cellular data one (my grandparents are rolling in their graves at my referencing anything modern as being old fashioned). It was the beginning of a week that was going to change everything. Or maybe just start to complete everything. We were both ending our summer’s that were spent working on becoming different humans than the ones that started 2015. I could tell that when I met you, your story wasn’t a woe is me, it was a learn and grow past your former version of yourself. I admired and respected that. I’m done with cruelty and apathy, you seem to lack an ounce of either of those wasteful traits and that makes me admire you even more. It seems like most of us have a tendency to tell about our stumbles in life with a hateful or resentful tone. You did neither. Despite having a huge disappointment occur that same year. I liked that about you because that’s where I was trying to get to in my own life. I’d like to think that, and many other important aspects made us so compatible and complimentary to each other. 

Now we get to spend our next year, on the exact same beach that we spent that first day together on. Right now I’m listening to the waves explode onto the sand, it’s quite loud. It still hasn’t hit me that I’m going to be able to do this with you just about every day of this second year that’s almost here.

“Most people would rather be certain they’re miserable, than risk being happy.”
– Robert Anthony

We moved onto the beach this past month. It is one of the best decisions that I have made I believe. Just to hear the waves every morning and every night. I feel like I can relax and think to myself. There is a therapeutic quality gained by being near the water and sunrise over it. I used to come out here a lot when I was alone and coming to grips with sobriety. Even in full work attire, I would come down to the water and watch the sun set over it, usually just listening to the waves like they were a living, breathing thing that I could communicate with through my thoughts. Anyone weighted down by sadness and disappointment should attempt to spend time near any body of water. That being said, it is definitely a place for anyone to be, regardless of your state of mind.

I tried to pinpoint where it all changed, when I woke up and was in this clear state of mind that I currently am in. There really was not any specific event or day in my life where it all of the sudden just “clicked” into place. I just got out of bed each day, went to work, went to meetings and rehab, tried to stay active and never, ever let “never going to get better” thoughts creep into my head. Even if I recited some of the worst parts of my experiences to myself or to anyone else, I forced myself to end it with something to the affect of “but I know this isn’t it, there is a chance to get better”. And sure enough, it did get better.

Wallace J. Nichols, a marine biologist, believes that we all have a “blue mind” — as he puts it, “a mildly meditative state characterized by calm, peacefulness, unity, and a sense of general happiness and satisfaction with life in the moment” — that’s triggered when we’re in or near water.

One thing I remember vividly about the past decade or so of my life as a self destructive alcoholic was wallowing in self pity. I absolutely stopped doing that before things changed in my life. Taking initiative and responsibility in a physical manifestation was going to AA and rehab/counseling. The internal version, the one no once could see except for me, was changing my mindset on how I viewed the problems in my life. Throwing yourself on a sword and martyring yourself isn’t going to change anything in a positive manner. Hell, I am sure that if I read back through this blog I would see examples of my backwards growth all throughout the early stages of it. People will feel sorry for you. They might enable you. You aren’t going to experience any positive growth unless you make the changes inside your mind and display them outwards onto your everyday life.