Daily Reprieve

An article came up in my Facebook feed from a sister in recovery.  I stopped and read, and painfully experienced resonance with Katy the Scary Mommy.  I will share this article here, but I do recommend you visit her site.  She is an amazing word-crafter.  Her title is hyperlinked to her site.

Walk of the Not Quite Dead

On a crisp fall day, just like today, where the sun is shining and people are out playing, I sit huddled on a park bench trying to ward off the shakes from alcohol withdrawal and hunger pains.

I watch the families.  I see a mom happy as can be that she has her whole family with her today as they are throwing a ball to their jubilant Golden Retriever and the kids tumble through the grass to see who can get to the ball first.   The dog always wins.  The mom takes out a snack and gives a little to each child along with a juice box.   The dad doesn’t seem to like the mess they’re making, but laughs and shakes his head anyway.

That will never be my life.

This family doesn’t see me.  I mean, they see me, but they don’t SEE me.  I don’t want to be seen.  They try to pretend I’m not there as they go about their lovely Sunday that they’ve been waiting all week to enjoy.  I don’t blame them.  I wouldn’t want to see me either.  I’m an ugly reminder that there are sick, sad people in this world that you try to shield your kids from as you do your best to make them feel safe and protected and that nothing bad will ever happen to them.  I get it.  So I just watch.

I am vulnerable right now, as I am coming off a drunk and my heart and soul and body is sick with regret and remorse and utter hopelessness.

I see a football game happening where the guys are drinking beers and laughing.  I no longer laugh when I drink beer.  I no longer laugh.  I beg borrow steal and do what I need to do to get more money for some cheap vodka and maybe a $1 something at McDonalds as I haven’t eaten anything for about 48 hours.

It’s incredible how resilient my body has become at 110 pounds with no nourishment except for vodka for days on end. I can use a real bathroom in the McDonalds to clean my hands and face if I can focus on stopping the trembling for 5 minutes and keep others, especially little kids, out of there for that long.

I hurt.  My body hurts; it hurts to move.  My soul feels so empty and ugly and sad that I have to get something quick to cover it up.  My heart hurts and I can’t have that.  For if I feel the hurt too long, I might have to do something about it.  End it all?  CHANGE SOMETHING?  No.  No way.  Not now.  So I find a way.

I walk.  I walk and walk and walk.  I am one of those people you see on the street on a beautiful day that can jar you to your core because if you are someone who looks closely you think, “What the hell happened to her?”  I am dirty.  I am not dressed appropriately.  I am acting a bit shady and you’re not sure what I will do when you pass me by.  I am used to the looks and then the averted eyes.   I see life and the living all around me and yet I am distant, apart from, utterly disconnected.

Night falls.  I am in a drunken stupor, most likely blacked out, which means I’m functioning but I will have no memory of it.  I sleep in the park.  I pass out in the park.  Under a tree.  I have no cover, no shield.  I am exposed.  There is no real rest.  It is simply a crash period that my body uses as a defense against me continuing to drink until I kill myself.  I have no defense against my alert self.

Despite my need for rest, I am awake and walking again.  Walking in the middle of the night in a big city and I have no destination.  I walk and walk and walk.  It’s all I can seem to do.  I see people and they see me and some screw with me, but most leave me alone.  I am lucky.   I have no idea how lucky I am.

The sun comes up and I am still walking.  I am walking as if my guts depend on it.  What am I looking for?  A reason.  A reason to stop all this.  I have no hope and until I am given the gift of hope I will keep walking and keep searching and keep drinking.  I am hungry I am angry I am lonely I am tired.  I am coming down off my stupor and I am starting to withdraw again.  The cycle is beginning all over.  The same way it did yesterday and the same way it will tomorrow.  Over and over again until I die or say enough.

That was 12 years ago.

Today I am a mother after struggling with infertility.  I have a phenomenal husband and twin 10 month olds.  I have a job and a safe warm place to live.  We are broke as hell and struggle the way so many people do about how we will pay for things and what our next move will be, but the fact that I even have these decisions and struggles is a gift.  My goal back then was to live through another day.  Or on some days, not to live at all.  And yet, I am still alive.  Son of a lucky bitch.  I am still alive.

Quite similar to the zombie “walkers” on The Walking Dead, I was a transient, physically and more profoundly, spiritually.  I numbed myself as I stumbled through life without feeling anything. That’s no way to live.

I’m not unique or special. Many walkers never get their chance. I just got sick and tired of being sick and tired. I’m a second-chancer as are all the other walkers out there. They just haven’t gotten their chance yet. They aren’t done.  Some never will be. But let’s not write them off so quickly. You just never know who’s out there walking and waiting for their scintilla of hope to spank them in the face. Being kind when it’s uncomfortable might be just what they need right then in that moment. You could be the spark. That still small voice.

You think this can’t happen to you.  But I am you.  I grew up in a loving, safe home.  I lost my way.  I lost hope and belief in myself after doing life for a while and not liking what life was doing to me.  It wasn’t fair and I thought I deserved better.  I drank it all away.  Once hope was lost, I couldn’t get it back.  I didn’t want to get it back.  Hopelessness is that pit of despair that caves in on itself mocking all reason until you finally feel a glimmer by grace and then it hits you that was what you were looking for the entire time.

From the Daily Reflections of October 23;

“Shoemaker, stick to thy last!” . . . better do one thing supremely well than many badly. That is the central theme of this Tradition [Five]. Around it our Society gathers in unity. The very life of our Fellowship requires the preservation of this principle.   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 150)

The survival of A.A. depends upon unity. What would happen if a group decided to become an employment agency, a treatment center or a social service agency? Too much specialization leads to no specialization, to frittering of efforts and, finally, to decline. I have the qualifications to share my sufferings and my way of recovery with the newcomer. Conformity to A.A.’s primary purpose ensures the safety of the wonderful gift of sobriety, so my responsibility is enormous. The life of millions of alcoholics is closely tied to my competence in “carrying the message to the still-suffering alcoholic.”

END OF QUOTE

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The Fifth Tradition of AA states, “Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.”

For me, there are two implications of this tradition for the individual member of AA.  The first is that the multitude of personal desires and other goals that come with a very active ego must be extinguished within the recovery rooms.  I cannot proselytize for my religion or system of belief within the rooms.  I cannot focus on improving my finances or fulfilling relationship desires.  I cannot bring into the rooms my personal political schemes.  I began to learn this lesson early in my sobriety.  I remember in one meeting, a beautiful young woman came up and sat in the chair next to me.  There were other empty seats.  Her leg touched mine.  I was attracted and she could hardly keep still in her seat.  I interpreted that she was also feeling the energy.  I determined that after the meeting, I would talk to her and if nothing developed, give her my number.  What a great meeting this was going to be.  Then she shared with the group that she really needed a meeting because afterwards she was going to go visit a friend who had been drinking and driving and was in the hospital after  a car accident.  The intoxicated driver’s friend in the passenger seat had been killed and she was going to have to tell him about it.  I was horrified at how inappropriate my self-interest would have been that night.

So, I do not pursue sisters in recovery.  I am open to a relationship if I and the other are fairly free of the duress of the addiction and have found a way of emotional-spiritual stability and growth.  For me now, going after females who have just entered the room is akin to recovery rape.  The girl is not capable of giving clear-headed consent to interaction.    This goes the other way as well.  Women who go after new males in recovery are threatening their lives.  This is the primary area of self-interest I sacrifice in the rooms.  There are others.

The second implication for me as an individual member is that it is expected and needed for my sobriety to always hold top place in my list of personal priorities in my day to day living.  Words alone will not provide a saving message to other alcoholics or addicts.  They must be reinforced by example in order to have the needed substance to truly share experience, strength, and hope.

Art Credit:  Demon of Lust by KJ Kallio