I’m grateful for some pretty delicious pasta sauce. I’m grateful to have the chance to do things the right way. I’m grateful for confidence. I’m grateful for learning to trust myself. I’m grateful for realizing I don’t know how things are going to turn out. I’m grateful to be sober today.
I feel like I say this a lot, but there’s a lot going on over here at Sober HQ. The latest from Your Sponsor dropped on Monday:
And just yesterday, Jane shared her strength, experience and hope and also explained why the subway is hot in the summertime. I don’t want to start a thing where I’m nit-picking with my colleagues, but I do think you need to replace the “L” in the new version of HALT. Otherwise, it’s HAT and then this winter, the H turns to a C and this all becomes Seussical. But aren’t you curious now?
I wrote a little yesterday about how I drank to slow down the cyclone in my head. My drinking wasn’t only driven by the big storms spinning up there, it was also driven by the belief that I knew where things were headed. I knew what everything meant, where it had to end up and how it was going to happen. My alcoholic epiphany came at a dingy orange and blue colored bar when I was 18 and realized just how much in love with alcohol I was.
That night at Magoo’s, drinking by myself, I realized I had a problem and that it was a problem over which I lacked power. The realization that I lacked the power to control my drinking, already, was what drove the cold stake into my stomach. I remember thinking, “How is this ever going to end?” And, of course, to complete the cinematic moment, “Strange Magic” by ELO was playing on the jukebox and this line got imprinted in my head:
Oh, I'm never gonna be the same again
Now I've seen the way it's got to end
Sweet dream, sweet dream
As I think about things, I realize that roughly from that moment on, I lived the next forty years with the sense of impending doom. That the mistakes, errors, all the shitty things I’d done, were all going to catch up with me eventually and then destroy me. During the worst part of my spiral down, I wasn’t that angry or mad about it, I was just resigned to it. It made it pretty tough to muster the resolve to stop drinking and start working the Program.
The problem was that I didn’t see a way out. I definitely got a glimpse of my powerlessness over alcohol and I could see the clouds of unmanageability on the horizon. Like Bill W., I saw that there was no power in me to control or stop my drinking. I loved it too much; it was too much a part of the fabric of me; too integral to my existence. Like Bill sitting across from Ebby, and coming to the realization that Ebby’s sobriety had to be a miracle, because:
There had been no more power in him than there was in me at that minute; and this was none at all.
Big Book, p. 11
I correctly diagnosed myself as an alcoholic that evening, but it took me a long, long time before I figured out that I didn’t actually know how the story was going to end. That part wasn’t written yet, I didn’t have to ride the elevator all the way down. Getting sober has been a process of realizing that I get to write, or re-write some of what happens from here and that the conclusion hasn’t yet been determined. When you really believe you’re doomed, that there is no way out, it’s pretty tough to leave that barstool. Ultimately it’s probably a function of developing hope and faith, but maybe it starts with a little un-believing: The end hasn’t been written yet. That I don’t actually know how things are going to turn out.
Thanks for Letting Me Share
Getting sober has been a process of realizing that I get to write, or re-write some of what happens from here and that the conclusion hasn’t yet been determined.
Since discovering Thanks for Sharing during a recent Shout Out session, I have suspected that TBD might stand for To Be Determined. After reading that line this morning, I am “sure” that it does. That doesn’t mean that it *does* stand for it, just that I *feel* “sure” of it.
I am grateful for taking the time to read your Gratitude List this morning, even though my “plate” overfloweth with issues that have been growing “gradually, then suddenly.” That list always reminds me that my “good” track is over flowing as well.
Today is even more To Be Determined than usual, so I better remain determined to rise above the fray and do the best I can for the “little ones,” who know nothing about the stressors, except how their adults react to them. Will it be with tolerance and grace or “swear words and snarling?” TBD.
I’m grateful for amazing connections. I’m grateful for family time. I’m grateful for last minute outings with my nieces and nephews. I’m grateful for redemption. I am so grateful to have a person who makes my life so exciting and shares the same interests as me. I am grateful for random facetimes from all living grandparents. I am grateful for experienced doctors. I am grateful to be clean!