National Recovery Month just kicked off, and I reflect on that a lot. I’m cresting about 7-½ years in continuous sustained sobriety for those who like to keep track of time, and I honestly have trouble properly framing my gratitude for my life today. I feel a bit like a jackass when I say how great my life is these days, knowing how many people are struggling. It might be me tomorrow, but today is pretty decent. Happy and Contentedly married, great stepkids, great family, solid friends, career/job/business opportunities, and ways to spend my time that keep the lights on and keep me in service – just a bunch of cool things I get to do and cool people I get to do them with.
( he recovers and raises orphaned squirrels)
Pretty wild.
But man – is it different…different than it was 20 years ago, or 10 years ago…very different than it was eight years ago…but also markedly different than it was seven years ago, or five years ago, or even 2 or 3 years ago. I remember going through training to become a peer support specialist back in the summer of 2018 and learning that when in public, it was polite to describe myself as being in “long-term recovery” and not really knowing what that term meant and if it applied to someone who had just rounded two years of sobriety or not. Today, I feel like whatever “long-term recovery” is, it didn’t start for me until I went through some stuff in sobriety/recovery/increasing modalities of non-stigmatizing wellness and came out the other end without reverting back to being stuck running in place.
Today, I’m just some dude who doesn’t drink and also doesn’t do other recreational chemical substances of inebriation. I try to be honest in my intentions and allow myself to seek communion with a Power Greater Than Myself, which I recognize as the Universe itself. Occasionally I drop F-bombs and show my ass at soccer games.
(and he raises orphaned squirrels)
Twenty years ago, I was a kid living in a basement apartment in Illinois, trying to keep my head above water in grad school with a pretty serious drinking problem. Once I started Real Deal Holyfield drinking at about 21, I was quickly unable to stop once I started, so I just got stuck in the cycle of always quitting but never being done. By about 27 or so, I was probably downing between a 12-pack and a case a night, but I hadn’t really discovered bourbon yet, so I still had lots of fun ahead.
One night, I woke up about 1:30 in the morning – I think it was about 2002 or 2003 I had once again gotten hammered for the Last Time the night before but woke up in the middle of the night in a funky state of panicanxietyangerfrustrationexasperation, and for whatever reason sat down and wrote a song in the kitchen. In any event, I’d pull this thing out every so often and play around with it, then forget about it. At some point in sobriety, I started playing again. I’m still not very good, but thankfully, that’s not how I keep the lights on. I have found that music – or art more generally – can be a great therapeutic tool for forcing myself to be present. I do not think music itself is a Recovery Program, but getting emotions out on paper is a part of it.
That night, I was just so fucking done with it. My apartment looked like it needed a fire extinguisher taken to it, but it’s where I spent a good bit of time guzzling beer and navel-gazing. It was me and my one-eyed cat and a whole lot of beer, and god, it’s amazing being able to picture that place all these years later…the cycle I was stuck in and didn’t understand and refused to accept… the frustration, the repeating every day everydayeveryday for years and years, the lack of accomplishment – mostly what felt like trivial things but then, of course, failing to do the little things in life made the big things so much harder and lower in quality.
It’s funny how I had such a keen desire to give up the life I was living so badly that night, and yet would go on and progressively drink more and more for another 13 or some odd years before I actually quit – at least for today, I’ve quit. I would nearly die 3 or 4 or 5 or quite a few times; I would hang out with some pretty dangerous people in some not-smart places doing very unsmart things and just dealing with it – sometimes even feeling like I loved it. Hello, adrenaline and dopamine.
I look around the Recovery Community these days and see a lot of Recovangelists all slavering to be Recovery Jesus – I was right there with ‘em for a bit, but I think I wanted to be Recovery MacGyver more. Regardless, I really value the authentic people who dedicate so much time to helping others – I’ve done it before, I still do it in the background, and I guess we’ll see where I’m positioned by the shiftings of the Universe.
Listen – I’m not saying it WILL get better, but I can easily sit here and say it CAN get better. At least in my experience, I can also say it’s worth it.
(and he raises orphaned squirrels, writes songs, and helps others as part of the JKF team)
- JG – squirrelwrangler
