Juvenilia

Alcoholic Life - Accepting Submissions

Friday night was a drinking night - I got to sit around with a bunch of people drinking beer whilst I wrote the answers for a Trivia Fundraiser.  It was a nervous thrill to walk right into the mouth of the monster and just observe, and not try to be myself - but just be.

But I showed up.  Like I'm showing up with other things - and learning the process.  Staying sober.  Running.  Yoga.  Not comparing.  Knowing my vision is different and by being different it might look frail or weak or just plain wrong.

But this morning I missed yoga - woke up at 555AM - the class is on the mat by then.  I have been trying not to set an alarm and be in tune with my body - and it has been working for a few weeks now - but not this morning.  This morning was different - I woke up thinking it was just before 5AM - my usual time - but it was just past 1AM.  Shit.

I just lay there and let my thoughts drift and it turned into an hour or more.  Today is nine years since my step brother hung himself.  The anniversary is a hook for me to spiral downward into dark places.  I don't over compensate and celebrate his life - don't actually do anything really - it's more a veering away from that stinking mess and a timely reminder how deadly alcoholism addiction is.

But lying there in the middle of the night, my thoughts scampered off and I was 19 again - waiting for permission for my life to begin.  I had wriggled out of my university studies and was languishing on benefits - set adrift for a few years to really feel the itching anxiety of not doing something meaningful.

And then I did it.  I caught myself as I started to unpack the whole "my early life as a victim and how emerging as an alcoholic was just something I couldn't manage" story - but this time I stopped.  I turned on the light, got out of bed, went and got a glass of water, and sat down to write in my journal.

That's what I'm learning now - emotional mastery.  Being able to let go and break a flow of thoughts when it has every reason to begin.  Anniversaries are especially powerful.  It's no use me expending all this energy and sinking into despair - it won't change what happened or anything.  But it will knock me off my routine and my new habits I have worked so hard to put in place.

So just like on Friday night - I'll acknowledge and participate and show up - but I won't invest myself in it.  I've got to stay in a good place.

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