Day 21 Sober

after a certain age every man is responsible for his face Camus.

OVER THE YEARS my face has withered and eroded from drinking to the point that it looks as though I am alcoholic.  Which I am - so it is completely fair but painfully cruel when I want to present as a sober, productive person and be taken seriously and listened to - like in business or in medical settings.  Stopping drinking doesn't erase the years of wear and tar that my face has endured.

Looking around my alcoholic cohort I notice our faces are all similarly corroded by alcohol - that we don't have the sharp edges and chiselled definition that say smokers alone have.  We share a soft pudgy texture of inflammation under our cheeks and around our necks where the years of bloatedness and just too much liquid leave us looking a little deflated.  Like the balloon has just squealed out some air and been retied too slowly - like it would take stomping on and still not pop.

The women are still beautiful - or still have that wet glint in their eyes despite their cheeks looking like a rumpled, unmade bed.  I can still see their youthful promise despite the fade into age and I quietly cringe at how loud and embarrassing they would have been on the drink.  Like I was.

Like the Sphinx, we have been eroded and changed by our drinking and our patiently our faces bravely front up to the mirror each morning in a plaintive plea for us to promise not to drink another day. 

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning

When I was at my most recent rock bottom I promised myself that I had to at least give myself a shot, this one last time.  That it wasn't really much fucking good to be an almost or a could've or a most likely - it was really up to me and if it was to happen - it was up to me alone.

So this morning, when I looked in the mirror and saw the cheeky, arrogant me winking back with a sly smile and quiet nod to all the shit I had gotten away with over the years, I though next of what getting away with it had cost, in terms other people would recognize. 

And getting away with it has huge costs and I have paid dearly to "get away with it"  like trying to fool myself that I don't look alcoholic - when the mirror doesn't lie.  Like bumbling around as though I'm sober - just high on life - when I've been drinking all morning.

I don't want to be a genius -- I have enough problems just trying to be a man.

So like the Sphinx, I am going to be a little more humble and quiet and a little less outspoken and outraged - and whenever I feel indignant and ready to fire, instead focus on me and my own self improvement journey.  (A great concept is to wake up every morning, and as your two feet hit the floor, say thank with one foot and you with the other - a walking gratefulness to start the day and see how long this can take you around for the morning.)

Stay Sober and keep trying...