One of my favorite Rilo Kiley songs says”Being allone is like drinkin’ of takin’ drugs. And I quit ‘em all, but man was it rough.” When Jenny Lewis sings, “but man was it rough,” wherever I am when I hear this line, I burst out AMEN. Man, was it rough. To say the least, this also makes me laugh, how nonchalantly she sings it.
After coming out of a spiritually intense environment, I am now living in a women’s transitional living house. I have managed to get to 7 months sober January 8, 2012. And seeing as how today is my would-be-6-Year wedding anniversary, I think I am doing alright.
For this Buskowskish quarter-of-a-Centurion, this hasn’t been an easy road to recovery. People give you all this advice when you are younger, and it sounds nice and logical, but there are a few of us that scoff, and tease, and think to ourselves “Just because that life didn’t work for you, it is going to work for me. So we rebel, against everything.
I found myself barely alive and there actually was this dark tint on everything. My despair was having physical effects on my body, including my eyesight.
Somehow I was able to turn off this fight against the system, tuck my tail between my legs and abided by the TREK rules for 3 months. I was then patted on the shoulder and sent off into the real world, and I am like “wait a minute, it isn’t nice like in there?”
It’s a cruel world, but there has to be someway that others can live and not be shitheads, and the coolest thing happened. The women’s transition house overseer’s name is Nya S. Jacobs. An activist of love. It pours out off her, shines off her head in every direction, and yes, I want what she has. She got it, and she lives well. This love makes her one of the most beautiful women I have ever met. She is sincere, genuine and goofy. A teacher, before I was barely alive, and now I am learning how to live well.
It still feels strange, I often find myself more like an alien than ever. Which is cool, because I have read many others document their feelings of meitokis. (Which is the Greek word for a stranger in a foreign land.)
One minute I was dangling on a ladder, actually as it was falling over for me to land, being impaled by a 75-foot spike. That is how fast my life was going downhill. Terrible choices leading to more terrible choices, and why didn’t I listen?
I want others to get help too. If I can, you can too!
When I was drunk, I was useless. However, I managed to write myself into a blur. The entire years of my drunkenness, I was practicing the discipline of writing. Now sober, I should be writing more than ever. This weekend I was sorta falling apart, but then I went to a meeting where the Guy said, “what is it you love to do the most?” Mine is to write, and I will say I have been so busy since I got out, that I have been neglecting this vital part of my life. This blog a continued accounts of recovery from different folks, and how they got out. The people I have seen succeed are the ones that have things to do they are passionate about. What is your passion?
The art of making tea, has been such a helpful tool. Something about this meditation of drinks. Afterall, I did have a drinking problem. So I have replaced the bottle with hot tea. All kinds of teas, and they are great for your body. (More about tea here.)
This also holds true for cooking, and hell, I even started baking. Neither of which I knew anything about, but Nya is teaching me these fundamentals. I was living fundamentally workng, and this is a woman living WELL. Her life is full of relationships, people who love and care for her. I tend to push people away, I think a lot of us do.
I barely escaped. This is such a real adventure, I had to capture the details on wrinkly old scraps of paper. Anything I can get my hands on. I want to write on everything. And I have so many places to go.
I chose my 25th year to walk down recovery road. This is perhaps one of my most important chapters in my life. Yet, I have been far away from doing what it is I love to do the most, writing. I managed to write myself into a blur all the years I was drunk and high, a sad attempt at the end of my memoir that was unintelligible. What I thought was the end was actually the beginning. When I was drunk , even though I was useless, I wrote. I fell asleep several nights with a pen and paper as my bed companions, and yes this means I paid with many bursted pens ruining sheets and dresses. I wrote then much more than I do now.
Now, everything feels so strange. it is I have escaped the fires of Hell, yet I barely escaped, burned tho, scorched from the flames. Such an adventure with the darkenss, yet I have been neglectful at recording these new tales.