Soapbox

I've blazed through my life so fast— God, I hadn't a moment to take a sober breath, even recognize who I was really, what I was… and what I was becoming, inebriated.

Everybody I knew, we're just like me, at least I thought so, fuck' alcoholic nut cases. When your in a world of shit—sometimes all you can see is a world of shit, sometimes all you know is a world of shit, and that your part of its stench.

I was privileged to experience the ugliest of the ugliest in life early on, and I made up my mind about life then. Perhaps this is my station…being beneath the station.  I have positive genius for mixing with the most fucked up weirdos… in the most sorted places, a man could lower himself too, under the influence of John Barley Corn.

For this drunk—the idea of  'sobriety ten minutes before it happened' was unthinkable. I couldn't imagine life without booze. Who the fuck would want to walk through this rotten ass world sober?  Who really does I thought? Its impossible, can't be done in this world, who the fuck would want to anyway? The word 'sobriety' sounded more like the word 'misery,' and I'd had enough of that already. Done.

It's not a 'normal' inclination for an alcoholic/addict to be sober. If booze 'worked you' well, as it 'worked me,' ya know what I'm talk'n 'bout. Best lover and friend, most reliable, always there when I need it. It was the perfect social lubricant…slippery, culturally accepted, the American way—

—life seemed to center 'round its magic, its powerful effects and I wanted to play too.

Everything I did, I thought… I did better drunk, or under the influence of something, and there may be some medical truth to that, booze is dope, it's a narcotic and great mood stabilizer for some, and for others, a great mood destabilizer. For me, it could go either way.

It never really occurred to me why I was always so tight, that I felt the need to self-medicate my body and mind into oblivion just to settle down… to thaw, to melt into the rest of the muddy water around me.

Ghost… run' from fear, unjustifiable fears, they just wash up and I start to slip'n in-out of my skin, start burning bridges that took years to build… gone, overnight—Poof!

What the fuck is wrong with me… I kept asking, ten-years into my recovery.

Life felt like walking through an inferno… so much resistance to everything, heavy , so on fire with a fever to fit in this world.

Sometimes, we must die—to live, get sick—to be well, Surrender—to win.

We get on with living or we get on with dying, it comes down to that simple decision…live or die.

Life terrifies me. Fear is a great motivator.  Living life on life's terms terrifies me. It takes me out of the equation of  'control.'  To let go…of what I know… is to fall so far down into nothing at all... the unknown,  I'll become nothing in the process.  I'll be vulnerable, naked and alone.

Who will be there to help me up, if I can get up, who can I trust, who is trustworthy?

You are, I am.

Grace is getting what you don't have coming, mercy is not getting what you do have coming.  I've experienced both, you will too, promise.

Life picks us up, light as lightning… blinding us along the way, carrying us where it will, where we need to be, without our permission—and if were lucky enough to survive it, then drops us abruptly on our head.

Here we decide; we choose, we dream, imagine something better for ourselves… our world. Its in us, we just need to reach for it… it will always meet us half way. 

This is the 'rebirth' we so often hear about in recovery, when we're utterly hopeless and helpless and Life spits us out a narrow passage with its afterbirth. We're a mess—

—Enter Grace.

We need help at this point to sustain, to grow into what were really made of, the good stuff. Its still there. We just need help growing... all of us need that help. 


We grow old so fast, and grow up so slow.

The bad news, this is recovery—the good news, this is recovery.
pek65