I didn't realise until years after getting sober just how turbulent my drinking years had been. While I was living those years what I was experiencing seemed normal. The continual cascade of failed relationships, getting into and then back out of trouble, lost jobs and unreasonable cops. It was just what went on in my life and I had no idea there was another way. I remember thinking after I had just gotten out of yet another trick bag, "I am really good at getting out of trouble". It never occured to me that in order to get skilled at getting out of trouble, you have to be in trouble a lot. Like any other skill, it only improves with constant practice.
For a long time I loved my alcoholic lifestyle, the scheming and scamming, always looking for angles and shortcuts, gaming the system. Rules and civil behavior were for peasants and losers.
But eventually all that remained was tension, fear, and unrecognized anxiety. And I arrived in Alcoholics Anonymous a child of chaos. I had been sober awhile and I heard a speaker share that he had spent his entire drinking career with a feeling of impending doom and it really hit hard. So I went up to him and told him that was the wayI had lived, "John" he said, "Do you know what that feeling of impending doom was"? "No" I replied, "What was it"? "It was impending doom".
Today I cherish the serenity that accompanies sobriety, the absence of chaos and drama. I was sitting next to a newcomer a while ago and she was complaining that there was nothing to do, that sober seemed really boring. I smiled. "You're not experiencing boredom, it's called calm".
God Bless Us All
I remain forever grateful that I'm Done Drinkin Yours In Recovery John C
I remember complaining to my sponsor that I was bored in early sobriety. That was before I learned to take joy in the simpler things in life. Now I can have fun teaching my kids to ride a bike, or having a good conversation with a friend, or countless other ways that I would never have been able to appreciate without drink in hand. It does take a while for the joys of life to return, but they do. I am so grateful to be able to appreciate being with my children and being "present". Good, genuine laughter that comes at AA meetings is pretty fun too. It is a slow process, but well worth it. It took me a good year to get my feelings back and even then it was very gradual. There are some things that I still keep hidden away and do not think about because I know they will be painful and I am not ready for that yet. In God's time though I will deal with them. For now, I am enjoying the feelings. It is like being a kid again because that was when I started drinking and I have been pretty much numb since then. Jumping on a trampoline or riding a bike were not something that would have interested me when I was drinking or in early sobriety. I am rambling .... :)
