Notes on Sobriety
There was a time, before I was born, when I was peaceful, and sober, and free. No decisions to make, nowhere to go. A blank canvas, sure - the bones were there, but only experience to layer in values and beliefs and should-be’s. Here fallen from Eden I was seeking something better than had been laid out before me, yet unseen, carpe diem and then some please.
To whom much is given… I wasted lot. Piss poor drunk, making spectacles of shit they said about me - if they said it, might as well give ‘em run for their money! No hired hand, girls just having so much fun. Wild normal night on Sixth Street! Until you end up blacked out with some rando in your bed, oh well. They said I was a WHORE ain’t it! Lies lies lies. I tell myself never mind, I liked it. Well it’s a good thing I can’t remember, another drink please!
Bet you hate me now I’m sober. Bet you got some real nasty shit up your sleeve. I drink drank drunk until my only buddy left was an empty bottle. Woke up alone on Rosh Hashanah with a single commandment saying drink and die. I may be a fool but Jesus saved a sloppy wretch like me. Now I meet friends in the light of day.
You can take the drunk out of the bar, but you can’t take the alcoholic out of the drunk. This fuzzy brain is just waking up. Maybe I’ll eat an orange or a peach today. If I get diabetes after eating six packs of Oreos, do we blame Nabisco or my lack of self-restraint? Thank God for his merciful grace, none of us deserving, all freely sharing. Forgiving myself, that’s some dirty work - with mastery, easing up on others, learning to let go - we all do it, all of us, hiding in fear and shame and hate - inside-out. I keep cleaning, no more time left for disease in me, I want to be free. This is sobriety.
“Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape. These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling. And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light. And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.”
-Kahlil Gibran
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