Tag: alcoholism

Addiction · Autobiography · Mental Health

Capture

Ruby Pipes23 Comments
“23” © Mary Jo Boughton, 2015. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

It was my mom who told me I’d been sober for twenty-one months this Tuesday. Because I don’t celebrate small victories. Anything less than a year doesn’t mean anything. They tell us “one day at a time”, but I have trouble giving praise between the markers. Only get credit for the grand achievements, for the fireworks, for the things that take breath away.

Exhausted. The lack of worthy accomplishment leaves me feeling like a constant disappointment. And failing every day just makes you want to quit. That’s why people like me relapse. That’s why we don’t reach our goals. That’s why we stop trying.

In therapy I told Leif, “I come up to the edge of my natural abilities and I just… I quit. I get terrified of failure and I just walk away. I don’t know how to push.”

He looked at me like he didn’t believe an ounce of it. An explanation drenched in feelings of inadequacy. My words refusing to give me any credit. He said, “You know how. You’ve never had to push this hard before, but you know how to.”

I just shook my head.

In the morning I went running. I left my GPS watch. I left my heart rate monitor. I brought my headphones. Bright red shoes pounded pavement in the dark. Bob Dylan wailed in my ears, “It’s-a hard, it’s-a hard, it’s-a hard rain’s a-gonna fall…”

I ran and I tried to forget that I should be running faster. That I should be able to run further. That this hill shouldn’t be so challenging. And at some point in the second mile I did.

For just a few moments toward the end of my run my brain got quiet. The only time during the day when I didn’t think about how disappointed I am in myself. Didn’t think that I’m completely incapable of any of this.

I’m not even sure how I think I can do this wrong. All this. I just get the idea in my head that there is a way I am supposed to be living. Because I think I’m broken. Because I think I am somehow uniquely fucked up.

Or maybe I want to be. Maybe I need to be because I recognize that person. I know the version of myself that needs fixing. And that’s what this is all about really, isn’t it? The great realization that if I do the things I say I want to do I will become a person I don’t recognize. That if I get healthy and safe I will have no idea who I am.

Not knowing who you are is way more terrifying than being a junkie, a drunk, a basket case, a slut. Not knowing what labels to put on yourself feels aimless, like floating, a sheet blowing in the wind. You start to wonder if maybe you don’t mean anything at all.

Addiction · Mental Health · Personal Development

Hover

Ruby Pipes19 Comments

“Hummingbird” © AnnCam, 2010. CC BY 2.0.
“You’re running to stand still,” he said as he mimed the motion. “The way you describe it is like the way a junkie describes shooting up just to stay level, you know. You know. Just to keep from getting sick. It sounds exhausting.”

I glanced out the window, then back to him, and pulled one foot underneath me. “I guess I hadn’t thought about it like that. I mean, I guess I just figured I kind of have to do this stuff because…” I trailed off in a light giggle. “This sounds so fucking ridiculous.”

“It sounds dangerous, is what it sounds like. It sounds unachievable. It’s just another way your perfectionism is coming into play.”

He doesn’t usually get preachy. Usually he lets me get there on my own, so I can tell it’s important when he doesn’t. My religious avoidance of things that might be addictive or may cause unhealthy habitual behavior has become just that.

Taking care of myself is getting closer and closer to becoming just another avoidance tactic. Just another thing I do to not deal with what is happening. Focusing on my health slips from being a good idea to a dangerous obsession with just a few additions.

There’s got to be balance somewhere. An understanding of the things I need to do to take care of myself and the way I need to do them. Room for the just sitting, space for doing things just because I like them. There’s has to be a way to have a cup of coffee without thinking, “This is addictive. Caffeine is addictive. Everything is going straight to shit. I’m going to start drinking again.”

Flexibility has never been my strong suit. But I like to think I can learn to stretch. Learn to believe I have the capacity to live somewhere between the perfection that doesn’t exist and passed out drunk in a ditch.

Addiction · Mental Health · Personal Development

Living in the gradient

Ruby Pipes11 Comments
“Looking back” © Brandon, 2014. CC BY 2.0.

Rivers cut new channels into valleys. Minerals in drops of water pile on the ground to create stalagmites taller than I am. The sun pulls itself slowly over the horizon line and a new day creeps into existence. Then back out again.

We know everything takes process. One small thing connected to another, pushing us gradually in the corresponding direction. But I still find myself struggling to give credit to each little piece.

There’s point A and there’s point B. The line between? AB. Defined by its end points. Always. And if I can’t make it–guaranteed–from one point the other, I have a tendency to abandon mission.

What a toxic way of thinking.

There is no “finish” anyway, right? Not in earnest. Most important things will never be “complete”. Nothing is only accessible by following one specific path.

Come on, kid. You know this.

Nothing is certain. Nothing guaranteed. You could do everything right and still fail. You could do everything wrong and still accomplish everything you set out to do. The only thing I have any control over is the little things.

And I’ve been ignoring them. Acting as if they don’t count.

As if every day of sobriety will be worthless if I ever slip up. Every word ever written wasted if I never publish a book. Every weight I lift won’t count for shit if I never deadlift over 300 pounds. Every day I feel good about will never have existed if I fall asleep sobbing on the bathroom floor again. Every moment of peace, of beauty, of love is meaningless the next time I find myself feeling like I just can’t fucking do this.

A painfully effective way of creating an environment you cannot grow in. You feel trapped in. Where nothing matters for as much as you want it to. Where nothing matters at all.

It gets stuck in your throat. Coils itself around your head, whispering soft in your ear. Non-stop explanations of why you can’t do this, why it doesn’t matter, how pointless the fight has become. It forces you into the extremes.

But I want to live in the gradient. Those small and gentle spaces in between. Where everything counts for credit. Where as long as you’re still conscious in your movements you’re doing everything you should be doing.

Where as long as you’ve picked a direction and you’re taking steps you are successful. Where distance traveled is measured in something other than, “Are you there? Yes or no?”

Because we never will be. But we are still moving.