MESSAGE WITHOUT A BOTTLE
Monday, December 7, 2020
One life-saving action.
Followed by 34 years of rather average troubles.
Waterfall of insoluble issues, self-loathing, denial, alcoholic-fog, disconnected from reality, self-pity, and shame – getting to sober.
Essential, admission of being an alcoholic was but one component; escape the bottle’s grip, or you’ll be dead soon.
Starkly apparent alternatives: quit, booze-greased death spiral, or cowardly exit at my own hand.
Grateful for reasons I struggle to comprehend – coagulation – will to live, and a single action. I left that glass-half-full. I count setting down that last drink as the seminal moment in life, my life-saver armistice with alcohol, December 7th, 1986. As importantly, I didn’t pour another.
34 yrs. sober today.
Dec. 6th, the day before, my endgame – end of my emotional rope, year upon year of hideous tumult and self-inflicted failures. A values inferno of stumbles, despair, pain, torment, and regret. Borrowing someone else’s brilliant apropos words, I was deteriorating faster than I could lower my standards.
Friends often kindly congratulate my sobriety years.
Thank you.
What they cannot know or understand, while living still delivers bummer moments in many segments of my life, I’ve stayed incident-free in staying sober.
I can’t change anything I’ve done or reverse history for those I hurt, but I celebrate sober life, resolved to make up for what I’ve done – not sorry for living my truth but examining my life from the outside looking in. Not a pretty sight.
Putting my message out – someone who needs help dealing with life-death-alcohol struggles might hear, might reach out. There is a way out.
Imperative for saving any life is recognizing it’s a life worth saving, especially your own.
… anudder ‘ting; I was watching an Al Sharpton speech on Youtube about his experiences with a knife attack on him and his later relationship with his imprisoned attacker – his words resonated with me, and I’d like to share them. His context was different, but the message feels universal:
Things that bring you to the point of death will help you discover the point of life . – Rev. Al Sharpton
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