Sobriety

If you have read any of my other posts, you are probably wondering:  How did I get sober?  Or, at least as close to true sobriety as I now am.  I will share this, but be warned, it is not easy nor for the faint of heart.  This is a process that took years, decades actually in the making for me.  I can say it was not AA, it was not rehab, it was not trips to psychiatric facilities, hitting multiple rock bottoms, being suicidal, or by the charms of some get-rich-quick dime-store salesman peddling his or her custom program that is guaranteed to get you sober.  However, I did take away some lessons from each and every one of those experiences. In truth, sobriety will be hard for most. Really fucking hard.

First off, you must take the red pill and escape the Matrix of society.  This does not necessarily mean leaving everything you love or hold dear behind.  You simply need to mentally view the world and society as it actually is.  You need to lose what everyone is telling you it is.  Objectivity is the name of the game here, and until you can look upon the Matrix with a very unbiased viewpoint you will never gain the perspective necessary to accept positive inputs that can introduce real change.

For me, as I outlined in my post about the Matrix, this step happened for me 20 years ago.  The result was that I was able to purely view my life, my situation, with a jaundiced eye and take everything in.  I was able to compare that with my feelings; what I did and didn’t like or enjoy about my life.  In short, I was able to begin to find the cause of my drinking, though at the time I didn’t completely know it.

Here I must pause and say that I believe that most, if not all, people drink or use drugs for a reason.  What that reason is will be different for everyone, but I find that it mostly comes down to someone really not being happy in their life, in fact likely they (or you) are downright miserable.  Yes, we know that drinking and drugs hijack our dopamine system and give us an unnatural rush.  They loosen our inhibitions and allow us to enjoy things we may not normally enjoy due to fears or anxieties.  But, for most people that still does not translate to years of seriously partaking to the point of needing multiple interventions like I have.

When I extracted from the Matrix, I finally was able to realize that I was miserable in my life.  Let me be very clear here:  I loved my wife, and I loved my children.  But I really mostly hated everything else.  If I could have taken my wife and kids with me on the ensuing journey, I would gladly have done so.  Sadly, that ended up not being the case.  

I realized I could not stand my job and most of the people I worked with.  I hated owning a house that required so much money and upkeep.  I hated working out in my yard just so I could conform and look like everybody else.  I hated saving for a retirement just so I could exist and maybe travel a little, like everybody else.  What I realized I hated, was sheerly being like everybody else.  I wanted to soar as a true individual.  An anomaly.  A creative person that did things nobody else did.  In short, I wanted to become the person I was always supposed to be but never gave myself the chance to be, due to the fears of judgement and the pressures of conformity.

But realizing this and doing something real about it, are two completely different things!  For one, nobody else around me in my family were of my new mindset.  Whenever I tried to voice my concerns, I was viewed as going “through a phase” that I would soon outgrow.  And I didn’t want to really rock the comfortable boat that my immediate family existed in.  A comfort that I had always provided.  I had made vows to my wife to comfort and provide.  I brought children into the world of my own volition, and they certainly didn’t deserve a complete uprooting.  And besides, weren't they enough?  I mean, for most people, raising children in their image to adulthood is enough to get past any misgivings they may feel about their life.

So I doubled down on my work and building a life that tried hard to be better than everyone else.  I soared at my job, and increased my cello playing on a professional level so that I could make even more money and get more acclaim.  The accolades stoked my growing ego and made me tolerate my growing sense of unease, misery, and discontent.  As a result I drank excessively and increasingly.  In my free time I went out fishing, golfing, camping, hunting, or playing in garage bands and string quartets.  In short, I did everything I could to escape my haunted daily reality.  But soon, even those escapes stopped being enough to keep me going.

Eventually I sought out help by committing myself into rehabs and mental institutions.  I tried different drugs to help, but nothing did.  Meanwhile, I was showing more signs of a disturbing nature.  Arguing with my wife in front of the kids, and eventually throwing drunken fits where I would scream nonsense, punch walls, and throw things.  I never directly hurt anyone except myself, and I would cry all the time and threaten to hurt or even kill myself.  In the mornings before going to work I would stand at the front door with my head held down, telling myself or anyone who would listen that I could not go on.  It was killing me, and in reality, it truly was.

Looking back, when my wife finally did leave me, I realize that was the blessing I needed so that I could get better.  But there were multiple problems.  For one, I was then completely and thoroughly addicted to alcohol, and increasingly, to drugs as well.

After the divorce, for literally the next 7-8 years I floundered.  What I realize now, is that I was trying to find my new purpose.  I believe I have that now in the new way that I approach playing my cello, and in developing this website.  My purpose is to share some experiences with the world in the hope that I can help or brighten someone’s day.  The more that I write and play my cello, the more I am finding drinking or using drugs to be falling into my review mirror.

So, for me, I simply had to lose everything and find my new purpose which certainly was not programming for some bullshit corporation to enrich shareholders, it was not being a good self-sacrificing father (unfortunately as selfish as that is) and it was not just marching through a meaningless life with no guarantees of a wonderful afterlife in heaven.

Now, if you are someone reading this that has a serious or even manageable addiction, what is your reason for drinking or using?  It is my opinion that unless you find that source, the root, and rip it out, you will never be clear of your addiction.  Sure, you can go through the motions of being sober, maybe even find some comfort or happiness in the absence of it, but you will forever be fighting in recovery.  

I am certainly not recommending everyone, or anyone really, go down my path.  For one, it almost killed me multiple times.  And losing everyone and everything is hard.  The street is hard.  But for me, when I tried literally everything society has to offer in the way of treatment, it was the only choice.  Will it work for you?  Well, if you do decide to try it, let me know and I will do what I can to help avoid the depths that I probed!  As always, peace and strength to you in your journey, whatever you choose.