Year One

Today marks one year since I took my last drink of alcohol. It has been an unlikely journey I did not expect. It was at many ways extremely difficult and in others it was extremely fluid, almost like this is what I was meant to go through. I’m filled with so many thoughts and emotions and I have no plan for how this post is going to go I’m just writing a straight stream of consciousness so bear with me.

I feel extremely lucky to call myself an alcoholic. I don’t know that I would have embarked on this journey of self-discovery if I hadn’t been in such a desperate and destitute place a year ago. It was from the depths of desperation that a small faint glow of light welled up inside of me and sought a different path.

What It Was Like

At the end my world was small. I rarely left the house except to get booze and when I was too drunk to drive, I had it delivered. I was sane enough to see what I was doing but was diseased enough to do nothing about it. I saw my job at major risk, my girlfriend was going to leave me at any moment, and the everyday stresses of life (bills, mortgage, car, etc) we’re Everest-like responsibilities that felt impossible to maintain. Yet, I continued to drink. It was the only thing that made all the depression and anxiety disappear and at the same time, it was compounding all of it. This is the insanity that is alcoholism. I knew what was happening and did nothing to stop it. In fact, I didn’t think I could. I had to push my body to the brink of failure before I saw no other options but to raise the white flag and surrender. Ironically, surrendering is what set me free.

What Happened?

The word got out. My dad was involved now, my girlfriend was slipping away, and phone calls were made to friends and loved ones. I couldn’t hide this any longer and it was at that moment, when literally drinking myself to death, that angels came into my life. When I had no other option I called a friend I knew was already in the program. He suggested I go to a meeting and I did. The first one didn’t stick. If you can believe it, I was so proud that I attended the meeting, I got drunk that night. And the next. And the next after that. Call it a farewell bender if you will but that was the hard proof that this wasn’t something I had control over and I needed help.

What’s It Like Now?

All of those things I cited as the cause for my alcohol are now the things I am most grateful for. I blamed the stresses of daily life on all of my personal defects and cognitive stresses. Anxiety and depression were a direct result of the mounting pressures of life that were on top of me. Work, mortgage, car, bills, girlfriend. A year ago I would have told you that it was just all too much and my only coping mechanism was to escape away to drunk slumber, only to wake up and do it all again.

I don’t see things that way anymore. All of those stresses I now see as gifts. A change from “I have to” to “I get to” is a powerful perspective shift. It’s a testament to the strength of the AA program but more-so the people that are in it. Being able to hear day after day the stories of others and the tools used to climb out from the dark hole they were in is truly inspiring.

I remember about 3 months in I had an epiphany about the program. This wasn’t a program to stop drinking, it was a program to retrain my thinking (apparently I was the only one that didn’t know this). Alcohol wasn’t my problem, it was the solution to all of my problems. Or so I thought. There’s magic that happens when you are brought to your knees and surrender unconditionally. It means you have nothing else to lose. It means you are now willing to shut up, sit down, and listen to others. That’s exactly what I did.

I asked no questions and just did what I was told. That brief term in sobriety cleared the fog from my brain and allowed me to put some very basic positives into the bank. Things like tending to my girlfriend and being present…CONSISTENTLY PRESENT, synapsis firing at work allowed me to get ahead and reduce a lot of stress, managing the simplest of tasks like bill pay and budgets seemed to just fall into place. Those were the kindling I needed to take me through the next 9 months to now.

The Steps

Rather than go through a lengthy review of each step I will tell you what I got from them as a whole:

• I got real fucking honest with myself for the first time in my life.
• I started researching the idea of god and what that meant, for the first time in my life.
• I righted wrongs that had been hanging on my shoulders for decades. Not all were accepted but getting knocked down a peg or two was also what I needed.
• I interacted consistently with a group of people who are all doing real truthful work on themselves. People that are genuinely invested in each other’s success. This was not something I was used to.
• Meditating. I’d never done it and now it’s something I can’t live without.
• I learned how to be comfortable being uncomfortable. No one enters AA on a high note. You are at your lowest and if you want to benefit the most out of the steps you do them with everything you have. Like its life or death. That desire puts you in real uncomfortable positions and makes you walk face first into your fears. That alone builds confidence and bleeds into other areas of life.
• I spoke honestly and authentically in front of many different groups of people. Another huge confident booster and a necessary tool for life.
• I got real humble. It’s hard not to, but knowing deep inside that my way wasn’t working allowed me to put my ego’s guard down and commit to humbly walking this path.
• My perspective turned from the victim of circumstance and the poor guy that can’t catch a break to seeing anything (good, bad or ugly) as a lesson. If/when you do that, life starts to be fun. You start to play with life, you learn, you evolve, you don’t repeat mistakes. It’s an enjoyable experience when you detach yourself from how you expect things to go.
• I learned to genuinely look out for others. The more I give away, the more comes right back to me. I learned how to detach from requiring payment for services rendered. Give with no expectation for return and watch how much you rich you become.

Probably the most impactful was that I started to learn how to love myself. Treat myself like someone I love. I make mistakes all of the time and being kind to myself has been the most positive medicine I could ever have taken. Each stumble is an opportunity for growth. Each recognition of that reinforces those pathways in your brain and implants better habits around self talk.

The Elephant in the Room

I get a bit of pushback for coupling addiction and psychedelic related content on the same site. I started this blog not caring if I get a single visitor. It was a hobby for me to explore topics that interest me and that I’m passionate about. I am not an expert in any of this and will never claim to be. I had three psychedelic experiences in highly controlled environments during the early months of sobriety. Those experiences taught me more about myself than the years of therapy that preceded them. The integration of those experiences helped me deal with some dark characteristics of my ego that would have been otherwise difficult to look at. Psychedelics were a catalyst, they did not do anything for my sobriety. It was what I did with those lessons before, during, and after that is the true magic. I DO believe that recovery is absolutely possible without the use of plant medicines, I DO believe that this psychedelic route can be an extremely slippery slope for anyone recovering from addiction, I don’t believe this path is for anyone and the utmost care and respect should be taken before entering the psychedelic space.

I want to be as authentic as I can in my writing and so while you may disagree or immediately judge the contradiction of some of my posts, it’s ok. I hope that I can educate both on the positive and negative impacts of using plant medicines like psychedelics for spiritual growth and recovery. I may fail at that but it’s helping me and that’s the whole point, right?

I have not done psychedelics in quite some time and I don’t feel called to them at the moment. I believe they played a quintessential role in investigation of my higher power and the temporary death of my ego but I don’t long for them or consciously talk myself out of using them. I believe everyone has the right to choose and for me, I will not shut the door on future growth through plant medicines but it is for the right time, under the right supervision, and with the correct intentions. No exceptions.

I’m forever grateful for this last year. My world is exponentially more open than ever before. This last year has taught me more about myself than the previous 40 and I just hope that I am able to impact others positively in some small way through the lessons and experiences I have had.