As many in my generation, I experimented with various substances. I made several bad decisions as a younger man in the name of curiosity. I have always considered myself a strong minded person and that no physically negating experiment or substance would ever become a habit. Perhaps it was that confidence that led me to those bad decisions, who knows. Any of those "practices", if you will, ended well over a decade ago and I have never looked back on trying them again because there is no purpose.
I do however, enjoy to drink. I am naturally a loud, boisterous person with an obvious spark for life. Imbibing with friends only makes me do all of those things on a more extreme scale. I have never seen anything wrong with that as I have always done so in what I would generally classify as moderation with a few indulgences here and there that would result in some awful decisions.
The realization that I had recently was not that I had a problem but that I had a fascination with depression. As a young teenager I faced an extraordinary amount of psychological adversity and it resulted in a very pissed of high school student. I fought with my parents with whom I said and did things to that-regardless of my great relationship with them now- will always regret. I adopted an atheist world view at the age of thirteen and loved to rile up students with the idea that God did not exist which was against the grain, to say the least, in the deep South. I was just plain angry.
Either way, in a moment of anger or in a bout of depression I discovered an outlet of poetry. Something creative within me would be sparked by these severe emotions and as opposed to punching a wall or destroying something, I would pick up a pen and paper and create something. After I turned twenty-one I would use alcohol especially when I was upset because it felt natural to be inspired by alcohol and it would lead to what I thought was some of my best writing. The end game was that once I wrote something I was well on my way to recovery. I mistakenly learned that alcohol sped up this process and now I have come to understand that it only inhibits it.
The lesson learned is that nothing I have done has ever led me to what I would call a comfortable financial position nor has it led me to a long term relationship that brings happiness, at least that I have been able to sustain. Therefore, perhaps I am not doing it right. I went through the Winter of 2012 and almost all of 2013 on a crutch good Scotch and cheap beer. I was not cutting my hair, I was not shaving; I was literally just as much of a mess on the outside as I was on the inside.
Last Saturday, I sat with two of my best friends in my parents back yard drinking, smoking cigars and laughing about old war stories of our early twenties. The drive home to Michigan the next day brought a revelation to me that I have never entertained; sobriety. With sobriety came the clarity that I am a thirty-five year old divorced father who is single, has a great career yet lives just above a check-to-check budget. This is as embarrassing to admit it as it is well overdue for a change. What got me here, will not get me there.
Tonight I will go to bed sober for the seventh night in a row since then. I did not have my son this weekend so I had every opportunity to bury myself in late nights and rough mornings. Every time I would want to wander to refrigerator, I recognized it and did something else. I would read, I would write, watch TV, play a video game, go to the gym or go for a run. The sad part is, I could not tell you last time I could string together seven consecutive nights without even the two-beer-baseball-game-on-the-couch routine. Tonight, I can.
This is not me swearing off alcohol forever but avoiding it when I know it will only kick the can down the road. I have debt of emotion that I want to liquidate now so I will face it with sober regard. Put plainly, I will not drink until I am in a better place because I can get there quicker without it. I finally realize and accept that.
Ironically the most sobering experience I have had to date was one that was just that; a sobering experience.
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