17 Years
This weekend puts me at 17 years sober. That last day of using at times feels like it was happening yesterday and at other times feels like it happened to someone else. All back and forth within a few seconds. ALL THE TIME.
I get people reaching out to me all the time about getting sober. About a dozen or so a year. I always tell them the same thing. AA. If we live near each other, I offer to go with them or go get coffee and I'll tell them about it, or any number of options but it always involves AA. After that they stop reaching out. It always intrigues me how someone's life may be out of control enough to reach out for help but if it involves sitting in a room for one hour then, 'no thanks.' Sometimes it kind of pisses me off but ultimately I just think, "Good for them. Maybe they're not that bad off after all."
But....usually through the conversations about going to a meeting, the same old "red flags" come up. They're always under the impression that you have to become religious or give over to some sort of cult or become some mindless zombie hiding in the shadow of "Bill W." That's when it pisses me off.
Is that how people see me? As some mindless, spineless little bitch running to a meeting every time I have a bad day? I doubt that. I mean, some of these meetings can be pretty heavy and emotional but they're for the most part filled with a lot of bad ass motherfuckers. The men AND women. These are people who've been through the darkest times that they could possibly bear and from shear lack of better ideas, found themselves sober and sitting in a room with a bunch of strangers and spilling it out. Anyone who sees these people as mindless cult followers is an idiot. These people are warriors.
I don't go to meetings as regularly as I have at other times. Sometimes a few times a month, sometimes I skip a few years. But I can walk into any AA meeting on the planet and I immediately feel at home. I have my own "religion & faith" that has nothing to do with AA but when I'm in a meeting, wether it in a church basement, the back room of a book store or some coffee shop, at that moment it's the closest thing I can call a church. And in the purest form of that word "church." Alright, maybe it's a cult of some sort. So what....
Out of these 17 years, a lot of them have been pretty stable. The first seven were an adventure. Basically just getting my life back together. Leaving an old life, discovering a new life. Then several years of coasting. The last two years...well, that's another story.
There were some life events a few years ago that had me a little shaken and confused. One thing led to another and soon I found myself divorced and starting completely over. I wasn't just divorced from my wife but divorced from everything i've known for the last 10+ years. I lost my job of 10 years, went through two more jobs before landing in my fourth job in less than a year. I became not only completely broke but incredibly in debt. I had to sell several of my bikes for next to nothing. Partly because I couldn't afford the storage space I kept them in and partly because I had to eat and pay bills. For the same reasons, I ended up selling guitars I've had for well over 20 years. After that, I just started giving shit away. I was living in a very small studio apartment where this stuff was just piled up and I had to come to terms with what I really needed to look at anymore. So many mementos of a past life, clothes I no longer wear, furniture I didn't have room for....
I think one of my hardest things to "discard" was a big plastic bin of notebooks I had built up over almost 30 years. I think the oldest dated one was from '87. I had been considering this for a couple years but I think I had finally gotten there and on my birthday a few weeks ago, I drove to the beach, threw them all in a big fire pit and set them on fire. And set them free. It was a big moment. A heavy, emotional moment but I had no choice. I have to look forward. If I look back I'll fall apart. It's hard not to live in regret. I'm an alcoholic. An addict. A junkie....AA gives me the tools to deal with this shit. Don't get it wrong, I get tools and help from lots of sources but AA is the only one I can really count on. I learned a long time ago not to count on friends and family for this kind of help. Those are the people that usually either tell you what you want to hear or just dump on you their own "programs." Of course this isn't 100% but what is. Even after all these years I still have people saying it's sad or whatever that I can't have a beer every now and then or that I don't go to parties. Maybe, but I don't think I'm missing anything from those after work happy hours or holiday parties and such. I get to run around mountains! No, seriously. I get to RUN AROUND MOUNTAINS. VOLCANOES. I'm doing okay.
Seriously though, most of the time people come up to me about getting sober and I tell them not to. Stay out there. Get it out of your system. When It's time, you'll know it and it'll be the most natural thing ever. Everyone has a different "bottom" and some of us need to keep on digging once we get there. I'm still hitting "bottoms." My actions and re-actions are a lot different than they would be otherwise. Like. I don't ALWAYS act exactly how I'm thinking. And I can leave my house with $40 in my pocket and make it home with that same $40. Just those two things alone have improved my life 100%.
https://fbcdn-video-a-a.akamaihd.net/hvideo-ak-xpa1/v/t43.1792-2/10873135_954251057937763_1089764719_n.mp4?rl=2571&vabr=1714&oh=4a64c40146b0b0aaadcd1ece87322c6e&oe=54A5B871&__gda__=1420145482_cc71a4312b9166f8df32a59a8866a436
I get people reaching out to me all the time about getting sober. About a dozen or so a year. I always tell them the same thing. AA. If we live near each other, I offer to go with them or go get coffee and I'll tell them about it, or any number of options but it always involves AA. After that they stop reaching out. It always intrigues me how someone's life may be out of control enough to reach out for help but if it involves sitting in a room for one hour then, 'no thanks.' Sometimes it kind of pisses me off but ultimately I just think, "Good for them. Maybe they're not that bad off after all."
But....usually through the conversations about going to a meeting, the same old "red flags" come up. They're always under the impression that you have to become religious or give over to some sort of cult or become some mindless zombie hiding in the shadow of "Bill W." That's when it pisses me off.
Is that how people see me? As some mindless, spineless little bitch running to a meeting every time I have a bad day? I doubt that. I mean, some of these meetings can be pretty heavy and emotional but they're for the most part filled with a lot of bad ass motherfuckers. The men AND women. These are people who've been through the darkest times that they could possibly bear and from shear lack of better ideas, found themselves sober and sitting in a room with a bunch of strangers and spilling it out. Anyone who sees these people as mindless cult followers is an idiot. These people are warriors.
I don't go to meetings as regularly as I have at other times. Sometimes a few times a month, sometimes I skip a few years. But I can walk into any AA meeting on the planet and I immediately feel at home. I have my own "religion & faith" that has nothing to do with AA but when I'm in a meeting, wether it in a church basement, the back room of a book store or some coffee shop, at that moment it's the closest thing I can call a church. And in the purest form of that word "church." Alright, maybe it's a cult of some sort. So what....
Out of these 17 years, a lot of them have been pretty stable. The first seven were an adventure. Basically just getting my life back together. Leaving an old life, discovering a new life. Then several years of coasting. The last two years...well, that's another story.
There were some life events a few years ago that had me a little shaken and confused. One thing led to another and soon I found myself divorced and starting completely over. I wasn't just divorced from my wife but divorced from everything i've known for the last 10+ years. I lost my job of 10 years, went through two more jobs before landing in my fourth job in less than a year. I became not only completely broke but incredibly in debt. I had to sell several of my bikes for next to nothing. Partly because I couldn't afford the storage space I kept them in and partly because I had to eat and pay bills. For the same reasons, I ended up selling guitars I've had for well over 20 years. After that, I just started giving shit away. I was living in a very small studio apartment where this stuff was just piled up and I had to come to terms with what I really needed to look at anymore. So many mementos of a past life, clothes I no longer wear, furniture I didn't have room for....
I think one of my hardest things to "discard" was a big plastic bin of notebooks I had built up over almost 30 years. I think the oldest dated one was from '87. I had been considering this for a couple years but I think I had finally gotten there and on my birthday a few weeks ago, I drove to the beach, threw them all in a big fire pit and set them on fire. And set them free. It was a big moment. A heavy, emotional moment but I had no choice. I have to look forward. If I look back I'll fall apart. It's hard not to live in regret. I'm an alcoholic. An addict. A junkie....AA gives me the tools to deal with this shit. Don't get it wrong, I get tools and help from lots of sources but AA is the only one I can really count on. I learned a long time ago not to count on friends and family for this kind of help. Those are the people that usually either tell you what you want to hear or just dump on you their own "programs." Of course this isn't 100% but what is. Even after all these years I still have people saying it's sad or whatever that I can't have a beer every now and then or that I don't go to parties. Maybe, but I don't think I'm missing anything from those after work happy hours or holiday parties and such. I get to run around mountains! No, seriously. I get to RUN AROUND MOUNTAINS. VOLCANOES. I'm doing okay.
Seriously though, most of the time people come up to me about getting sober and I tell them not to. Stay out there. Get it out of your system. When It's time, you'll know it and it'll be the most natural thing ever. Everyone has a different "bottom" and some of us need to keep on digging once we get there. I'm still hitting "bottoms." My actions and re-actions are a lot different than they would be otherwise. Like. I don't ALWAYS act exactly how I'm thinking. And I can leave my house with $40 in my pocket and make it home with that same $40. Just those two things alone have improved my life 100%.
https://fbcdn-video-a-a.akamaihd.net/hvideo-ak-xpa1/v/t43.1792-2/10873135_954251057937763_1089764719_n.mp4?rl=2571&vabr=1714&oh=4a64c40146b0b0aaadcd1ece87322c6e&oe=54A5B871&__gda__=1420145482_cc71a4312b9166f8df32a59a8866a436
