I have not taken a drink of alcohol in 2 years, 2 weeks and 2 days, as of today.
I have not smoked a cigarette in over a year and a half.
I don’t smoke pot or take pills or even use Nyquil.
I get nervous when my allergies act up because it means I might have to take something stronger than Tylenol and that means I might slur a word. My eyes might droop – my head might nod. I might miss something. And most certainly the scariest thought: I might like it.
I don’t know why a disease that tortures everyone around me never swallowed me whole. I don’t know why I don’t take chances with my sobriety. I don’t know why the same monster that chews on the souls of people I love never bit me as deep as it did them. I don’t know why I refrain from destroying myself. I don’t know why I have the ability to keep my shit together now. I don’t know why it’s no longer hard.
What is hard, though, is staying grateful and thankful that I don’t ache for that escape that I used to build my world around. It’s hard to love the light when people you love live in the dark. It’s hard to hang on to being free when those around you stay caged – hard to celebrate when they suffer.
I don’t know why I don’t know how to share being better, why I can’t give it away. I don’t know why I can’t love or fight or hate or beat the beast that is this disease out of everything, everywhere, but I can’t.
I don’t know why sometimes I desperately wish I could just want to drink it or drug it away, but I can’t. I don’t even want to anymore.
Sometimes being better just pisses me off.
Thank you for sharing. Isn’t healing just the biggest bitch?
dahlila
dahlilia´s last blog ..Garden
Better=Stronger=MoreStubborn=MoreDetermined=More Fortunate. Genes vs. Environment? Who knows? It’s hard to be grateful when things are going well, and perhaps even harder when they’re not. Taking the path less traveled is not easy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. 10-13-1990
you do share being better. you just did give it away.
my struggles with addiction have been small, more of a personal test, they wilted on all their own because i left them untended for long stretches of time.
but i see people i love struggling and i wish i could hand them a clear glass bottle of freedom. but my glass bottle is all cloudy to them and i don’t have the right ingredients for theirs.
krista´s last blog ..lactic acid
I really connect with this post. Thank you. (also – nice to connect in the blogosphere!).
Brené´s last blog ..tgif + united4iran
I love this post. You give to others with your words. Powerful to me.
Better is good. But better is even better when those around you are better too. Because watching them suffer through something you beat? Just plain old hurts. And you want to fix it FOR them… even though you know you can’t, because THEY have to want to.
The fact that you don’t want to (even though you sometimes wish you wanted to) says a lot about how far you’ve come in just over 2 years.
I beat my heavy drug addiction… wow… it was 16 years ago in June. I’m a social drinker, that was never my problem. But now, with my chronic pain, I’m on pain meds to manage that – and I hate the dependency that comes with that. It makes me feel like I’ve lost all over again. No, I’m not abusing them – but just the fact that I take them at all makes me feel like I’ve failed somehow.
Kay´s last blog ..I Ain’t As Good As I Once Was… Six Word Saturday
Kay said it better than I could. I’m struggling right now with the impulse to try to fix things for someone…and it just can’t be done. I often feel like you do.
Glad I found your blog.
Kat´s last blog ..Innocent Questions
Thank you Lesley. I keep coming back and reading this over and over. I needed it.