The scariest part of sobriety
Sobriety taught me that the world is much scarier when confronted without the mask that drugs and alcohol provide. To fail while I am intoxicated is easy, I simply blame the failure on alcohol and drugs implying that if I was sober I could easily be successful. But to fail while being sober was to fail entirely and completely with no one left to blame but myself. That level of failure was something I have never encountered.
I have been living in Duluth for around two and a half years. My time in this town has always been measured in the amount of whiskey I was consuming, and my status was merely a reflection of how much time I spent hanging around the bars. My happiest memories all revolved around the bar life. Taking a look at this from the outside it is easy to see how alcohol was a problem. It was easy to blame everything on the bar. However, for myself, the bar was the answer. The bar was my social circle, my support group, my friends after a long day of work, and most importantly it was the one place that I felt accepted.
A few months into sobriety I began realizing how difficult it actually was to stop my drinking. The simple act of not picking up the bottle was much easier than I thought it would be. However, the more time I spent in sobriety the more depressed and anxious I became. Feeling like a loner who was cast out to deal with the world on his own, I realized the most destructive part of drinking was that I felt like I belonged there. And to take that away from me was a form of abuse on its own.
In a sick sort of way, I am thankful that I drank as heavily and as often as I did for the last few years. It gave me the social atmosphere that I needed to survive the failure of a major relationship, and the change that was happening in my life. It created a support group of other fucked up people who just wanted to be accepted the same as me. I strongly believe that a big part of the reason I did not take my own life in the last two years was due to this support group of friends.
Humans did not evolve to live isolated from society, glued to a screen that creates a false sense of security and belonging. I believe that we can get through anything simply by banding together and creating a tribe to support and push each other forward through life. For myself, the last ten years has been spent bouncing from relationship to relationship trying to find that one connection with that one magical person. In this pursuit I have lost major aspects of my identity and relationships. Life is an adventure waiting to be discovered. There will be times of pain and suffering, but there will also be connection and love and wonder and joy.
This blog is going to continue to transform as I go on. The goal will be to simply keep writing, keep enjoying life, and to inspire others to live to be the happiest and most authentic self that they can be.
