90 Days of Sobriety

Too bad I can’t celebrate this mini milestone with a drink, lol. Aw, me and my sick sense of humor. I crack myself up all the time. I wonder if this is normal. I honestly really think I’m funny. My sense of humor, albeit dry and often sarcastic and weird, I think I’m hilarious. I guess living inside my own head leads me to see things with humor at all times (if I can help it). It’s the only way I keep myself sane, literally.

I imagined that when I hit the 90-day mark, I would be in a more celebratory mood or at least feeling a whole lot more uplifted that I am feeling now, but…nevertheless, I’m still feeling good about myself, my achievement. I guess I just settled on the month increments to track my sobriety progress. In reality, it is still a day-to-day process for me. As I have mentioned in my previous post, it doesn’t get any easier with time as one would imagine/assume. Remaining sober has actually become more difficult as life throws more challenges, trials and tribulations at me. On a brighter note, the temptations are just that…a subtle-to-moderate urge based on the memories I have of drinking and its effects, but I have just enough self-control that I allow the urge to intensify and simply pass through my mind.

I kept reiterating a few phrases from Krishnamurti and Pema Chodron through my mind, they act as a form of bizarre comfort blanket for my weary mind. Some of the key phrases I keep recycling inside my mind are: “One has to stay on that shaky, uncomfortable spot in order to surpass it”, “Truth is a pathless land”, “You have to learn to be alone in order to really love yourself”, etc…

Truth is a pathless land. This is an interesting, complex quote from Krishnamurti. My mind has yet to fully grasp the meaning of this. We’re bred to follow a path or several paths in our lives. It’s either this path or that.

So, what I have been doing is following myself versus following others. Does that even make any sense, I wonder. Let me try to rephrase that. I have been following my own mind and bypassing what I’m told or what others have been following. I want to cut myself from the mainstream and challenge myself to follow my own instincts, intuition, my own truth. There aren’t any specific paths, routes, directions, rules, etc. What’s weird for me to grasp is that, everything I have been seeking for (eg. happiness, inner peace, universal compassion) is already inherently within me…the “trick” is to really see this. How? No clue, at the moment. Ask me tomorrow.

October 30, 2010 (10:40 PM, Saturday)

It’s Halloween eve on a Saturday night and I’m home alone. A huge departure from what I was doing last Halloween. Made me realize how fast the year has gone by.

Tomorrow will mark my 90-day total sobriety. I thought/assumed that it would get easier with time but, in reality for me, it doesn’t and hasn’t. Ironically, it seems to get a bit tougher. Temptation comes and goes intermittently. There has been quite a few moments when I contemplated how it would feel to drink again…an ice cold, good quality Vodka on the rocks with a chaser on the side. I actually miss drinking and its inebriating effects. Just being honest. Alcohol was my best friend for years…my ego was absolutely dependent on her for many, many years. My ego seems to be still going through a grieving stage.

I have been feeling like crying the last few days. Haven’t yet. Maybe I should. Probably will make me feel better. I feel this pent up ball of energy just coiled up inside of me, around my stomach region. Feels like a weird knot of sort. My chest feels heavy and I have been feeling a bit…sad. Alone.

I’m literally, not just figuratively, cursing the shit out of my ego. I’m investigating as to why I continue to suffer from loneliness. What is it that I am not accepting? What are my true fears? What is in my way of my happiness? I know it’s me, it has to do with something within myself, my mind…but what is it? What the fuck is it? I’m getting frustrated. More accurately, I am extremely frustrated.

I’m definitely in a shaky, uncomfortable spot at the moment…I’m pushing through.

This sobriety thing is no joke. If anything in life is easy, to me, it means I ain’t doing something right.

Revolution of the mind.

So, my journey this year has taken me for a strenuous, bumpy ride with more swerves, turns, dips, and highs than I have anticipated…but then again, perhaps I do not want it in any other way. There are times, honestly, when my energy is low, find myself crouched in the corner of my room, aimlessly looking off to space and just physically/emotionally drained…then after a moment, I simply pick myself up and move on.

What I am learning about my internal process/transformation/self-actualization is that the notion of “revolution of the mind” for me is more subtle than anything. The inner experience of looking inward and simultaneously still searching for that “something” externally has undoubtedly been contradicting my desire of internal, genuine, enlightening happiness.

However, I have walked the talk, so to speak, meaning I have truly, indeed, put in hard work towards the process of my own revolution…revolution of the mind…wow, this is such a crazy, brazenly tough shit to work through, to reach. I don’t see it as a destination, I’m trying to engulf myself into a self-induced, symbiotic relationship between my mind, my consciousness and my ego. To completely detach myself from my ego is, to say the least, a process that will probably take a lifetime for me. Who knows. As I have referenced earlier, it is not the destination I am focused on; it is the journey and the transformative process that bears so much significance for me.

What I am truly surprised about in regards to my sobriety is that…I find myself still extremely attached to my ego, still harboring incredible insecurities about myself, still feeling lonely (actually lonelier than ever, but just not depressed), still carry addictive personality traits and habits, and feeling…empty, still…and this is because I am still searching outside of myself. I guess I was gullible to believe that sobriety would, somehow, be my miracle cure-it-all for me and quickly realized that it takes more work than just being sober to find that inner peace, calm, happiness, and the restoration of one’s spirit. I’m still a mess, honestly, who am I kidding? Not kidding to myself any longer. I happen to be just that much more acutely aware of how much honesty, work, effort, perseverance, and self-love it takes when you’re sober…instead of trying to hide under the blanket of liquor-derived haziness and mental fog, it’s actually quite painful to remain sober, 1000% coherent, present, AND trying to weed through the series of inner turmoil I continue to harbor. What a tedious process. BUT…I don’t resent the process one iota. I love the challenges being thrown at my face and loving the fact that I know I am strong enough to prevail and work through every single challenges.

Revolution of the mind. My revolution is slow…imagine a slow, churning burn…bubbling underneath my consciousness. I have been in a long slumber after all. To awaken fully, I imagine, will take some time. The real inner revolution, for me, has no beginning or an end. It’s a continuous phenomenon and I embrace all that comes along with it, including the ugliness of loneliness and solitude intertwined with the beauty of gaining mental and emotional strength, self-reliance, inner peace, and so on.

Sometimes…sometimes, once in a blue moon, I find myself on the verge of “what the fuck is this, really?” moments, but then quickly remind myself that it’s the process that matters, living through the moments, not the end-result. Once the end comes, where do you go from there? I want to live my life as if I already had died and I want to die knowing I truly lived.

Do I love myself? My life? I must…or I wouldn’t care and fret so much!