So here it goes. I'm closer now to forty than to thirty, with so much time lost to the behemoth I now must conquer. There is a self-imposed pressure to find a point of origin. To build a time-line. To lay before myself a chronology of destructive behavior, nightmares, missed opportunities, lost friendships and lovers, broken promises, dissolved dreams, lapses of memory, physical injury, feelings of unfulfillment, desolation, hopelessness, and most of all the stifling of the beautiful soul which I know resides within me.
Regardless of when, where, why and how this may have begun, I know for certain that all the while I repeatedly turned to the one thing I felt would make it go away, even though that one thing perpetuated, and likely caused, the aforementioned horrors. In the past fifteen years there has always been a nagging, yet largely ignored, sense that if I did not settle the issue myself it would take a devastating cataclysm to set me right...if I was fortunate enough to come out the other side.
Well, that cataclysm came in late January of this year, and even though I sit here now with all my faculties intact, it is with great humility I realize how easily it could have turned the other way for me that night...or the thousands of other days and nights before. I was spared and mostly unscathed from a potentially fatal accident, not to mention a way of life. While this event has brought everything to a screeching halt, it has become incredibly apparent that I, for all intents and purposes undeservedly, have been given an incredible position to finally realize the delicate nature of the world and those that share with me this experience called simply "life".
Yesterday I began an out-patient treatment program for alcohol addiction, and it is now just hours before my first visit to AA (at a church I attended for the first time last Sunday.) There is now, I should say "at last", a burgeoning and open relationship with my family, who I love very much. It was this morning that my sister gave me the idea of putting up this blog, and for that I am incredibly thankful. I am blessed to have the support network I do, even though I was too blind in the past to know it was there all along.
Recovery will be a long and emotional road (as I have already shed tears to write these words, and my face is still warm with the feeling) but at least now I know the rough spots can be smoothed and the reluctance can turn to anticipation.
© 2009 Uncover/Recover
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