I remember that choke.
I used to feel it tighten my throat whenever I cracked open a box of cheap wine and realized I had drank more than intended the night before and could not make it through an entire day with the remaining contents of the sloshing, poisonous bag. I used to feel it whenever I attempted stepping out of the house, and unless it was for another box of wine, I often let it defeat me.
"The Gift of Fear" I thought, priding myself on being so good and so gentle with the mental illnesses that trapped me in that apartment for five slippery sloshing years.
Mental illness does not deserve my kind regard.
Recently, I've been feeling pretty down on myself, because at 235 days, I am not a saint. The miraculous transformation I expected to continue in an eternal upward trend as my body and mind dried out from the alcohol has left me at a disappointing stalemate: I am still human.
I still feel the earthly desires for sex, drama, romance, competition, gossip, and embellishment.
The few relationships I've dabbled in since October, when I thought I knew better than the program and was *100%* ready to introduce a new partner into my sober life, have showed me that I still have the capacity to be incredibly human... too anxious to speak up when I feel my boundaries have been overstepped, and too much of a romantic to care to hit the brakes when I thought "This is It. The Reason I've been Suffering" not once, but twice in a 3-month period at the end of 2019 that I felt completely in control of, at the time. It is human, to crave connection.
It is my biggest blind spot, and several times over the course of the roller coaster, I've felt low enough to contemplate picking up the bottle again, just to even the playing field that is the Modern Dating Arena.
Not low enough to ignore the fact that my tremendous capacity to be a complete cunt is fueled and fanned by alcohol. If I still am that cunt inside of my sober head (and, of course I am. where would she have gone?), the least I can do is keep her from having a drink. The resistance far outweighs the possibility of resurrecting the recklessness, the anger, the self-destructive shame... oh, the shame.
I never want to wake up to a phone full of deleted messages, trying to piece back together the components of a blocked number and the events that led me to that extreme.
Not low enough to be more afraid than warmed by the fire that is still lit in my head. I think sometimes, what is the key element that I'm missing now, when I was so self-confidant before? How do I get it back? I used to be a Badass... and that little ember of my personality before the obsession took hold flares up just a little, enough to sting like a cigarette cherry dragged atwixt the hidden flesh between the fingers. She hurts, but she certainly looks dangerously pretty.
Was that the secret to my success before? An almost sociopathic disconnection from the humanity around me, a twitching nerve attached to muscle that had known nothing but amputation and pain previously in life, and now served only to to amuse itself?
Was I such a tardigrade that my current state feels like evolution on an apex predator scale? Both are extremely effective, the difference of course being the environment that they are molded to fill.
When I was a child, I was a protista, and a protagonist. The things I did were somewhat evil, but my intentions were 100% good, and those intentions were to survive my environment and become strong enough to progress.
When I was an amoeba, my intentions turned to hurting and shocking people around me, to push back against the people who had assisted me in making myself an outcast. They chose the scapegoat, but I chose to become a monster. You want a villain? I'll give you the best damn villain you could've wanted for. and with that territory came the feeling of loss. So I evolved weapons.
When I was a bit older, I began turning those weapons against myself, since I could not truly dissect myself from the humanity I was taking shape of. Its much easier when you're young... you are beginning to take shape of an adult human, but you can twist the edges of yourself into just enough to see a completely different organism when you look into the mirror. Dye your hair, endure the piercings, get the tattoos, take a razor blade to your upper extremities where only those you allow yourself to be intimate with will see and question them. Drink with The Boys until you puke but pop up tomorrow ready to do it again while the weaker sex suffers a hangover. Smile through the pain and nausea and shame. Be every bit as powerful as your lineage suggests, but make it narcissism.
Those were the weapons I developed. Later on, I added sex and seduction to the arsenal.
With those, manipulation and obfuscation. I was becoming quite a predator, and when you're 18 and hungry for hot blood, bitch dog gon' hunt. And to hunt meant becoming the product of another environment, one which required gills to navigate and a steady hand to weasel out of when you turned up cornered. I was an expert at taking a deep breath of the poison and riding out the discomfort of the effects, to harness its power. This was a time of much discomfort, and it kept me hungry.
Hungry for men, entertainment, escape, new experiences, and at 19, I became a junkie for life.
All of the darkest parts of it, with a desire to dig even deeper.
Now, I want to be a junkie for life, all of the joy and adventure and beauty and light that I've seen from the other side of the curtain. On this, exactly 305 days into the Sobriety Journey, I'm seeing the crack in the heavy fabric and there's light shining through. It's just 60(61, fucking Leap Year nonsense) days away and I'll be one of the mythical Yearlings. They say that's where the ride ends and the work begins. A year is a gift, beyond that it's a career.
And I'm still just a dumb as I was back in September, thinking I'd Got It at 90 days and was some sort of recovery prodigy. So much smarter and better at navigating this new environment, I've done it so many times before, parachuted into these biomes, so naturally I'd succeed. Apex predator right here.
The last entry I wrote, I was on the cusp of being stricken with devastating loneliness and an altruistic desire for love and companionship. I felt so much lighter, and I wanted to share that light with like-minded sobernauts I knew were on this strange planet. I wanted to grow and learn and love slowly like two plants intermingling roots until they bloomed and met, facing each other and the sun. Yes, I actually used this metaphor, trying to woo a sober silver-fox suitor who had a non-sober girlfriend.
It is so embarrassing to think back on the mistakes I've let myself make, against the advice of my therapist. The Policy of Honesty I imposed upon myself, my poor human self, has already began to crumble this year. It has been broken by Blair, by Chris, and by betraying myself.
For myself, I need to love and acknowledge and let go the mistakes of the past, while still appreciating them for shaping who I am today. A frozen shell, a cherry heart.
An optimism that I'm not sure I can live up to quite yet.