This isn’t pretty, but it’s the truth…
When I reach a sober birthday, I’m not big on celebrations. The most that will happen are a few texts from my family, me possibly writing about it on this blog and maybe I’ll go out with the wife to get a piece of cheesecake. That’s about it, and that’s how I like it. I don’t take cakes in the rooms (which some may chide me for, but that’s fine). It’s my decision and I stand by it.
And don’t get me wrong, it’s obvious that there is so much to be grateful for, so why don’t I like to acknowledge it?
It’s simple: I’m still not weathered, mature, or comfortable enough.
When I hit a sober milestone in recovery, happy thoughts and gratitude are not the first things that pop into my mind.
The first thing that always comes back is the darkness. Even after four years the pain is still so raw that I don’t even think about reaching for any happiness. Like a marked man, I carry the shackles fashioned by my own hands as one of the guilty. Slowly I’m working through the shame, because I became mean in the end, real mean – angry and vindictive, lashing out and wielding my words like weapons towards the ones I loved the most. And now I face the music daily, walking through the ashes settling to bury my soul.
Because that’s what we do as addicts, we collect scars, deep ones, and some of them still bleed.
It’s hard to smile when this is what you remember… I relive it again and again… kind of like the following four years ago…
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The day I died started out just like any other day for the rest of the world.
Birds chirped. The sun was shining. People sipped coffee on their daily commute to work.
I hadn’t slept the prior night. At all. Literally.
The shaking was unbearable. But the dry heaving was the worst. My stomach muscles ached and contracted like twisting knots as talons of pain eviscerated my gut. I couldn’t tell up from down and I was lost in the haze of stabbing knives in my brain.
I spent most of it dry heaving over the toilet. Not from sickness, that part hadn’t settled in yet, but from anxiety… because the end was here.
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Flashback to the previous night.
The gig was up. My wife had found all my hidden 1.75-liter bottles – the ones in the garage, garden shed, even the one in the home depot bucket out in the backyard buried under all of the pots (that was my go-to).
When you’re hanging on by a thread, you do whatever it takes to keep on going. You find yourself doing things you would have never dreamed you’d ever be doing in your previous life.
She was yelling at me I had to stop. This had gone on too long. She couldn’t believe the lying and hiding. It had to stop now.
For the first time, in such a long time, I told her the truth. I remember sitting there on the couch, my head hanging, and body slumped over on my knees like the defeated man I was. Drunk and despicable, a wretched mess of humanity.
“I can’t.” I whispered as if it were my last dying breath.
I’ll never forget that look on her face when she finally realized what had happened, how far I had fallen… that only shattered pieces remained. It was as if someone had reached into her chest and crushed her heart with a cold iron fist. The devastation, shock and denial disemboweling her emotions as if they were dead body parts before the acknowledgement of the moment.
Lies. They were all lies.
Her pain was so real that it leapt out at me from her hazel eyes, like a whip cracking, the lashes digging deep and serrating my skin, blood welling as if from a vermillion spring inside my broken body.
And it came to me then, like a nightmare made concrete. Never had I failed in this magnitude before. Never had I caused such harm and suffering to a fellow human being. And it was my wife who I had failed. All those years of sticking by my side and this is how I repaid her.
It’s those we love the most, that we scar the most. We wound them to fill our own wounds. And in doing so, we perpetuate the vicious cycle that can be life.
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You’ll hear a lot of people say in the rooms, that sobriety was a gift. They are so thankful for their addiction. Finding recovery was a rebirth, a second chance at life that they wouldn’t trade anything for. A new beginning.
For me, that is a bunch of bullshit.
Surviving detox and rehab didn’t feel like a rebirth, it felt like a murder, a tragedy. And addiction itself is a lot like death – the great leveler. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from. It treats everyone the same. Come knocking on my door, and ye will stay for an eternity.
And what do you do when someone dies? You grieve and move on. You experience the process: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
But the real question is: what actually died?
My best friend, lover and captor combined.
I love this quote from Madora Pennington. It sums up everything for me in such a simplistic sense, what my previous answer to life had been:
“The sweet, clean high of [opiates], I will never forget. That exalted sense of optimism and quiet elation, the release from the troubles of life. Peace.”
That was it. For many years I lived a great life with my trusty sidekick in tow – that pure synthetic happiness, gift wrapped in pill form. All you have to do is swallow and the world becomes one big glowing happy place.
But now it’s gone. That trusted friend who could always make everything okay has left your side.
And it hurts… it hurts more than you will ever know.
Because losing drugs wasn’t just losing a part of you. It felt like losing your soul, as if you had been stripped of all sensation, emotion, feeling and depth. There was no YOU anymore, just this shell of human matter that didn’t know how to live in the most basic sense.
No, this wasn’t a birth/re-birth. This was a death. Something died forever inside of me that day. It took a while to figure it out. Thousands of hours in groups, therapy and the rooms. You have to put in a lot of work in and dig deeper than you ever have to find it… to understand what is missing from you. But you will find it… and it’s both the saddest and scariest thing.
Want to know what I lost that day?
It was true happiness… and I lost it forever.
This is the part that no one likes to talk about in addiction. It’s a burning truth that glows so hot and flares so bright that everyone looks away. Because when you face it, if you ever can, you’re acknowledging there will be some scars that never heal.
Now at this point you might be questioning me, hey Q-FI, what the fuck are you talking about? Happiness is a state of mind, you control that. You can always change yourself and perspective to be happy? What’s up with all the doom and gloom?
I want to be clear. What I’m talking about is not mental happiness. What I am talking about is chemical happiness. With my burnt-out receptors in my brain that I have destroyed, it is physically impossible for me to have any reaction that will release as much dopamine as would be released if I were to take drugs again.
It is a plain fact. There is nothing on the face of this Earth that can ever give me the elation, joy and euphoric contentment that opiates can. Nothing. My brain and body have been permanently changed.
But I’ve come to terms with that. I’ve accepted this. There’s no point to fight it and all I can do is my best with the pieces that remain.
And that’s the challenge. How do you find happiness when there’s nothing but emptiness left inside? And I’ll be dead honest right now. You can’t tell people that, because they can’t handle it. They will not comprehend the daily, hourly and minute by minute struggles you face just to look normal.
When every day is climbing a mountain, how do you put that in perspective? The only answer that I have ever found is you don’t. You just keep on moving.
You keep on searching. Because there is no endgame anymore. There’s only you reaching for an answer… one day at a time.
So, when people want to celebrate my sober birthday, I smile and play along. I slip back on the mask and stich a grin from ear to ear, because it is a good thing. It is the right thing to do. I’m truly grateful and need to practice being humbled even if I don’t feel I deserve the praise.
Because I can’t help but remember.
And inside the battle remains…
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”
Here’s to the survivors.
May you finally find what you are looking for…
-Q-FI
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P.S. Ever rise from the ashes like a Phoenix? Have you had to face a former death and carve a new reality out of the scattered remains? Tell me about your resurrection. Tell me how you’ve changed…
Bonus reading: If you haven’t followed my story from the beginning, this is my first post on addiction that explains why hitting year 5 sober/clean will be so important to me: Sobriety is a Numbers Game. With year 4 now complete, I have 20% to go… kind of like the vesting of a 401k match… Hahaha.
hey q, you’re almost vested. you sure tell a helluva story about what it feels like. it selfishly makes me glad i never went down the rabbit hole of drugs. i grew up in a very small town with a massive coke distribution network in the 80’s and the stuff was everywhere. lots of my classmates ended up in federal prison for short or long times. i’ve always been fascinated by the whole culture and can watch those old movies like drugstore cowboy, sid and nancy, and barfly over and over.
anyhow, i hope you can keep on matriculating and putting on the mask if that’s what it takes.
Hahahaha… I am almost vested. I had to put in a little quip to lighten the mood at the end. I like the catch Freddy. It is a fascinating culture, I agree. And complex I might add. Because let’s be honest, drugs can be a ton of fun for a lot of people. But once the line gets crossed into addiction, the rose colored glasses come off and there’s a whole other world that doesn’t often get shared. And I was extremely lucky in my life never to end up in prison as well – many close shaves that will be stories shared down he road.
Plus, in my case being a successful career functioning addict, people have a hard time believing my situation. They still have this picture in their mind that an alcoholic has to be sitting on street corner with a brown paper bag or a junkie is only homeless living on skid row. Addicts/alcoholics are found everywhere and in every shape, size and color.
But the most amazing thing to me, and still hard for even me to grasp, is how mainstream heroin has become. When I was in high school, like you, Cocaine was pretty much the most popular hard drug available. But now Heroin’s become mainstream for kids, and they’re dropping like flies. I don’t think we’ve even seen the tip of the iceberg yet on how many high school kids Fentanyl will kill. It’s just fucking crazy.
For much of my life I’ve been sheltered from drugs. I knew people, even near neighbors on the hard stuff. But outside some pot head friends I never got too close. At least that is to the ones I knew about…
A few years ago I was reading the paper and an article came up about the lady in charge of a national organization helping others get over addition. Her story was written as someone who was fired from her job and lost nearly everything too her addiction before cleaning up. She sat in the cubicle next to mine as my coworker on my third job, was nearly promoted to my boss. Two years after that was when she was fired and lost her family . I never would have guessed but I’m not sure it was already happening back then.
In 2019 I started foster care. Sadly most of the parents of the younger kids have some addiction. I see up close on a regular basis now what happens. It’s heart wrenching and yet as someone who hasn’t gone through it yourself it’s tough to know what you can say or do to help on an individual level. Other then just being there for the person on an individual level I’m not sure there is much you can do.
Anyway great progress on your part.
Thanks for sharing this FTF. I was pretty much that same woman you describe – killing it in the corporate arena on the outside while dying on the inside. The longer you go, the better you get at hiding things. Your example also shows that you can make the most out of second chances as well.
You could not be more correct on the fostering side – there is no way not to avoid addiction. We haven’t had our first child yet, still probably looking at Q1 or Q2 of next year, but this is a big reason I personally want to foster so bad. We’re seeking a new born, and I know that if you get a baby 95% of the time it’s because the mom was on drugs or alcohol. I’m hoping that with my background I’ll be able to help the family in this arena as well. I look at fostering a lot like addiction, there is so much you have to deal with emotionally and mentally to balance the ups and downs. Again, it is so awesome that your family is fostering! You guys are great people for helping out a family/child in need!
You are also right on the individual level, all you can do is offer your help and support if someone wants it. Besides that, there isn’t much you can do.
Thanks for the encouragement, greatly appreciated.
First off – congrats. It’s a worthy achievement. Your addiction posts are extraordinary. They are simultaneously raw, poignant and profound. They have weight and legitimate meaning and, to be frank, I’m always uncertain as to how best respond.
Two of my best friends became heroin addicts and ultimately died as a result. Even all these years later, I still struggle with the sadness, complexity, happiness, rage and sorrow of those relationships. These posts of yours help give me a semblance of understanding and peace. So, thank you.
Thanks Mr. Fate. I’ve always appreciated your support so it means a lot. And at least to me, there is no wrong way to ever respond. I also think to your point, a lot of people are in your same boat. If someone writes something pretty personal I always try to write a comment because I know it was probably hard for them to put that out there. But if someone doesn’t have any experience with that issue, I think the easiest thing is to sit back and observe.
And I know the addiction stuff probably puts some people off, but that’s cool, and I totally get it. But I’ve found that whenever I write about this topic I’m always left with a profound sense of accomplishment and an inner peace that I never get from pumping out FI stuff. It’s become a cathartic process that although painful at times, I ultimately enjoy and find release with. Plus, to ignore it would be to ignore a major part of my story.
I’m sorry for your losses and understand how that struggle never really leaves you. Nothing you could have done. And honestly, life and death with addiction is a coin flip. Why someone OD’d and someone lives is all luck. We beat ourselves up, but in the end it’s entirely out of our hands.
Thanks for the great comment!
First, happy belated birthday. You’ve achieved another year of life, that’s something of tremendous value because it’s not guaranteed to any of us, whether we choose to celebrate it or not.
Even though I grew up with addiction in my immediate family, I don’t pretend to understand the mindset of an addict, recovering or active, but I do know something about being the loved one. While you’re still working through the shame, loss, regret, anger, etc., we’re working to forgive and move on and rebuild our relationship with you. Chances are, we forgive you far sooner than you forgive yourself. So, while I hear that you’re mourning the death of yourself, we’re rejoicing in your rebirth. We’re thankful you’re here and hope you learn self forgiveness sooner rather than later. We suffer along with you, but your joys and wins are ours also. You’re doing great. Not everyone wins this battle, but you did. I hope you find joy in a new way. And I wish you all the best.
Thanks as always for chiming in Katie and the b-day wishes! At four I’m starting to exit the toddler stage now… haha.
All I can say is thank you and very eloquently put:
“We suffer along with you, but your joys and wins are ours also.”
Your words divulge a deep and thoughtful understanding of the complex dynamics affecting the relationships that need mending. We’ll probably have a side bar on that someday…
And the self forgiveness has happened, but the memories never leave. These are more raw reflections of glimpses in time. I’m in a good place and remain upbeat overall. As well as hopeful for many more years to come… =)
This response warms my heart. You seem overall like you’re in a good place. I’m glad you’ve given yourself the gift of forgiveness. Not everyone does. Keep up the great posts!
You’re making me think that I’ll probably need to sprinkle in some happier comedic addiction posts. Although, I have a pretty raw gallows’ humor… haha. I’m sure you can relate – but, it’s kind of like when you’re happy you don’t really write about it because you feel good, but then when you’re down, that’s when you write and reflect, so the writing tends to skew towards the darker side and give the impression I might not be as upbeat or happy as I am. Anyway, that’s something you’ve made me ponder… in a good way.
Also, I get the feeling your observation on forgiveness means this isn’t your first rodeo, because you are spot on. Forgiving yourself is probably the most important and difficult part of healing. If you can’t forgive yourself then why would anyone else? Plus, that’s why when you do something wrong, you don’t say you’re sorry, you ask for forgiveness instead – you’re giving the person you’ve harmed the power to now decide and take action. It’s the same with yourself, now you’re giving yourself the power to forgive, move on and change.
Good stuff Katie… look, you made me go off on a tangent. Haha.
Real quick, sometimes others forgive you long before you forgive yourself. But I have no doubt you’re on the right track. 😉
Intense and powerful. Important especially now, as the pandemic (and everything else going on) seems to invite vices. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for swinging by and commenting IF. We all mistakes, some of them just linger a little longer than others. And I agree that now is an especially tough period to be living through and hopefully people can mitigate their vices.
Congrats on you anniversary and thanks for sharing. This is an amazing post. My family has/does struggle with addiction both alcohol and drugs, and it has take some aunts and uncles lives at an early age. I’ve seen the devastation that addiction causes when it runs in the family.
I just hit 14 months sober from alcohol. I think I’m in for the long haul, at a minimum while my daughters are young and want my attention, I won’t drink. I wasn’t an everyday drinker, but the weekends were made for my beers. Life is damn stressful without a drink. This kind of post helps me.
Thank you for sharing this and the prose is top notch as well. I felt as if I were reading a novel at some points.
Thanks for the well wishes Noel and congratulations on your 14 months! In my opinion, the earlier time is the hardest to get, so that’s no small accomplishment you have achieved.
You know, I’ll say this Noel. You have addiction in your family, so you know with open eyes how things could turn out someday, and that’s not saying it ever would. But at least you have that perspective to help you make your own decisions. I think it really comes down to consequences. If you can binge drink on weekends and it isn’t hurting your life, then some people can do that and maintain it and be fine. However, if you start drinking for escape rather than fun, you can find yourself crossing that dependency line quicker than you realize. Like everything in life, it’s pros and cons. I’ll also say that without alcohol hopefully you are healthier and your sleep might have improved. Haha, small wins!
Another thing is to ask your family – ask your wife and kids. Do you like sober dad or drinking on the weekend dad better? Insight from loved ones is always good motivation as well and can help break through any self deception. Because addiction is a family disease, it affects everyone.
And to your point, yes, life can be a lot more stressful without the alcohol crutch to lean on. But you learn more healthy ways to deal with stress. It’s not easy, but it is doable. And it definitely takes time to learn to be comfortable in a world in which you no longer can alter your reality and escape. If sobriety is what you choose, then the longer you go the better you’ll get at learning how to quiet the noise between your ears in a non self destructive manner.
Best of luck bud and I’m proud of you. If you ever need to chat hit me up and we can have a discussion offline.
Right on dude. You bring some great points to consider and ask. Thank you
I have led a very sheltered life in that I have not had to deal with addiction or help people through their addiction. So I know nothing about it. But what I do know is that the human body has an extraordinary ability to heal itself. I have no doubt that your chemical usage has fried your brain cells. I believe you when you say that this has resulted in not feeling happiness or joy. But I’m less convinced that it needs to be this way in perpetuity. It’s only been 4 years. Give your body the space, time and building blocks and see what happens. It may surprise you.
The way I see it, everyone has their own problems. Addiction just happens to be mine. None are bigger than others. A life and death overdose can be just as traumatic as someone having a panic attack in their office due to work stress. Both feel like life and death in the moment.
And I have happiness and joy. I was more trying to convey in this post how much effort goes into trying to find that balance. We hide so much of ourselves in daily living playing at the game of masks. This was just to give a peak that you never really know what is going on behind the scenes or how difficult something might be for someone no matter how easy or carefree it looks on the outside.
I’m hoping you’re right, and we’ll see how the body adapts. It’s always been a slow process for me, but I’ve accepted it and live with it. Gotta make the best of the new normal.
There’s always so much to live for and chase after…