Shit Gets Weird (audio) (day 80)

Shit gets very weird when you are sober but a beginner at it. We still go to bars and restaurants a lot because we always did and I don’t want things to change but the silly thing about that is that it’s too late. Because I can do all the things I used to do with the people I used to do them with but the very real and glaring difference is that I am there doing the things with the people and I am very much not the same person I was before.

And I can tell you also, that who I am now is quite confused. Like regularly and often. I have epiphanies which can be so staggering I metaphorically drop to my knees and then ten minutes later the kitchen sink is full of dirty dishes and I feel like losing my fucking shit on whoever happens to be passing by. I am so proud of myself and so grateful to the universe for my eighty days of sobriety I could shed actual tears and also I have no idea how I got here or why on earth I ever thought I could do this sober thing when the whole world is sitting at bars ordering whatever the fuck they want in quantities which seem to not bother them in the least.

You know, like I used to do. Except for the bothered part. I was almost always bothered by my drinking until I could drink enough to push off the bother until the next morning. It was a gradual thing I guess you could say. Gradually I brought the booze to bed with me because I didn’t know how I’d sleep or be safe without it (literally no idea how or why I thought that but addiction is in the mind an even more gruesome monster than in the body) and whatever I didn’t finish that night before passing out I polished off in the morning because why not.

I hate writing this, by the way. I hate what I used to do as much as I hate this persistent urge to now ‘tell my story.’ What’s to tell. I needed alcohol for just about everything. To kill stress and to celebrate joyous stuff. To feel better, to feel nothing, to commemorate certain dates and to forget them all at the same time.

Sobriety is not smooth, is what I am saying. Logic fails you. Mantras and breath work don’t remove your stress enough. Not the way annihilating your senses does. That is a weird realization I had last night after taking the hot bath and downing a full glass of beautiful sparkling water and playing the soft music and wearing the cozy sweats and all the things. It was still just the end of a regular Sunday spent doing all the lovely things and ending up in a bizarre head space where instead of gratitude there was anger. Instead of calm there was agitation.

And the thing is, I don’t know what I expected but I didn’t expect that. No matter how good you choose for yourself, no matter what monumental strides you make toward what I still believe is an exponentially more glorious life, the days and nights will still just be days and nights. Sometimes – maybe a lot of the times – you will just be one person among billions who are just trying to get through it all. And maybe at the end of the day you just say fuck it – maybe that is just fine, too.