Grateful Ramblings of Autumn

I am constantly amazed by how much is possible when I simply try to listen to those who demonstrate, consistently over time, that they are sincere (or, in the weakest mental interpretation possible, trying to be) in an endeavor that I myself consider to be of primary importance: sobriety. Sitting in these meetings on this website, I am perpetually filled with a deeper sense of gratitude towards what is possible when one makes even the slightest efforts in trying to pay real attention to those who are of one’s own tribe—be they suffering of immediate drunkedness and trying to find the way out, or a someone with a deep sense of peace years or even decades into their own sober journey. I am finding, with great happiness, that that’s really all I need to do here to discover and experience the powerful levels of positivity that I have begun to see revealed by my peers, elders, and new friends over the course of only about a month of really pushing myself, at least once a day, to simply click the link on my bookmarks bar indicating In The Rooms and then again on the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting (or any for that matter) that is available at almost any hour of the day. Sometimes I share, and sometimes I simply listen. Either way, I am granted a way out of my own mind—my own personal internal jailer. What a wonderful reminder that I am not alone, for it seems that through my years spent “out to sea”, I built an intentionally dark sense of personal pleasure in enjoying unhappy loneliness in some strange, maladapted way that, while obviously unnatural was kindled with a false smile as I did anything necessary to further the process of drink, smoke, snort, and pill as I continuously pushed and pulled myself further and further into the void of self-delusion and denial. The black abyss of my own mind; the suffocating limits of the human ego that, without the decision to simply open up to some form of Grace, however it is that I personally acknowledge It, will assuredly only end with further humiliation and self-debasement via alcohol or any other mind-altering substance that I can get my hands on. I am writing this both out of a sense of need as well as for the sheer delight of the reawakening of my own personal ambitions with regard to the simple implementation of my mind on a meaningful, worthy course of action. For a while, I considered my mental ability to be totally broken—that I had no chance at being anything other than some kind of a suicidally committed lunatic who had seemingly purposefully ruined his own mind and all sense of real awareness through guzzling booze and then acting as if I knew, wait, what was it again that I had, so doubtlessly realized that one (read: countless) night(s) of amphetamine and alcohol fueled awareness of…what was it again? Certainly, I know this: I chased it until nights turned to days, and I turned into a daywalking zombie vampire, arrested and thrown into the psychiatric ward or the jail. Ta-daa. What a show. And to think that these activities took place only a little over one year ago. How is it that I can now, due chiefly to the influence of the strength of the community I have found here, sometimes look back and laugh without anxiety or fear as I describe that Brian, that same person who shamelessly streamed endless ravenous and drunken diatribes unto the summer air about “God’s Purpose” while riding a bicycle without hands and wearing nothing but a fishing vest, heading back to his blessed mother’s home after shoplifting alcohol from local grocery stores or the corner drugstore as if he was some kind of personal hero unto himself for maintaining his pathetic drunk parade. How precious. Pariah. Child. Drunk. Lost. Not yet dead. Writing this has helped me to remember that it is by God’s Grace that we live or die; for the first time in a long, long time, I truly am desiring that He give me the former. And so, with that in mind, I will keep coming back.