It is a very important day for me. Today, I am 1 year sober. Thatโs a huge achievement for someone who drank in excess for 25 years. While I have not given this site enough love in the past few months, there are plenty of entries where I wrote about how I got sober and stayed sober. So, I wonโt make this entry about how I did it. This entry will be about looking back at my most important moments as well as what I have learned about myself.
A painful, yet powerful dose of mushrooms on the night of April 26th 2023 led to me seeking help for my alcohol addiction the very next day. For years, I wanted to get sober, but I wanted to do it on my own and I didnโt want anyone to know about it. I was self-obsessed. I needed to control the narrative of my life in the eyes of other people. But, a year ago today, I realized that if I didnโt stop drinking right then and there, then I was going to die because of my drinking. I also knew that if I didnโt act on my impulse to get help that very moment that the moment may never come again. Nothing I had tried previously had worked so my only option was to get help. That decision completely changed my life.
I called a hypnotherapist, Brian Greene, who just so turned out to be a drug and alcohol counselor with over 40 years of sobriety. That very first session with him led me to my first breakthrough. I’d always thought the voice inside my head telling me to drink was me. I also thought I had no control over that voice. After talking to Brian, I realized that the real me didnโt want to drink โ didnโt want to abuse myself like that, but there was another voice inside my head leading me to drink. I ended up developing a technique that could wipe out any cravings for alcohol the moment an urge to drink appeared.
By my third session with Brian, he convinced me to do something I never thought I would do; go to AA. I fought it for so long, but soon I found myself regularly attending meetings. Without the cravings for alcohol, I was able to focus on my recovery in the earliest days of my sobriety. While I was around people who were โwhite knucklingโ it, or otherwise suffering with their cravings, I was able to move forward with recovery. It started with being honest with myself and to others. I faced my fears of exposing the side of myself that I was ashamed of, and by doing that, I was rewarded with acceptance.
Every shameful secret, or painful memory I shared with the group was absorbed and appreciated. And every time I shared something painful, I felt lighter. It was hard, yes, but the payoff was exponential. I was taking my recovery seriously and people saw that in me. I didnโt know it at the time, but the purging of all of my pain was what made AA so special. By stepping out on a limb and being vulnerable, it allowed others to do the same. It allowed others to connect with the parts of themselves that were also in pain. I was sharing something real. I was exposing and revealing the very same pain that everyone knew all too well.
Soon, that became my thing; brutal honesty. I saw how it was received and it brought me closer to other members. Before I knew it, I was a part of something for the first time in years. I became close with so many people, people who I now call close friends. I felt loved and I felt popular. Over time, the more I dared myself to expose more and more, I soon began to accept myself for who I am now. Not for who I could be or who I was, but who I am right in this moment. I look back and remember all the times I heard someone share an entertaining story about themselves and believing there was nothing interesting about me worth sharing.
It turns out that my life is very interesting. I was just so ashamed of myself, so embarrassed for not living up to perfection, that I hid virtually everything about myself to the world. I thought I was hiding from the world, and I was, but I was also hiding from myself. The more I revealed to others, the more I revealed to myself. I began realizing I was the kind of guy I would like to hang out with. I started to see what others had seen in me for years.
My entire life I was a glass half empty kind of guy. It was all or nothing. If I couldnโt be amazing at something, then why bother? I was tall and strong, but not a natural athlete. Growing up I wanted to be a quarterback or a wide receiver, but I was slow and had to play the offensive line. And I was a starter too, but it wasnโt enough for me, so I quit. Then I found theater. I was naturally gifted at it. It was the first thing that I was did where I felt I was a standout performer. I was good at it. I was good at improv and quick witted. But I didnโt feel attractive enough to be a lead performer, even though I got lead roles.
I was so afraid of being rejected in Hollywood that I never even gave it a fair shot. I was told by every acting teacher I learned from that I was gifted. But it didnโt matter. I didnโt have leading man looks, so why even try?
When I finally got sober, I began to realize the error in my thinking. I was always focused on the negatives. So I wasnโt fast enough to be a wide receiver or a quarterback(though I did have a good arm), but I was good enough to start. I was strong. But it wasn’t enough. I didnโt feel like I looked like a leading man, but I knew I was a good actor, and others could see it. The talent was there.
I was also a person who made friends easily. However, I always focused on who didnโt like me. I moved around a lot as a kid, but everywhere I went, I had friends. How many people can say that? I never looked at it that way. My focus was on the few people who didnโt like me. I was obsessed with them, not with the fact that I had friends everywhere I went.
All of a sudden I had all these new friends from AA. While there are people who still do not like me, I feel only gratitude for the friends I have. I feel gratitude to be a part of something and to be accepted for who I am. As I got older and my alcoholism got worse, I started to believe that I was defective and unworthy of love. I thought I was pathetic, a joke.
But, in the year I have been sober and in recovery, I realize they were only a reflection of my fears. I had become so detached from humanity in the throes of my addiction that I was alone with my fears without anyone there to remind me of who I really was. Who I really am is a human who is trying his best. Thatโs it. Iโm not a villain nor am I a hero, nor is anyone expecting me to be a hero.
Iโve written before about how I have heard that recovery means finding out who you really are. That hasnโt exactly been the case for me. For me, itโs been about accepting myself, and appreciating the gifts I have been blessed with while also accepting that I can never be perfect.
So, as I look back on this wonderful and challenging year, I am full of love and gratitude. I have been given the opportunity to become spiritually awakened. To be able to look inside with love and not fear. I used to feel so alone in the universe. Now, I feel like there is someone, something out there that loves me no matter what. An unconditional love, and if that can be so, then I can try to do the same. That is all I want now โ to love without fear. It will be sloppy and it will never be perfect, but it will be me. That is enough for me.
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