Then and now

As wonderful as it is being sober, there are some things about drinking that I miss. No, not enough to pick it back up, but it helps me understand why I did so much of it.

There's a marvelous freedom in not having to drink all the time. When I was constantly fucked up, being fucked up was all I did. When I got clean, I could do everything, everything except getting fucked up. The choice between doing one thing and everything else was harder than you might think, but it seems so stupid now.

In addition to being fucked up and not doing anything, I was also shielded from feeling anything. Emotions were pretty much things I read about in books, and my own experience was shallow and meager, like seeing the world using the eight colors in an old version of Paintbrush. I was unprepared for the rush of feelings clean people have, but had pretty much been a happy drunk and never got into fights or any of that.

What I'm learning now is that I was also sheltered from the more subtle painful emotions. They're still new to me, even all this time later, and I have no idea how to deal with longing or wanting. Rejection was something I felt soon after getting sober, and it hurt me so bad I don't want to experience it ever again. But these insidious, nagging, discomforts hurt me every bit as much as a sharp blow. Being homesick would be a challenge for me, reigning in my desires so that they can be realistic is a constant effort, and if anyone used the word any more, I think being lovesick would torment me.

The joys of life are indescribable, but you've all felt them much more and much deeper than I have. I love how good I can feel, even if it's momentary, and the thrill of a shiver of delight up my spine just makes me want to burst with joy. The uglier, blacker emotions are ones I'm feeling, too, and while I still don't immediately recognize them for what they are, and am still pretty much a stranger to anger, most everything like that will make me incredibly depressed.

But the slow, tortuous dwindling of hopes, the replacement of wishes with realities, the recognition of impossibilities is something I've never had to deal with, and I don't know how much of a deal to make of them. They hurt in their own way, a much more real one than shock or a stinging slap. I intensely dislike being subject to such feelings, but I'm learning they're part of life.