Stay quiet, and don’t be angry - you’re ugly when you’re angry. You have to be kind and respectful. You have to be good. All of these shoulds influenced my behaviors and my decisions throughout my life. I thought I was the one in charge, but in retrospect, I can clearly see that I was not. I never gave much thought about what I truly wanted, only about what the directors thought of me and who I thought they would want me to be. I didn’t have any idea who the heck I was. I began to live in a world armed with insecurity and jealousy and felt threatened by life. I felt others could see my fear and pretended life was ok, but I was living with no real direction. I did not know how to bravely use my voice without defensiveness and felt it was easier to remain small and hidden and have no one expect too much from me. I didn’t know how to be that someone I now know I could have been all along. But the grace I give myself is that I didn’t have the knowledge, experience, or guidance to become that person then. Enter addiction: I don’t know how it turned so bad. The drinking started harmless enough, at least I thought so. It was normal – everybody did it. It was a way to feel good, to let loose, to make time go by faster, to relax. It was sophisticated and fun.
Then I found it took the pain away. It numbed the insecurity. It became my go-to in life and it kept me company in my hiding. I didn’t understand this substance outside of what I saw from others all of my life. I didn’t know what this substance could do to a mind and how it can capture and imprison a soul. I was not prepared for the suffering of an addiction to alcohol. Addiction likes to hide while it dictates and directs. It doesn’t want us to see it. It was only through the gained knowledge about alcohol and its effects, making connections with others who understood where I was, and believing there was a better way to live that I somehow was able to jump off the hand of addiction and begin learning how to live life sober. I began to find out who I was inside, the good and the not so good, and not run from it. I discovered the path to learning who you are sometimes means untangling the ways of old thinking and wobbling your way to a new way of living. I say wobbling because sometimes you feel you will fall back and over, but with persistence, you still stand. I also learned pain is sometimes life’s way of booting your head out of your own ass, saying wake up!
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