My dear readers you can rejoice for I have returned. I apologize for the delay but my brain’s been a bit foggy these days. The words scattered in my skull; my thoughts a jigsaw puzzle floating through outer space as I desperately fly to each piece to sort them together. The aftermath of my last post led to a stay in the hospital where I came off a cocktail of 8 meds to a new lean new two piece of a mood stabilizer with a shot of antidepressant. So far I feel decent- not too high, not too low. So of course for me that means I feel uncomfortable. It’s funny how we get so comfortable in those undesirable emotions such as turmoil, depression, fear, or pain. Those feelings are like a warm blanket to me compared to contentment, and well just the fucking normalcy of the day. I also hadn’t been able to write so I thought I would cure it with a drink. I figured the drink would spark everything back and break me out of the void I had falling into. In reality it was just my brain tricking me into a return to an old comfortable feeling- the numbness and escape that first sip brings. The fleeting myth you chase every time you succumb to your poison. So I embedded myself into the alcohol, like a journalist in a war town country to a squadron, and gave in and drank. And of course James Baldwin did not enter my soul and come out through words on my paper. In fact the only words that did were lies to myself and others. The lie that alcohol can somehow make me whole- while in reality it’s just making the hole inside me even bigger. The hole of self doubt, hatred, insecurity, and fear. The hole you fall into where lies become the safety net. The hole you know you will eventually be buried in if you keep down the path that the drink wants from you. And a hole dug so deep I didn’t want to tell anyone I had fallen into it again. So I just pretended it didn’t happen, and let the halo on top of my head fashion into a noose. That noose got so tight I needed a drink to loosen it- and since I hadn’t shared my shameful secret from the night before the alcohol slipped right in like a Viking from the shore. His battle-axe a pint of vodka to my heart. I know my defense now is just being honest. Being vulnerable letting everyone know I failed another alcohol test. I gave in like a chump. But through failure comes knowledge. A loss is the best way to learn how to win. So I woke up early determined to write words. To prove to myself I don’t need alcohol to write. To prove to myself I don’t need alcohol to live. And to prove to myself finally I don’t need alcohol to survive. So today, July 15th, I declare my goddamn independence from that demon alcohol. And already I feel that noose loosening from my neck as the sun gently rises on a new day ahead, and I embrace this new journey where getting really fucking uncomfortable is going to be me striving for my new norm.
Tag: lie
Pawns and Rubes
Saturday my mind played one of the greatest tricks on me yet. It’s terrifying what lengths it will go to give me an excuse to drink. I was doing my morning meditation which was a focused hypnosis on clearing subconscious negativity. However, I allowed it to imprint a false so-called repressed memory to throw off my whole balance and well-being. As soon as I latched onto this awful thought it became for that moment real, and the only way to get rid of it was to drink it away. My brain was a terrorist who hijacked my common sense, and knocked down my defense system as easily as if it was a tall tower in the N.Y. skyline.
What followed was a drunken stupor of a maze of falsehoods that I tangled myself up in as if it was a comforting cloak of barbwire. Fallacy turning into fact. Hope trampled beneath granite boulders busting my spine. Leaving me paralyzed in thought with hopes there was a dagger resting on my heart. Or an ice pick to silence my brain. Luckily neither was close by.
I wonder how long I am going to stay on this path of reacting and writing versus writing then reacting. There is a big difference between knowing and understanding. Knowing means you can decipher the proper course of action for prevention. Understanding means that a course of action is in use prior to stop the maladaptive behavior before it occurs. It’s why some of the smartest people in the world can be so goddamn dumb sometimes.
This distorted logic is like seeing a chess board two steps ahead of your opponent, but moving your pieces one step behind. It’s ludicrous yet I do it; staying a pawn instead of the goddamn queen. It’s not fate because my own actions cause it to occur. My mind might be playing tricks on me, but I am supplying the ammo to make sure the shots stick. A country rube in a world full of carnies. Allowing myself to be conned every step of the way.
Code
I have a problem with being honest. Not on this blog for it seems the one place I do get honest; but in terms of my abuse of alcohol to cover up for many things I struggle with, and the fear I foist upon myself. From last Thursday to Monday night I couldn’t even tell you how many lies I had to tell myself and others. Those lies bottled up inside me like delicate tiny ships forcing my soul to walk the plank plunging to the cold waves to drift forever away. In these times the lava of self-hatred washes over me, and I can’t remember the last time drinking even was fun. All it is a momentary reprieve into hollowness, like a diseased tree tucked away in a forest of purgatory.
The funny thing is being honest feels better than being drunk. I don’t know why I don’t chase that feeling more than the numbness that lying provides me. Mindfullness helps in honesty because if you are totally in the moment you can’t be trying to scam the future. For a lie is just a momentary reprieve against the consequences of actions that violate your code. And like the wise man Omar said before me,
Even as I write this a twinge of the thought of drinking arises. My brain distorting those memories of truth I know deep in my marrow. It’s the anxiety of living that scares me today. For an unspoken desire soon twists me into liar, and that is not world I want to inhabit again.
Patrick Bernard 