This isn't a completely new routine for me. Over the past year, I've kept a day planner and recorded some of these things, but I am approaching the process a bit differently for the new year. During my past seven months of sobriety (continuous sober date June 4, 2015), I've made a point to mark my day planner if I exercise or when I spend time in prayer. I usually jot a quick note if I eat well on a particular day, or make better choices, attended an AA meeting, etc. A quick look over my past year's day planner reveals that I've been off balance. I concentrate fully on exercise, then flit to a stint with church & religion. For a month I seem to attend AA meetings regularly and then I wane to focus on yoga & meditation. Basically I'm a sober butterfly tumbling from flower to flower for my next life-fix. I understand why and how I've gotten into a pattern of flitting from focus to focus. I am an alcoholic. The reason I became an alcoholic in the first place is that my mind was at unrest from a very early age. I taught myself to flit from interest to interest because I was generally uneasy in my own skin, easily bored, easily distracted. I wasn't prone to deep concentration or seeing things through from seed to fruition. I was always artsy and loved to read, I loved to climb trees and hang out for hours on end in the woods. I was a child of vivid imagination and pretend. I assume that this me was created as a safe haven from the alcoholic home in which I lived.
I learned early on that I couldn't depend on my parents to feed my mind. I no longer blame them for not being active, present parents. They, themselves, were too young and screwed up to do much concerning their positions within my development. Having been on the losing side of active addiction myself, I know now how difficult that it is to want to play ball or being a doting parent when caught in the trap of a me-me-me, addiction-consumed mindset. I can admit now that I know how my parents must have felt. The point being that as a child, I spent an extraordinary amount of time alone, creating my own worlds in which to develop, grow, observe the world, and become who I am. Unfortunately, who I am tends to constantly create plans and paths and modalities but then bounce off toward a new plan once things become routine or difficult. This keeps me out of balance even though I no longer drink.
The good news is that balance is now attainable -because- I don't drink. Sober, I can at least pursue sure footing. I just need to find gentle ways of guiding myself back onto the beam when I get distracted. Hence, a new day planner for a new year and clearly marked daily with the four categories of Health, Spirituality, Exercise, and Recovery.
Today's list looks like this:
Sat. Jan 2, 2016
Health~ drank iced water w/ fruit slices (4 cups), took vitamins
Spirituality~ meditation w/ John Serrie CD
Exercise~ 40 min yoga (Mala flow)
Recovery~ 24 Hrs a Day book, journaling, online AA meeting
The very reason that I am recording this blog is to note my progress by trying to balance these four things in my life. I have more than a sneaking suspicion that balancing those four things, and making sure that I keep them all as part of my daily practice, will result in a much more balanced, centered, self-assured, successful me. I think that the first year of sobriety sets the tone for the rest of my life. I'm faced daily with sober decisions- Will I remain sober, will I be sober with a productive life, will I just be "dry" of alcohol without any real life-progress? Will I incorporate real changes or temporary solutions?
I think it's up for grabs. The first seven months of sobriety were only about hanging on. After spending my entire adult life running into the arms of a bottle of alcohol, it takes a long time to break those chains that bind. On top of that, my mind was completely warped of any sense of reality and/or Truth. I've heard people claim that the best thing about new sobriety is finally "being in your right mind." I don't tend to subscribe to the theory that one's mind is out of its haze in new sobriety at all. The first year is such a time of intense self-preservation and just clinging to the raft that I believe it to be impossible to really be in a "right mindset." Base survival 24/7 is not the way that I believe I was meant to live. Surely, there is more...
I needed the past seven months of just hanging in there to see if I actually even -could- hang in there. I was very mistrustful of my own resolve to stop drinking. I was a binge drinker, not a daily drinker. I could put down the bottle for a week or two at a time and not miss it. I could just as easily start drinking on any given Tuesday and 'come to" on the following Monday. I seemed to hold faithful to very few set patterns. I simply drank when I drank. I didn't have to be pissed off or bored, or stressed, or on vacation to fall over into the ditch of drinking. I'd make up an excuse if I needed one to drink or I'd leave it alone for a while. On at least three separate occasions before last November, I had tried my hand at seriously putting down the alcohol. Each time, I joined AA and fumbled through for a few months without any idea how to work a program. The truth is that I didn't want to stop badly enough to really try to work a program of recovery. I wanted to quit for my daughter, I wanted to quit for my mom, I wanted to quit because it was killing me. Nowhere in there did I want to quit because I wanted a real life.
In November of 2015, I stopped drinking with a genuine pursuit toward God and church. I'd had it with trying the AA way. I just didn't "get" it- the meetings, the calling each other, the crappy coffee. Ugh. I'd leave each meeting with a desire to drink so badly that I could TASTE it. In November, I began to earnestly pray to God. I learned, and recited daily, the Holy Rosary (even though I am not Catholic). I still pepper my daily prayers with portions of the Rosary, though I no longer recite the whole thing once or twice a day. I spent the majority of my time watching religious programming on TV and I joined a very small church. I needed that. For me, I needed God completely to make it through those first, faltering months. My goal wasn't even to learn how to live; I just tried not to drink. The foundation of prayer that I forged during those months serve me well now. I am "in the habit". I feel as if God is on my side during this journey, and that I wouldn't make it through the day sober without constant leaning on my Creator. I don't have any qualms with this way of thinking. After all, I tried it my way and experienced epic failure. It wasn't a difficult stretch for me to reach out to my personal Higher Power for help and guidance. What I had failed to address within myself is that I had no idea how to live.
It's difficult for a woman who has moved to nine states, fourteen beach towns, with countless life experiences under her belt, a decent IQ, and decades of survival skill to come to the realization that she has NO real idea how to live a normal, productive life. Add in the facts that I have always had to be in some form of control over every situation, that I was conditioned to be continually argumentative, and I am naturally hot tempered, ... let's say that this past year was a confusing and trying time for me. On Mothers Day of 2015, I drank again. I spent seven days on a bender of whiskey, vodka, and pills. I was crushed that I had relapsed, no longer able to enjoy a relapse, and in a state of pure fear and loss. Unable to see myself becoming successfully sober and hating the dark funk in which I was consumed, I gave up food and praying and proceeded to drink myself to death. It didn't take long to decide that maybe I wanted to live... it took seven days. On the seventh morning, I had "drank myself sober." For those who don't drink, that doesn't mean that I was sober. It simply means that I couldn't get any higher, I couldn't exactly come down without waves of pain, and I had starved myself to the point of having to have food despite myself.
I had broken my mom's heart by going on that binge on Mother's Day. She had genuinely thought that I was on the path of sobriety. Mom, being the good and practicing Christian, believed with all of her soul that God could and would save me because I had surrendered my life to the Lord. Believe me, God did save me. Just because I had given up drinking and given my soul to God didn't mean that I was suddenly provided an instruction manual on Life. I've come to accept that that fall off the wagon was a necessary part of my journey. I was shown that I had to find a program of recovery. I wasn't meant to survive solely on the Word of God. God wanted me to grow, and change, and improve myself so that I could be of help to others and to leave this earth having fulfilled some purpose with my life.... whatever that purpose is. I am supposed to have a rich and fulfilling existence. I'm supposed to learn how to live and to find a new way.
I managed to eat on that seventh day (June 3, 2015) and to pour the rest of the liquor down the sink. I knew that I was going to try as many ways as I could find to begin to actually learn to live. First, I found myself a sponsor. She is a lady that I have known since my earlier attempts at Alcoholics Anonymous. An earthy, wise woman who knew about far more than the twelve steps of AA. She is an avid reader, constantly learning about something, enjoys & respects nature and animals, lives on a plot of land with chickens, dogs, and wild deer, and was willing to accept me into her life knowing how screwed up that I really am.
I began to attend AA meetings. It was difficult for me as I had forgotten entirely how to get along with people and value their opinions. But, for the first time, I was willing to work a program of recovery. With that willingness, I was able to better understand what having a program even meant. She patiently helped me to lay a foundation, modeled on the way that she, herself, had been taught and we continue to meet once a week and talk on the phone every couple of days as I work through the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.
A couple of months ago, I began to practice yoga. I had never tried a yoga class in my life. I had a ton of preconceived notions about yoga being for beautiful, thin, blond, new-agey women who socked hundreds of dollars into gym clothes, botox, and meatless diets in a vain attempt to stall the clock. That being said, I loved my first, wildly uncomfortable yoga class. It didn't really make sense that I would enjoy it. I am fifty pounds overweight, middle aged, and in poor health from years of abuse. But I loved it. It resonated with me. It made sense to me that learning to breathe deeply was healthy and beneficial. I could understand how series of stretches and poses (called Asana) could release tension and stagnant energies. Along with Asana, I became interested in meditation as a new way to pray. Since that first class, I got myself a mat and props, a few American Indian inspired drum and flute cds, and started my own practice at home. I also learn from a local yoga studio where I take a beginner's class once or twice per week. The results of picking up the yoga and meditation practice is astounding! I would not have believed how much better that I feel if it has not happened to me personally.
In just a matter of two months, I am noticeably calmer, I have a handle on alcohol cravings and urges, it helps me with coping skills, and keeps my head clearer so that I can pursue my 12 step work in AA. I am not as angry. I am not as hot tempered. Yoga and meditation have provided a way for me to enjoy my alone-time and stretched my spiritual boundaries.
I am also just beginning to feel my bodily "core". With so many layers of cushy fat laid over weakened muscles, and muscles that never fully healed from my botched c-section, it has been a long time since I felt my core insides. That is beginning to change as I use those strengthening muscles to perform the various poses and asana of yoga. I plan to add to this various aerobic and cardio exercises to take off some of this excess baggage. We have a whole year here to work on these things and also try a ton of new things.
Today afforded me a chance to work on my own yoga experience at home. I've created for myself a 40 minute long practice using the things that I learned online and in the yoga studio. I call this first yoga routine "Mala Flow". Now I am a little sore but relaxed as I begin my evening. Later, before bed, I'll meditate to a 20 minute relaxation demo from iAwake Technologies on SoundCloud. I'm proud to be starting the year off on a good note. Tomorrow morning at 8 am, I will be heading out of town for an AA meeting at The Barn. More on that later.
~Namaste
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