Round 3, day 123: Trusting life

Recently I've noticed some big changes in how I approach the world. I have begun to trust. For me, that's life changing!

I've always been a little bit paranoid. It's not that I think people are out to get me, exactly. It's just that in my basic, felt but unstated assumptions about life, I haven't felt that the world is a good place for me. I've felt this mostly in my dealings with people. Small negatives have often kicked off big reactions. If I am talking to someone important to me who's having a bad day, it's not a stretch for me to think that that person has taken against me. Either they have changed their mind about me or, worse, they have come to realize that all the esteem they had previously held me in was mistaken, and that I am some version of useless/worthless/disappointing. Now, that sounds worse than it is, because for years I have known that I have this tendency, and I know that most reasonable people don't suddenly take against people. But at best I've had to engage in a massive workaround, in which I feel like the person hates me but intellectually I know that they probably don't, so I try to imagine how I might behave if the relationship were not tainted by this new hatred or disappointment on behalf of the other person, and I do my best to act that way. This paranoia doesn't apply to everyone, but if I don't see you for a few weeks, I am likely to start to assume that you hate me or something like that. And then I realize I'm doing that, and I do the workaround. Or I just ignore it all, and fall out of contact. You can imagine how exhausting that is.

Now I know some people will say that's "imposter syndrome." Sure, maybe it is, but naming it doesn't solve it for me. And some will say (or have said) all I have to do is change my thoughts! But you know, I have been working on this for years. I have had over a decade of therapy (though I was pretty messed up at the beginning of that, so I don't want to sound like I'm knocking therapists for being slow to help!) I don't find my own thoughts to be something that can be erased and rewritten. They are tangled up with feelings. And this paranoid kind of feeling has been real, and persistent, and it's been a source of extreme pain for me for many years. The best I've been able do is the kind of "act as if" approach I've described above.

So the change I'm talking about here is huge. These days, I'm starting to trust people. Seriously. For example, instead of assuming that my supervisor is losing interest in my work, for example, I have assumed he's got a lot going on himself, and I've thought about what I need from him as a supervisor and how I can make that work. I've noticed that lately I just don't start with the assumption that someone has taken against me, or is disappointed in me. What I'm doing doesn't look all that different from the outside. But it feels different.

Since I started writing about getting sober, I've talked about participating in the world. I know I can hold myself a little apart, and I also know that the full greenness of life isn't achievable if you separate from others. If you do that, you dry up. At times, I've returned to drinking because aspects of the social were more easily available when I drank, and though this stopped working, I didn't know what else to do. These days I'm sober, and I feel like I am starting to step into the world and participate more fully. I am connecting.

Because I noticed this new (and amazing) way of being, I wanted to write it down so I don't forget about it! I can have these great realizations and then just lose them again once things get busy, and that's come back to bite my sorry ass when I've forgotten all that's grounded me and kept me sane and sober. I lose my way so easily. So I'm writing this to slow down and notice the change, and hopefully hold onto it. I've been thinking about what I'm doing differently, and though I'm no great fan of lists, I think there are three things:

First, I'm sober. That clears away some of the mental dross that makes it hard to sort out feelings. I know when I quit drinking a couple of years ago, I had moments of this, the sense that I could walk up to a group of people and talk to them without the usual feelings of unease that would usually swamp me. I know alcohol does some strange things to feeling, and it feeds the paranoia. That's gone, and that's a huge help.

Second, I have been working on the cognitive part of all this. I know how to examine my feelings and thoughts and work out which feelings are based on my old habits rather than anything that's in the situation. My husband is a great sounding board here. He accepts my feelings as real and valid, even when they are a little crazy, and within that safely I am able to start to sort out what's really happening and what I am imagining, or even what I'm bringing about by what I imagine. I'm getting better at this, and it works better without drinking.

Third--and I never, ever, ever thought I'd say this but here goes--I have been praying. All my life, whenever anything went wrong or when I was waiting for news or struggling with something, my mother would tell me, "Say a little prayer now." As happens to many people, as a teenager I wasn't able to start developing a more mature faith, and the simple faith of my childhood started to ring hollow. For most of my adult life, I wasn't able to pray, or I didn't know how. I tried, but the closest I could come to anything that felt authentic was calling my mother and asking her to pray for me. Which I did, many times. We often didn't get along, and we sure didn't have any kind of ideal mother-daughter relationship, but when I needed to, I would call her and she would pray. Even after I lost faith in pretty much everything a few times, I usually held onto believing in my mother's prayers.

For the past several years, my mother has had severe dementia. She's doing as well as one can with that, but if you know dementia at all, you know talking to someone with dementia is a different kind of conversation. My mother can be present in moments, and she is very funny. She's even lovely and sweet, which she wasn't always when she had her wits about her! But her days of praying for me are long gone. So four months ago, when I knew I needed to quit drinking again and I knew I needed a deeper commitment to life to keep me sober, I started to pray. Every night, before I go to sleep, I say the three prayers that I said every night as a child. Then I thank god for everything I have, and I ask god to help me know what it is I need to do, and to give me strength to do it. Sometimes this is in words, sometimes it's more like opening myself to something. I'm not going to try to describe it in much detail, as I don't think I can. What matters is I have started to do my own praying. Somehow, this has brought me closer to my mother. And I think it's central to this trust in life I'm developing.

Now don't get me wrong. It's not that I think god is looking out for me so I don't have to do anything myself. It's much more subtle than that. It's more that I trust that things will be OK, even if they don't work out the way I want, or if there are big disasters along the way. I trust that I can act, and others can act, and we can try to work things out. I'm not suddenly sanguine about the world--there are serious problems with the environment, and we need to be working for economic and social justice. These things are not OK as they are. The best way to put it is maybe this: I trust life, and I trust that I can get on in my life.

Well, I don't know if I've made any sense to anyone here. This has been a huge shift for me, and it's important to me. I'll probably come back to writing about it again, as it's still a little beyond words. But I am grateful for what feels like a wonderful opening in my life. And yes, being sober is a big part of this.

Anyway, if you're still here, thanks for reading and keeping me company. Peace and joy to you.

(PS I edited the title after posting because I'd written "day 122" but I'm actually 123 days sober, not 122. Sure the numbers don't matter but still I want to claim them all! And 1-2-3 has such a nice ring to it.)

Round 3, Day 90: Joy. (And a great book!)

I'm no humbug, but I have not generally loved the festive season the way some seem to do. My family is very far away, and when I've visited at Christmas it's always been a fraught sort of affair. I stopped trying to make that work a long time ago. I've attended my fair share of orphan Christmas events, and I've been invited to join many people's family festivities over the years, but I find myself filled with sadness at many such events. For a number of years, I worked in a community centre and I usually took many of the holiday shifts, which was a good way to escape a certain part of the festive season, and at the same time a sway to participate in something that was usually mostly fun. Along with this, I've been with my husband for the past five Christmases, and we have developed our own very quiet Christmas tradition, which usually means a good meal by ourselves and a long walk or bike ride. A few days after Christmas we visit his parents, and that's always lovely.

I know that might sound sad, but the fact is, I have managed to find a peaceful enough way to get through Christmas, ducking a lot of obligatory cheer that would otherwise have rendered me feeling lonely and blue. And I have liked the pause that happens, when a lot of the world stops doing the usual thing, and there is actually time to slow down and enjoy the company of people I love.

So the other evening, we went to an early solstice concert. The music was beautiful: contemporary arrangements of viola, harp, piano, and vocals, and short pieces were interspersed with poetry readings, all somehow celebrating the sadness and beauty of this dark time of year. Such a wonderful, beautiful show! The last piece was a solstice carol performed by the whole ensemble (which included the composer) and the audience was invited to join in on the chorus, which we sang in a round. By the end, my face was streaming with tears and I felt filled with love for the composers, performers, poets, readers, and everyone in the room who had come together for what seemed to me a perfect way to acknowledge the season. At the end of the show, the organizer came across the room to give me a great large hug. He said part way through the show, he saw me wiping my eyes, and he was wiping his eyes, and seeing me weep made him weep even harder, and as the show ended and we all sang together and my face streamed with tears, his did too, and he told me he sang that carol directly to me. And then we hugged and cried about how beautiful it all was.

Throughout all this, I was sober. This event is part of a music series at which wine is served, and it has been one of the hardest places for me to resist drinking. Everyone always looks elegant and relaxed, and the music is always wonderful, and joining in on all this seemed always to involve joining the drinking. The fact that afterward I would go home and drink too much wine was always invisible in the moment. The past few years I have attended many of these events, and I have learned to sip a Perrier and enjoy the music and accept feeling a little teeny bit left out by not being able to drink. So the other evening, when I felt overcome with the beauty of the evening and my own joy in being fully part of it, it was only later that I realized that wine (or lack of wine) had nothing to do with the experience for me. I had only briefly missed having some, and once the show started I was absolutely swept away into the experience, and no drink would have made that any better. And though I was weeping publicly, I wasn't worried about being drunk and embarrassed! I was just happy to be part of it all. Sober.

Other than that, this past week I have attended several holiday functions, and I have enjoyed myself. I get the occasional pang, but I don't feel a steady longing to drink, and I'm greatly relieved about that. When I get these pangs though, I'm pretty honest about them. I don't pretend that booze is nothing, or that there's no pleasure in drinking, or that there is no camaraderie that's brought about by drinking with people, because I think I would be lying to myself to say any of these things. Instead I sometimes wail or cry and I acknowledge that I may be missing out somewhat. But I also remember the darkness that comes over me when I drink too much, and how hard it has been to shake that darkness yet again. And I think about how happy I have been these days--a little too busy and in uncomfortable flux in part of my life and insanely stressed in some ways, yes. Still, I'm happy. And I don't think I have ever felt this kind of happiness when I've been drinking. I've certainly never been able to live in feeling something like this, something that I think is probably what people talk about when they use the word "joy."

So that's where I am on day 90 of my third serious go at not drinking. In many ways the actual not drinking is mostly easy now, as it's been a habit most for the past 2 1/2 years. But I'm still trying to find my way with how I keep on with it. Despite my recent post about struggling at meetings sometimes, I have been attending once a week, and I get something there. I started reading a great book, Sobering Wisdom: Philosophical Explorations of Twelve Step Spirituality, an edited volume of philosophy essays on aspects of the twelve steps, compiled by philosophers Jerome A. Miller and Nicholas Plants. I know many people find a great deal of solace in the twelve steps, and in the AA program. I know that I need a spiritual way ahead if I am going to keep on this sober path, and I know that this is the right path for me, though I can so easily lose my way here. But I'm kind of an egghead, and I like to think about things, and sometimes in the AA and twelve step world (in person and online) intellectual curiosity about how the whole thing works isn't welcomed. I get that for some people thinking can stand in for doing, and coming up with reasons why something is wrong can prevent one from trying something. You've probably seen me do that, and maybe you do it too. So I figured the book would be a fine companion to my own explorations. And as it's written by a bunch or philosophers, it's not going to tell me that my problem is I think too much! I'm going to read it slowly and give it a proper review in January, but I thought I'd mention it now in case any other sober egghead types want to get themselves a thoughtful take on thinking through these ideas. (Maybe as an early sober Christmas gift for yourself? That's what I did.)

That's about all I have for now. Thanks for walking along with me here as we live through these long dark nights and wait for the light to come round again. Wishing you all peace and joy.

Quick update: the short answer is, I am well!

It's been a couple of months since I decided to reconsider being sober. A few people have commented or emailed to ask how it's going, so I thought I'd write a quick note to say I'm doing fine. (But listen: If you are reading sober blogs because you are struggling with the drink and looking for support from like-minded people, don't read this post. Take a look at the sidebar on my blog, where you will find posts by many people who are committed to being sober. If you're looking for support, that's what you should be reading, not this post! If you think you know better than I do and you want to save me from myself, please keep those thoughts to yourself, OK? We're all just figuring out how to live and no one has all the answers: not me, not you, not some expert! And as usual, no talk of wolves or witches are welcome here. There are lots of places online where you can talk about that sort of thing and be greeted warmly, and that's grand, but it's not my cup of tea. If you're just curious how I'm doing, or interested in a take on drinking by someone who was sober for a year and a half and now drinks, OK, read on. )

Phew! Now that's all out of the way and I can talk. Sorry to sound bossy there. I'm just heading off some conversations I don't want to have, that's all. Other than that, hello!

First, yes, I decided to drink again, and I have. And I like it. I had forgotten how much I really love wine, and how little I care for most other kinds of alcohol. I feel like I've become reacquainted with an old pleasure. And that's lovely. I have found that in certain kinds of social situations, I have more fun, and I'm more part of what's going on, when I am joining in the drinking. That's not the main part of my life, and if it were it would probably stop being fun. But as it stands, it's nice.

Also, there have been no great dramas or tragedies. I was joking with my partner that there's a truism in sober circles that tells you to "play the tape to the end." For me, sometimes the end seems to be I have some wine and a nice time. Once I drank more than was a good idea, and then I went home to bed. It wasn't much difference than what happens to people once in a while, just a confluence of being too tired and having some wine. Most likely I was sillier than usual. I don't mind that. I don't need to absolutely control every moment of my life. So my tape isn't looking so scary, or at least, not to me!

There was one evening where I shared wine with some friends and later wondered whether I may have had a better time without drinking. One of the friends I was with also has a complicated relationship with alcohol, and may have been disappointed that I decided to drink again. It was interesting, and I realized that, with that particular group, next time I probably wouldn't drink. No matter. I'm still figuring out how to do this, and I'm learning as I go.

Aside from the pleasure of drinking sometimes, and the feeling of fuller participation with the world that comes along with that, the big relief for me has been to let up on the incessant self-examination that for me has gone along with being sober and blogging. As I have said many times, I don't have much faith in the ongoing self-improvement project of contemporary psychology. Sometimes, yes, things in life get messy, and something needs to be done to make a change. But I don't think we are the sort of creatures that respond well to an endless process of analyzing and bettering, as though we were products that could be continually tweaked for greater market share or increased customer satisfaction. There is a lot of talk about acceptance on sober blogs, and sometimes that's been helpful to me. But I keep wondering whether sometimes that shades into accepting the world as it is, which I think is a problem given that the world we are in needs some change. Maybe deeper kind of acceptance would be to accept ourselves as flawed, and maybe always to some extent unknowable, and to get on with trying to make the world better.

Not that I'm engaged in a grand world-improvement project now either. But I am reading lots and working on my thesis and paying attention much more to the world and much less to myself. I don't think that's incompatible with not drinking, by the way. I just found that to keep up the not drinking, I had to keep up a set of beliefs about being sober that were nourished by reading sober blogs, and that led me to pay more attention to myself than I want to pay. Having questioned that practice, I am neither reading blogs nor being actively sober. And my take on it is this: I'm living well.

Years ago I went through a terrible depression, and when I was getting better and returning to the world, a friend expressed disappointment with me because he didn't like my pace or tone as well any more. He liked me better when I was more quiet, more interior. (In other words, when I was depressed.) I mention that because I feel the same shift in me now--I'm bored with all that being quiet and interior, and yet that may be a great deal of what makes up the bond between me and the world of sober bloggers. It's not that I can never be like that these days, it's just that it's only a part of me, and one that's less front and centre when I'm more engaged with the world, as I have been this past while. That goes along with my decision to drink again, but it's part of a bigger process of being in the world in a different way. So if I seem different, I am, and I know that, and I know it's not always welcome to everyone. But it's who I am, and I am pretty darn OK with that.

In any case, this may be my last post, as it doesn't seem to make sense to write in a sober community about the joys of drinking, or to write among people who are working on self-improvement to say that I think a lot of that is bunk. I don't want to be the poster girl for drinking, or to be put in a position in which I'm defending drinking to people who think it's an unhealthy practice. I really am just figuring out how to live, and that may end up being a more private process than this blogging adventure has been. But I did want to say hi, and say I'm doing well, before I sign off altogether.

Happy July to you all!

"Sea, light, and vertigo": more thoughts on wonder

On the wall next to my desk, I have a few favourite poems and quotes. I used to be able to see them while I was on my computer, but a year or so ago I switched to a stand-up desk, so now they are kind of over my right shoulder, and I sometimes forget they are there. This morning, I read a blog post about the passions that sustain our lives, and I was reminded to read a Wallace Stevens poem that's been on my wall for a while. Right under that, I have a line from Jose Saramago's masterful novel, The Stone Raft:

"happiness exists, said the unknown voice, and perhaps that's all it is, sea, light, and vertigo."

I love that line. I don't always know why I do, but I do. Today it's been speaking to me in a different way, and I'm going to try to talk about that.

I live in Canada, and I think many of us agree that North American culture (Western culture? Global culture?) can be pretty darn shallow at times. People feel buffeted by pressures to perform and produce, and find solace in consuming. (That's way oversimplifying, I know, so please don't jump on me too much, if anyone is even reading here!) For people who have decided that excessive drinking has been causing a big problem in their lives, the consumption part of this equation starts to become obvious, and obviously out of whack. So stopping the drink becomes a priority. At that point, sometimes the world seems like a big boozy carnival, one that's dangerous to step into but dull and lonely to be left outside of.

There is so much emphasis on happiness, but it's often equated with pleasure or comfort, so that when faced with the disconcerting fact of not knowing how to live, we are (bizarrely, to me) advised to eat cake, or that we all 'deserve a break,' though what that break is from, I'm not really sure. I like my sweets, and a little distraction can be healthy when you're wound too tight, but I don't see this focus on consumption as ultimately sustaining. I know about hangovers and liver health and all that, but really, this essentially doesn't seem all that different from drinking too much. It won't work for me, anyway.

And then there's another thread in our culture, linked to the humanistic psychology of the 1960s, and hippie counterculture and the self-help movement, that links back to Rousseau. Here it is understood that the world is craven and shallow, and true happiness comes from within. It makes sense that, if you are now critical of the surrounding consumption-oriented culture, you might turn away from it. There is a whole lot of emphasis on turning inward in the sober world.

But some interesting writers have raised the question that the inner world as we think of it might simply not have the resources we need to deal with the questions we are going to face. What if the person I am is made up of my engagement with the world? What if meaning is really something we share in the world, whether we even understand that or not, and it's not something I should go spelunking for in the hidden cave of myself? What if I can only find meaning through ongoing participation in the world?

Sometimes, when I have been thinking like this, I am reminded of being a bored and cranky child, admonished by an equally cranky adult to "go outdoors and play." I used to hate that! Yet these days, that's more likely what I tell myself. I ride my bike. Have dinner with my partner. Read. Go hear some music. (Another great show last night. Steve Reich drumming! Wow wow wow!) I'm not saying I don't exist, or there is no self, no me to engage with the world or be moved by people banging on drums or by Trout Lake in the morning mist. I exist. But more and more I have been wondering whether that existence is made up out of the interactions I have in the world. 

So I'm telling myself, don't fall into this introspection trap. Enough with the looking in. Look out!  Up or down or wherever, but out there somewhere. And go out into it! 

I think wonder is going to save us. And I think we encounter the wonder--sometimes in little sideways glances, sometimes head-on--when we're interacting in the world, doing things we love (or sometimes just stuff that has to get done) not when we're looking inside ourselves. Sea, light, and vertigo. If that's where the magic elixir of happiness is, we will have to step out into it. I will, anyway.

OK, that's what I'm thinking about these days. Now I have to go participate in my schoolwork! Peace and love to you all. And a little bit of wonder.