drunkalogue: chronicles of a gay male in sobriety

The Awful Grace of God

"He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God."

Aeschylus

Someone shared that quotation at the end of a speaker meeting a few weeks ago. I remember reading Agamemnon in high school and again in college, and both times that quotation struck me for its profound insight on the human existance.

When I reached a year of sobriety, everything collapsed beneath me. I lost my home, almost lost my car, dealt with death and the relapse of my closest friend in sobriety, and because I'm a glutton for misery, quit a job that was draining me emotionally. And once again I am forced to acknowledge my crippling depression and anxiety. Everything changed, and I felt that I was in the exact same place that I was when I was deepest in my alcoholism. Only now I was sober.

Someone who wasn't in the program told me that the life that I knew was gradually being erased as I continued in my recovery, so that I could build a new life from nothing and begin compiling a sober history. I must overcome a great deal of adversity in order to build the life that I deserve and have always sought.

Over the past couple of months, I've wanted to die, I've wanted to shut down, I've wanted to placate my misery by resigning myself to the fact that I don't deserve the life that I want. It wasn't until someone read those words that I realized that I am right where I am supposed to be, that if I overcome my present situation I just might find the happiness that I am seeking.

My first year of sobriety was all about staying sober. Now I know that I can stay sober. As I trudge along year two, I am forced to look at deep inside myself, recognize the growth of which I'm capable, and take systematic action to change old behaviors and harbored emotions. Above all else, I am forced to take responsibility for myself, something I have never done before.

I know who I want to be, but for the first time in my life I genuinely trust God in helping me get there. I am where I am for a reason, I just pray that I will become a better person for it.

Everything Will be OK

Last Sunday, I heard someone in a meeting say they wanted to die in sobriety. His confession startled me a bit, mainly because I noticed him as he arrived to the meeting late and quietly made his way to an empty seat. My thoughts turned salacious as I studied the hints of his defined body beneath his workout clothes. As I glazed over his built-up chest and soccer legs I said an abbreviated gratitude prayer in my head. Thank you god. Finally someone hot in AA.

Then I noticed him smile to another member in the room, examined the confident way he carried himself to his chair, and I thought to myself: he's figured it out, this is someone who has no problem staying sober.

Then he said he had wanted to die. In the twelve or so years he said he's been sober there were many desperate moments when he simply did not want to live anymore.

His honesty grabbed my attention. Across the room was someone whom I judged on a wholly physical level, who spoke a truth that was sometimes uncharacteristic in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. He confessed that there had been many times that he wanted to slip away, but the AA had conditioned him to believe that he would rather die than drink. No matter how difficult life got, and life in sobriety is by no means easy, he said he would never want to return to the chaos that alcohol brought him.

I listened to him intently. Sitting across the room was a man who once felt what I feel, who truly understood that the challenges and struggles do not disappear when the bottles and bars are taken away. My life is sobriety is by no means easy. Life is more difficult than when I was drinking my life away. What I hate most is that I no longer have alcohol to blame. My life since I have gotten sober is one challenge after another. Many insomnia-riddled nights I have prayed to God to please let me fall asleep and hope that in the morning I wouldn’t wake up. Many nights I have sat in the dark, crying hysterically, asking myself when life will finally get better.

The truth is my life is better, mainly because it’s different. I no longer have the luxury of running away, I'm forced to actually address my problems and accept my responsibility in them.

He said that, although he has wanted to die in sobriety, he also recognized that he was growing, and he faithfully believed his life would change.

Early in his sobriety he started going to Unity Church. When he was drinking, Sundays were reserved for sleeping off the weekend's debauchery, but now that he was sober, he really didn't know what to do with himself. He made the commitment to attend church services, since he really had nothing better to do. And every Sunday after service he would stop by a flower shop and buy one flower to plant on the patio of his condo. Before he knew it, he said, he had a garden. Flourishing outside his window was a physical manifestation of his own internal growth. And as the flowers grew in number, his life got better.

Despite the fear that keeps me up at night, despite the anxiety and sadness and loneliness and pain, I know my life will change. I firmly hold on to the belief that one of these days I will look back and recognize my growth, so long as I maintain my sobriety and continue my recovery. I have to. 

I wanted to thank him for his honesty and to tell him how much I identified with everything he had to say, but only had the courage to muster a smile as I passed him by after the meeting. Still I thank him for reminding me that, despite everything that is going on in my life right now, I will be OK.

Houston Roundup

The Houston Roundup is set to take place November 23-26, 2006 at the DoubleTree Hotel in downtown Houston, TX. Early registration is available at the discounted rate of $35 before September 15.

More information can be found at HoustonRoundup.org

If you have any information regarding other gay-related recovery events, feel free to email me. I'd be happy to post your information on this site

A*****

I knew he had relapsed. After a four-month absence, he returned to the meeting rooms exhibiting the skittish, penitent behavior of someone who, in a lapse of judgment and level-headed thinking, cast aside everything he knew to lay claim to a bar stool. He hugged the walls before and after meetings, hid in the back rows during, retreated into the dark recesses of the smoking room and nervously smiled when other members welcomed him home.

I did everything I could to ignore him, not because he had left, but because I stayed. I somehow feel guilty for that.

Hovering around the rooms, I overheard fragments of his story. He told some how intoxicating drinking was at first and how he convinced himself he gained control over alcohol. He told others how quickly his drinking overpowered him. He told everyone how grateful he was for making it back.

He joined a group of us for dinner last Sunday. Despite all my previous efforts to avoid him, he sat across the table from me. In between the gossip and the inane discussions about Matthew McConaughey and Kelly Clarkson, he filled in the gaps in his story.

He described the dark places his drinking and drug use took him, and testified to the progressive nature of our disease. He camped out in bathhouses, scoured the Third Ward for drugs, locked himself in his house for days, and took an entire bottle of sleeping pills. To his disappointment, woke up days later, still alive and still plagued with that hanging, empty feeling he tried to extinguish forever. He told me there was a reason he was still alive, but that he was angry at his bungled attempt at suicide.

Still he was grateful he made it back into the rooms of AA, grateful that he would find himself in treatment within a matter of days.

He left for Dallas today. During dinner last Sunday, he told me he had every intention of staying, that a change in environment and a fresh start at recovery was probably best for him.

I wanted so badly to tell him that he kept me sober, to remind him of one Tuesday night meeting last January, when, while huddled in the corner of the lamp-lit room, I secretly conspired to buy bottles and bottles of whiskey and slowly drink myself to death. That night he passionately told the story of his friend who died of alcoholism and emphatically reminded everyone in the room that, yes, people die from this disease, that outside our safe haven people were quietly wasting away. I wanted to tell him that he saved my life that night, that he was the reason I am still sober and that I wish he could truly believe what he told everyone that night.

I wanted to remind him of the Monday night meeting he chaired, when he cornered me in the coffee bar afterwards, gave me the biggest hug and asked if I was OK. He told me he was concerned. Until then I didn't think anyone was.

I wanted to tell him that I looked for him on my first Birthday Night, that I scoured the room so I could thank him from the podium, and that I regretted not expressing my gratitude even though he was not there. I wanted to tell him that I was glad he made it back, that I missed seeing his smiling face and that, yes, I noticed that he was gone and prayed for his protection.

Instead, I wished him luck and that I hoped treatment would work out for him this time. I’ll probably never see him again.