So Serious

I shared at a meeting last night. I don't particularly like to share, but I do it because I know it is instrumental to the success of my recovery. It's part of that, 'going to any lenghts' stuff. Doing things that take me over the edge of my comfort zone and challenge my old thinking patterns is what helps my progress in my recovery.

So I shared. And I when I started out, I wanted to speak with a lightness in the way I was communicating. I don't want to be so damn serious, but that's how it ends up coming out. I listen as some of the old-timers speak about their experiences: they do it with a calmness, a sense of humor; they have a lightness and matter of fact way of sharing. I can't seem to do that. The awareness of how I was living, what I was putting myself through, needlessly, and what I put others through is still so excruciatingly painful. I was miserable beyond words.

When I think back, especially over the last three years of my drinking, a huge, tight ball of sadness bounces in the pit of my stomach. It's still so fresh, like an open wound that hasn't yet scabbed over. During my drinking career and into the first month or so of my sobriety, I remember thinking- it wasn't that bad. But, oh my God, yes it was that bad. Now that I have a way of life to compare it to, to hold it up against, I can see it for what it was and it was much more than bad- it was horrendously tragic.

Maybe one day, I will be able to talk about my experiences without having to be so serious and grave. But maybe, too, the seriousness is good for me. It is a way of keeping it fresh and acknowledging just how bad it really. I am so grateful that I don't have to live that way anymore.