I was stunned when I read "Learn the difference between the sound of your intuition guiding you and your traumas misleading you," which I ran across in a Richmond, Kentucky Recovery Group on Facebook. I was stunned into Silence and Deep Reflection. Intuition had already fallen off the face of the Earth when I first got sober. Alcohol (when stuffing any one emotion or cluster of emotions) succeeded in pounding down all emotions beyond sensation and deep down, nearly irretrievable, many did not surface until years into my recovery.
Call it numb, if you will, but that doesn't really capture the desperate and anesthetized emptiness that somehow evolved inside me in that separate Universe known as Addiction.
CHEMICAL BETRAYAL: My brain sat like a brain you might see in a jar in a laboratory, unceremoniously embalmed in whatever chemical bath is necessary for its preservation.
My brain was not so much chemically preserved as betrayed. Yes, I felt betrayed by this chemical compound we call alcohol. The feeling at this particular intersection was no different than if I had been betrayed by a lover, only more numbing. And insane. More insane and insensate.
AFTER BETRAYAL, HOW COULD THERE BE TRUST?
Alcohol-Would-Have-to-Be-Made-Dead. This chain of words in English (and presumably all human languages) may not suitably capture the separation of subject and object, Me & Alcohol. Alcohol & I. Inseparable after 30 years and more than 50,000 drinks.
If I could not kill it, I could, at least, make Alcohol dead to me. "Alcohol, you must be made dead. You must die if I am to live. So ever sorry to see you go." Something like that, like the separation of conjoined twins.
And still, and yet, and soon, I would relapse again and again.
HUMAN TRUST: (Intuition) We're back to the Intuition part of the opening quote, which I'll repeat again here: "Learn the difference between the sound of your intuition guiding you and your traumas misleading you." Human Trust? I would need more than Intuition to bring me back to Humanity, like an amoeba inching towards the light. The Alcoholic Animal that I had become would need to move back from the Chemical Precipice and Rejoin the Human Race.
Trauma, unfeeling. Let it go, Jim. Move forward.
Trust, unyielding. Begin to Trust, to live again.
Intuition, fed by frayed nerves, sustained me as I slowly gained my foothold in Living Human.
Somehow, I cobbled together what can be assigned meaning only as a New Life.
Trust.
Trauma. Addiction. Betrayal. Trust. Impossible as it sounded it became possible. Doing became being.
More Human Connection. More Help and a renewed Trust. Fresh, Changed Perspectives, New Opportunities. Eventually I learned that Recovery is Possible, Doable, Irreplaceable.
I came to believe that "Nothing matters more than that we remain sober because when we remain sober everything matters more."
Shared Courage, Sober and Strong.
We Belong. We Deserve No Less.
Yes.
[More on this Subject tomorrow: "After CHEMICAL BETRAYAL, TRUST in RECOVERY Bred HOPE & CHANGE"]
*****
Here's to the Hope that my two books will find their way into your Recovery Toolbox and onto your Recovery Bookshelf.
#Enjoy my first book, the Autobiographical Fiction titled ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal. Find it on Amazon. Book it here: http://amzn.to/1bX6JyO
My NEW, Non-Fiction, BECOMING UNBROKEN: Reflections on Addiction and Recovery, is also on Amazon and may be found here: https://lnkd.in/dkF767RT
Both books are available in Print and Kindle editions.
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