My Sober Journey

I am hoping the images alone give you some idea of what it’s like to get sober and clean. For one thing the path is not straight. Very little is in the natural world. Once you remove the idea of competition from a human being , it seems very little is straightforward. I can tell you my sober anniversary, the first day I didn’t have a drink after a period of alcoholism is October 1 , 2013. I have taken this journey a day at a time. Sometimes I have taken the journey an hour at a time.

Does it matter if I was always an alcoholic? If it doesn’t then does it matter when I became an alcoholic? Am I still an alcoholic? This question matters. In the literature I have read around how the 12 step programs came into being, alcoholism is described as a disease, a spiritual malady, seeking connection with a higher power and not finding one. I am not an expert on these things. I know however that I woke up one morning and fell into my wall. My immediate thought was I was still drunk, and my second thought was really , Ah Shit , I need help.

I went to a local meeting the next day October 1 2013. I have not consumed a drink of alcohol since then. I have biten into things that had alcohol and spat them out. I have been served things that had alcohol cooked in them and I have learned to avoid anything that might trigger me. By triggered I mean provoke a desire to have a drink. To have a drink I mean , attempt to solve whatever situation , good or bad , I find myself in , by having a number of alcoholic drinks. I have only a daily reprieve and I am pretty sure, that knowing how compulsive I am , how dramatic and catastrophic my thinking is, if I ever go back out to the world of drinking, it would be the end of me.

I was the youngest in a large Irish Catholic family. By the time I came along, my mother had to go back to work with me ‘in her belly’ as she used to say. She was a night nurse, a midwife, and eventually a manager in a hospital. She didn’t start working days till I was about 8 or 9.

There was tons of good quality booze in our house all the time, no one drank it. My father was a tee totaller and my mother would be off her rocker on glass of sherry at Christmas time. I think my dad started to have a glass of wine at Christmas when he was in his 60s. I have never truly understood what the thinking was in our home. I know it was for guests. When there was guests they usually brought their own anyway. So even when my mother was in her 90s , her home still had bottles of the stuff in cupboards and under shelves.

My first drunk came was I about 14 or 15 in Skerries with some school friends. I got very drunk on very little. Too small bottles of Stag cider and two small bottles of McCardles Ale. I thought I was superman. I belived I could fly. The Euphoria was out of this world. I don’t believe I have touched that level of feeling ever again. I was not aware of drinking alcoholically till I was in my thirties. I used to party with the rest and the best. I didn’t get any indication my consumation was out of the ordinary, not even when I drank gin from a gravy boat, and I hung out with people who did drink far more than I could. I dabbled a little bit in hashis which did nothing for me, I was always afraid of heroin and coke and told my mates as teens if we were ever around it, to get me the hell out of there. Somehow I knew as a teen something about myself that I couldn’t truly admit until I was in my mid 40s.

In my thirties I had a day where I met someone to talk about a theatre production early on a saturday morning over tea and coffee in a very local bar. When that meeting was finished there was a Man Utd football match due on the telly for an early kickoff. I recieved a call from someone asking me to go to another bar to watch it. I don’t remember anything else till 1 am the next morning where I opened the door to my flat and fell like a tree, flat on the floor. That night with my 6 month old son in my arms, I pissed the bed. That was my first warning. I managed to stay off the booze through shame and fear for a few months. I showed up in the south of France with my partner at our inlaws and my resolve was broken easily and I was off to the races for the next 12 years.

The day after my first sober meeting, my team leader at work told me my contract was being terminated in a few months. He didn’t like me. I was about 6 months sober I had a recollection of trying to cut a branch with a chain saw when I completely sozzled. How my head is still on my shoulders is beyond me. This had happened in 2003 and I had blanked it out of my mind. I destroyed 2 relationships, I was completely isolated. I had no support network to speak off. So it was perhaps no surprise I woke that morning and had the realisation that I really needed help.

I was sober 8 months when my father passed. I was amazed as a bottle of wine was shared out between 12 people at the funeral, and to this day I wonder what is the point?

I was and I still am powerless over alcohol. That really was the point. I couldn’t manage myself, nor life, nor people , nor places or things the way they were, and so I drank to the edge of obliteration frequently.. Enough to get a buzz on, enough to forget and drop all the social barriers and hangups and enough to be able to walk home giddy or get the tram, or get thrown off the tram because I couldn’t find the ticket I paid for. So when things got unmanageable, unworkable, unlikeable, I turned to drinking. When things went well or there was a celebration to be had, I drank. I used to tell myself I didn’t drink in the morning. I would get up at 11am on Saturday and have lunch at 12 and of course a glass of wine. Hey it was midday it was allowed.

When I walked in the door of my first meeting, I was in a situation where I hated myself, I was isolated and alone, God if there was one, didn’t give a shit about me or at least I wasn’t worth the effort. I was going to end up living on the streets, life was tough challenging and difficult and an endurance test. I had no idea I was dealing, with ADHD / Austism / clinical depression and Alcoholism.

These are not lables that come from the modern fad of labelling anyone uncomfortable with a commorbidity. People who had worked with kids who had special needs told my parents all was not well. They were not equipped to do anything about it that was in any way shape or form constructive.

I had rocked back and forth like one of the kids we saw on TV from the Romanian orphanages, until I was 13. My maths teacher got irritated and told me to stop. I continued and he got very irriated and told me to stop for gods sake. I did and controlled myself for that class and bizzarely never did it again.

I was bullied at school and had no clue why. Teachers paid me special attention as if they knew something about me I didn’t. I struggled to make friends and believed that people who were not close were and that those who were , weren’t. Every relationship I was in was because people were taking pity on me.

My first girlfriend broke off with me, because I kept ignoring her in the shop. The only problem is I don’t remember ever seeing her there. Apparently most of my life I have been in my own little bubble and drinking and getting drunk not only quenched physical thirst, it quenched an emotional , and perhaps spiritual one. As recently as two years ago a fellow sober man told me I had ignorned him in the street. I apologised and explained I sometimes zone out. It’s happened driving. I go from A to B and when I get to B I have no idea how I have got from A.

I have found most of my problems , causes, triggers, and my issues, all come from the problems in my head. Let me rephrase that. I tell myself stories from conclusions drawn from unclear evidence. Allow me to be clearer. I make shit up and I get off kilter. It’s that simple. I am not a victim or a waste of space.

I have learned that if there is a creator of the universe , whatever that may be, I am here as a gift to myself. This life is present, a gift, an opportunity. It’s not a prison sentence or something to be endured. Most people are not trying to insult me or piss me off or be difficult. Most people are struggling with the same manifestation I am. Life. Lonely Insecure Feeling Everyday. When I focus on the fear or the problem or the issue, I basically start to drown in anxiety and fear and ignornace. No one who knows how to swim jumps into a current and just flails around.

Learning to swim takes time. Learning to trust that if I do certain actions the water will support me. So I have learned to come to meetings, to meditate, to practice gratitude on a daily basis, to be creative, to be available to other addicts and alcholics when they want help, to be generous with my time and spirit. To continue with gratitude and slowly , over time, a transformation happens. I become a better swimmer , then a good swimmer , then a strong swimmer, and yes I might get cramp from time to time and so I ring my sponsor or talk to my higherpower.

There is a solution to every problem. There is a deep truth that every human being is a treasure and worthy of love and success and prestige and yet, if I chase them I loose myself. So I stay true to myself. I move away from people who can’t walk their talk or who are unwilling to help themselves. A guitar with no strings makes no music or at least not the music it was intended for.

So if you are struggling with addiction, alcoholism, compulsion, I can give you a roof over your head if you really want to flip life around and become abundant, confident and whole. I can show you the steps I took to heal and that I contintue to take. I can offer you a space to grow and become the best version of yourself.

This is a place where instruments find strings and become tuned. Where seeds are planted and grow. Where projects are created and evolve.

This is what The Healing Path is. A place of recovery and sobriety and spirituality. Come have look around and hear the vision and stay a while.

Thanks for reading.