This Too...

I was born into the world early in the month of May. My first experiences were the sights of lush green foliage, taking in the sweet aroma of Wild Columbine flowers or the musty scent of native mushrooms & hearing the melodies of nesting Scarlet Tanagers of rural West Virginia. 

Little did I know that after a mere 6 months of being alive, I would begin to experience my first cycle of death. Everything I had associated my life around would soon go away.. all that I had known would start to wither, die, migrate, or hibernate... they all knew it, mother nature knew it. Taking place of the sun's warmth would be the wind chilled kiss of winters darkness.

Why can't I just hibernate until Spring?

I personally struggle with the seasons changing. I am still fine from Summer heading into Fall,  but as we fade into the darker, shorter days of the winter months, I feel this internal shift, this primal instinct in me as the leaves change colors.. dying off then falling to the ground where they will decay.. as they have done 36 times in my life span. 

I have noticed this much more in the last five years of searching for, attempting, then achieving sobriety. The more I recover, the clearer it becomes that it isn't as simple as "not liking cold, or the snow, or Holidays."  I can actually tolerate them all & have found the joy in each. To me, recovery is finally getting to work on my weaknesses. The areas that have historically taken me down, that seem to be compounded by the time November rolls around.

Is it because the Spring & Summer months are easy n' breezy for the most part? Not always, as this year and many others have seen their share of difficulties to be sure. Is it something as simple as being able to enjoy my chosen outdoor sport & hobby of Motocross during the warmer, longer days? Not exactly, as I have ridden year round or lived in places that are warm enough to ride all winter as well. I've still isolated during these times.

Hindsight is 20/20 and as I track my last decade I can clearly see my issues with this season. Arrests, Suicidal, homicidal, relapses, drinking binges & drug sprees, all of my worst character defects come out to play when the warmth of the sun dives lower into the Southern hemisphere, so this year I've made myself aware. With awareness comes choice, & though I have struggled, I have been able to choose to walk through it even as I don't fully understand why I feel this way. Why I have this internal clock going off telling me it's time to fuck things up?

Life is good right now. I have the most continuous length of sobriety I've ever achieved. While my outside world is not in some sort of self imposed crisis or in the chaos of scrambling back out of the hole I've dug myself into, my mind & body remember. They recall that this time of year is supposed to be crazy, wild, unmanageable, INSANE!] I am not supposed to be ok with anyone especially with myself.

I

Do I dread the scarcity.. of running out? Like with a drink & a drug, or of light & love?

Fall & Winter = scarcity / Spring & Summer = Abundance

Feeling like a dog that knows it is about to be hit, I cower with my tail between my legs at the sight of Old man winters cold hand raised in the air ... I KNOW it's coming.

Today is a perfectly fine day. The sun eventually rose, burning off the bite of Novembers first morning frost. Temps eventually climbed into what I still consider T-shirt & shorts weather. Why do I feel life's luster fading before my eyes in anticipation of cold, dead, winter? This realization has made me face the fact that I do not handle seasonal changes well at all.

If this were the same day in the Spring, same weather, same sun rise & sunset, I'd be excited. I'd be hopeful of what was to come, longer days in the sunshine. I would know things were on the upswing MORE, MORE, MORE!

But in the Fall.... I see the drain swirling, I see her suitcase is packed, I see the bottle is half empty, I seen the corner baggie is running out. I see LESS, LESS, LESS.

“Breathe. You're going to be okay. Breathe and remember that you’ve been in this place before. You’ve been this uncomfortable and anxious and scared, and you've survived. Breathe and know that you can survive this too. These feelings can’t break you. They're painful and debilitating, but you can sit with them and eventually, they will pass. Maybe not immediately, but sometime soon, they are going to fade and when they do, you'll look back at this moment and laugh for having doubted your resilience. I know it feels unbearable right now, but keep breathing, again and again. This will pass. I promise it will pass.” 

—Daniell Koepke

Terminal Sickness

I don't often think about having a drink very anymore.. until today.
Some say old habits die hard... I believe they are then reincarnated into new ones. I still have the mindset to seek out excitement, the attention span of a fruit fly, the same time on my hands as there has always been. Now I try to spread it out somewhat evenly over multiple mindfully healthy activities. or I could focus ALL of my resources into doing the Hell out of one specific task.

It's Monday at 1:05 pm I've been in the Phoenix airport since 5 a.m. I am attempting to get back to Utah for the start of my work week. I am flying stand-by (can be stressful) I didn't make the cut onto the 6 am direct flight into Salt Lake city, where I would have landed at 7:30 in the morning, in time to grab coffee & breakfast while still making it in by 9 o'clock to open The Dirt Lab for business.

I didn't make the 8:30 am flight either (now I entering the stress zone) It is setting in that I am not making it to work on time, I have not been able to contact my employee on his scheduled day off to let him know that I'll be MIA, that I'll need him to hopefully open the shop.

I am not in control of the situation. I inhale deeply, then softly exhale out, pacing my breathing. I realize this, but it is proving difficult to accept as I scramble for other options before finally saying fuck it. This situation is what this situation is. Ultimately I've put myself in it.

Airports are like their own little universe, airplanes like their own little planets.. all of them allocated with booze & plenty strangers that to drink with. I spent a lot of years drinking like a sophisticated traveler in airports all over the continent, week in & week out. Much like having hoes in different area codes, who would even know? 

I'm not writing this to worry anyone close to my recovery who is reading, but by this point I have been considering pulling up a stool at one of the many Phoenix airport bars. A Tequila bar to be exact. Though its been a couple of years, I can still recall tasting the salt, shooting back the tequila, & sinking my teeth into the lime wedge.

I feel the chilled shot rush down my gullet, where upon hitting my empty stomach it turns into heat radiating from my belly... coursing through my veins out into my arms & legs ...   I crave it. Then another, and another..

I began to project how much time I had, then calculated how much money I had in my wallet, knowing I would have to pay for the experience in so many other painful ways.. ultimately I decided it wasn't quite worth it. Not today. 

I'm writing this because saying it out loud helps. Writing down my thought processes & thinking errors help. I'm saying this so I don't keep it in my head where this absurd thought can somehow be rationalized into an even more absurd action.

I repeated the serenity prayer over & over, I talked to another alcoholic on the phone. I found a quite area of an empty gate and laid down using my jacket as a pillow. I said the serenity prayer again.. I fell asleep.

I woke up and felt hunger rumble in my empty stomach. I found a new airport restaurant since I've last been through Phoenix called "Cowboy Ciao" I waited to be seated & since I was solo, I briefly pondered sitting at the bar.. not sure why it seems more socially acceptable to saunter on up to the bar like some kind of bad ass lead slinging outlaw, (as opposed to a quiet table for one.) but I opted for the latter.

My waitress arrived chipperly asking if I'd liked to start with one of their famously delicious Bloody Mary's or perhaps a mimosa? The thought ran through my head as I blurted out, "just coffee for me"!  Immediately feeling the relief in my answer. 

This occurrence of free will is a given for others, though in my world this is a break through to finally have the freedom of choice. Not long ago my answer to most any question was alcohol, drugs, or any mind altering substance. It has taken some recovery for me to figure out that almighty alcohol is not a solution, not the glue holding my life together, but rather a solvent eroding my life away.


The antithesis of no one ever knowing that I took a drink while stuck in the airport all day, is that my ego wants everyone to know that I was stuck in the airport all day and didn't take that first drink. Even though I thought about it, I now have the choice to say "Not This Day" so I wrote about it instead. You're Welcome.

I eventually made it home to Salt Lake City unscathed, the world didn't fall apart in my delayed absence, & I was able to walk through another of life's many obstacles sober. 
Though it would be nice to get a gold star by my name every time someone asks me if I'd like alcohol & I answer "No, thanks, just coffee for me." Like I was answering the winning question on Jeopardy or acing the SAT's....


 I'm going to have a talk with my sponsor about that one.