If You Get Sober, Your Problems Will Stop Having Kittens...

I heard this yesterday.  The speaker said puppies, but, you know, cats and me, so, I changed it to kittens.  Besides, cats reproduce way faster than dogs soooo, kittens just works better. Although puppies are way more work than kittens...well, I will just let you work that out for yourself.

Anyway, I find the statement to be abundantly true...

Before I got sober, I just had problems that would proliferate with an alarming rate.  Every time I turned around it was like there was another pregnant cat problem just birthing litters of more problems.

Getting sober doesn’t fix everything in your life, in fact, for me, getting sober just revealed that my life was a fucking mess and so was I.  But I will say, that once I stopped drinking, my problems just became my problems and stopped having kittens...

I was talking to someone yesterday who was having a hard time with life.  Objectively, she has an amazing life.  But her ability to appreciate the life she has waxes and wanes.  And this is what it is like for everyone.  The thing I think she missed is that her problems have stopped having kittens.  And while she may not have the life she dreams about right this very second, she has a life that is relatively problem free and her go to solution for feeling badly isn’t to drink herself into oblivion anymore and burn the whole fucking life down.  She was pretty prickly yesterday so I just let her have the pity party for one, and trust, that she will come around when she is ready.  Plus I was a little afraid to say anything because, well, that is just how we alcoholics are when we are in a mood.  Fuck you and everyone that looks like you!  And how dare you say anything positive when I am committed to feeling completely shitty about my life.  Me too sister, me fucking too.

But the life we get on the other side of addiction isn’t problem free.  It is life after all and problems are absolutely a part of that.  But our problems stop having problems and I think that gets lost in the shuffle a great deal of the time...

When I was drinking, my problems had litters of little baby problems.  It was awful.  All of my solutions made everything worse, and then that one decision catapulted (yes I chose that word intentionally) me into a cacophony of fucking problems and my world just spun out to an unmanageable level and then the ONLY thing that would bring relief, was to drink.  It was a set up from start to finish, designed to keep me fucked up and my problem maker replete with litter after litter of similar, adorable, smaller problems.

In short, it sucked.

Today, my problems just are my problems.  They are not having litters of other problems.  I am not behaving in ways that make everything worse.  I mean, sometimes I do, but it is like one wrong choice and then I recalibrate...not 42 wrong choices which beget 70 new wrong choices and so on and so on until there is a problem pandemic.

What happened for me is that sobriety gave me a foundation to just clarify the problems I actually have and clear away all the “problems” I was creating and propagating because I just couldn’t stay fucking away from the booze and shit lifestyle that came with my drinking.

Disappointment comes in sobriety, sometimes we don’t get what we think we deserve.  Sometimes we are not given the promotion, the new house, the friend group, the lifestyle, the job, the family, the things that we see other people gain with impunity. And those are hard days and our feelings are real and require our attention.  But for me, what never fails me to recognize and remember is that because I am sober I have a choice about how much energy and effort I am going to give a problem, a disappointment and heartbreak.  I have to feel my feelings, that was one of the hardest lessons I have ever had to learn.  I cannot shop it, date it, fuck it, eat it, drink it or drug it away.  I have to just feel the mother fucker and then move on to the best of my ability.  Some days that will be easy, and other days it will take a little time and then there are those other days where I just won’t be able to shake the dissatisfaction I have with my life and not getting what I thought I should, or what I deserve or the like.

And there are days when I just have to go back to bed.  I just don’t have an A game or even an F game.  I got nothing and instead of inflicting myself on everyone I love, I just opt out.  But that doesn’t happen very often for me anymore.  Whereas when I was new in sobriety, I had to do that a lot.

Today, I have found a way to love the life I am living even when it doesn’t look the way I want, even when it hurts, even when it sucks.  Why am I able to do this?  Because I have the distant past as my forever benchmark, no matter how badly things are going today, it could always be worse!  How do I know that?  Because it was, every single mother fucking day when I was using.  My problems proliferated and I was buried underneath litters of problems that I could not get out from under.  Today, I have a way of living that allows me to take the hit and stop the narrative I begin to write about why and how long and it will never, ever be better.

I want to tell all this to my friend who is suffering today but I am not sure how, or if she can hear me.  Honestly, I am afraid to give her tough love and I am afraid to not.  I hate that she is in pain, I hate it more that she cannot experience all the blessings in her life.  It isn’t my job to jolly her up.  It isn’t my job to make her be grateful or different or happier.  That is solely her job. My job is just to love her through it while recognizing this is a universal feeling, and I have it too, sometimes. But it does pass, eventually.

So today I will hold space for both of us as we both muddle our way through this life.  Doing the best we can with what we have and hopefully neither of us choosing to pick up a pregnant problem and let it have kittens all over the fucking place...

And to be clear, I think I would be way happier about the kitten producing problem situation. I mean, I love cats and adding 42 more wouldn’t be the worst thing that has ever happened...

But I also know that I can indulge that delusion because I do not currently have 42 problem kittens.  And I find immense gratitude for today’s problems are not likely to explode with kittens and then those kittens having kittens.  Today I know that I am here, living, doing my best to just stay sober and be present for whatever life brings my way, be it problems that feel unavoidably hard, or blessings that feel completely delayed, overdue or unwarranted...It can always be worse, and I know that because I survived the worst.

Again, still...