Sobriety...

Someone said this at a meeting the other night...and it felt like one of the most true things I have ever experienced.

“Sobriety is not the absence of substances — it’s the moment you stop negotiating with the lie that something outside of you can fix what only truth can heal.”

I mean, sobriety has to begin with the absence of substances...that has to be the place you start.  I know, for me, that if I was able to still use substances to change the way I feel, I would have never done the inner work.  I just wouldn’t have done it, ever.

But sobriety is so much more than just not drinking and using.  I didn’t know that when I got sober.  I didn’t know that I was embarking on a life long practice of not using things, substances or other things, to change the way I felt about myself.  I didn’t know. I am grateful I didn't know, because I think if I would have known, I would have never started.

And I would love to report more progress in this arena.  I haven’t used drugs or alcohol in a very long time but I didn’t not stop trying to use other things to change the way I felt.  Perhaps, according to the above definition, I am still not really truly sober since I do still negotiate with the lie that something outside myself can fix me.  I still shop, eat, don’t eat, go to the gym, date, not date.  I am still compulsive and addictive in my manner and way of being.  I do not do it to the destructive levels I did substances, but the addict remains, all these years later.  And I am not sure it can ever be different...

Perhaps some people who are addicts can stop negotiating with the lie that something outside us will fix us.  But living in the society we do today, it is an idea that is reinforced, advertised and peddled everywhere you turn.  And I guess the truth is that something outside yourself will “fix” you for a little while.  We all seek fixes...this relationship will fix me, this dress or pair of jeans will fix me, this beauty product will fix me, this person, place or thing will make me better.  And the truth is they will, temporarily.  And then the day always comes when whatever you are using for your fix, stops working.  And then you are bewildered, lost and confused, just like you were when you were using substances.

And I would love to tell you that 30 years later, this has become different, and I suppose on some levels it has, then there is the reality of my life which demonstrates otherwise.  I buy into the potential of that thing changing the way I feel right now, with little regard for the future, or my ultimate wellbeing.  I do think of spiritual practices and ideas and sometimes I can even turn toward them instead of my usual behavior of getting a fix with whatever the fuck I want to use today.

I know the lie.  I know how it goes, but my belief that someday I will get truth from the falsehood seems to be hard wired into my soul.  Sometimes this fact is quite depressing.  I mean, all this work, all this effort and I still use things to make me feel better or different. I still engage the lie instead of seeking truth.  And the truth is very simple...there is nothing outside myself that will ever bring lasting peace or serenity.  Nothing.  Everything outside me lives in the temporal.  While all things within me go on forever.  Not that they can’t be changed, but that the solution is within me always.  I need a soulution, always have, always will.

I guess what I have to admit all these years later is that I still get high.  Not with coke or alcohol or nicotine or anything like that.  I saw the futility of those highs, I saw that they only brought me lower...so very low.  And I can see all these other things I have used over the years have had a similar effect, the high is just not as high and the low just not as low.  the consequences of these other addictions doesn't threaten my life daily. Which seems like progress until you realize that you are just doing the same behavior with a different medium, again, still...

I pray that one day I will stop my incessant negotiation with the lie and only seek truth.  But honestly, I am not sure I am able.  I am not sure it is in my DNA.  I am not sure that I have a different way of being.  I chase highs and avoid lows.  This is how I am.  And while I would love to say something that seems way more actualized and sober, I can’t.  I do everything alcoholically.  Sure, I am better than I used to be. And also worse in some ways.  The longer I am away from the drink, the more I see how much I substitute other things for what I put down.  And I know I am not alone in this, I see other recovery people do what I do.  It is like it is ingrained in us...and no matter how long we are sober and working a program of spiritual action, this idea that something outside ourselves will change the way we feel, that will fix us, help us, improve us, doesn’t ever seem to leave us completely.

For me I have to remember to stop negotiating with the lie daily, sometimes hourly.  I have to be willing to turn towards truth, which is that I am always going to want to go up or down and will find it almost impossible to be where I actually am, forever.  This is how I am, and who I am.  And I am at a place of acceptance that no matter what I do, or how long I am sober, this is who I will always be.  The best I can hope for is to be able to see this truth and live in some sort of peaceful abiding with it.  To see that I will always reach for that which is outside me to fix me, calm me, excite me, heal me.  And I will find no peace whatsoever until and unless I look at the lie I keep telling and see that there is no lasting satisfaction to be had.  My truth is that I am an addict and that is an immutable truth.  And because I am an addict, I am bent towards the external and will avoid the internal as much and for as long as I can.  My best hope is that I can create structures and practices to help me remember this fact daily.  And that I endeavor to align my will with spiritual practices that help me to see, repeatedly, that it will always be an inside job, no matter what my head tells me.  And while I may gain insight and self knowledge, that alone will never be enough to heal me...

But, if I continue to seek and pray and trust that something other than myself can restore me to sanity, then I have a chance to walk in the sunlight once more.  I can live happily, joyously and as free as one so afflicted can be.  One day at a time.  Forever.   Again, still...