Once again, a nice post, Neo. Interesting to me because I was just thinking that last year, I went to a local Easter service hungover as well. I remember thinking that I was so locked into the merry-go-round of despair, quick fix, then deeper despair, and I could not envision a way out.
I think a lot about what I can offer someone who is caught in that God awful loop, because I lived it for so long. It seems to me that, in early sobriety, it is so hard to see that light at the end of the tunnel. We have known despair for so long and the chains are so hard to dislodge. Those first few months were agonizing...recalibrating my body, my mind, my emotions and it was so easy to get derailed. Instant relief was just an impulse away as a reaction to whatever I perceived was wrong with my world and how I thought it should be. The only thing I could do was take a deep breath and slowly, too slowly for this quick-fix alcoholic, learn that whatever thought, emotion, or situation was raging in my head at the time, would pass, if only I could wait it out. And it did. Every time. But it took me a long time to accept that and cease swimming upstream. Then one day I stopped living in insanity and started "seeing" the insanity from the tiniest fraction of a distance. Once that happened, I knew that I had "crossed over", so to speak. Certainly I, personally, could not have kept going had I not seen positive changes in my sense of self, my relationships and my life. But they were microscopic at first. Like watching a tree grow. You can't actually see it growing but, lo and behold, one day it is taller.
Today, I have hope. I have gratitude. And I have a chance at becoming whom I am meant to be.
Thank you, Neo, for starting this thread. We are on the same page, you and I. One day at a time, my friend. Right?