FreeOwl

Now let me start right out with a disclaimer:

I am a glass-half-full guy. I am a guy who believes in the power of the positive. I don't spend time wallowing in regrets. I find that the best way forward on the spectrum from despair-to-joy is to rigorously focus on gratitude and seeing the best in things.

Despite all that - I am human.

And so it was that last night as I did the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen after putting my girls to bed after we'd gone raspberry picking - that I was hit with a spontaneous review of Things Thrown Away.

I don't really know what triggered it. But there I was, rapid-fire rewinding through events, scenes, days, hours, even full years that I spent doing drugs heavily, drinking heavily, being near-constantly stoned.

I have a nice life and a lot to be thankful for. I embraced sobriety before alcohol took absolutely everything. I stopped the ride down well before the successive bottoms that would have come had I continued.

Yet, still, I threw away thousands of precious moments out of my head on substances. And I felt regret for that. Or maybe more accurately; I felt deep grief. Sure, I still lived those times. But many of them are hazy at best. Much of my own life is lost in shadows of obliterated memories. Orphaned somewhere in my cross-wired brain, addled from all the years of abuse. Oh, I'm a sharp enough guy. I'm OK as it pertains to thinking and feeling and even some memories. Yet there are vast swaths of my own life that I simply don't recall. That's scary, and it speaks to how much I really did sacrifice. Even today, over two years sober, I find that my memory is impacted. I have a very hard time remembering people. Names. Faces. Even people I've met multiple times. I have trouble recalling what I did on what day... sequences of events.... details of the picture sometimes elude me.

I think all of this, again, is down to the abuse I dealt to my own brain, through my own choice to use substances excessively. I don't know if that will ever heal. Maybe my brain is perma-wired that way.

I'm so glad that I chose to stop that. I don't have to feel that grief, that loss in an ongoing way anymore. But I thought it was worth mentioning. Worth sharing.

Along our journey of sobriety we will at times face the reality of what we did to ourselves in the past. We won't be able to change it. Only how we feel about it and how we choose to react to it.

I feel pretty glum about the lost moments that should have been cherished. I will focus on the ones I DID cherish and on the journey itself that led me to sobriety and a new understanding. And I will react to it by sharing with you, with meeting friends, with sponsors. I will react to it by recognizing it for what it is - NOT by letting it lead me back to alcohol.

Happy Sober Tuesday everyone.