Checking in -- 4 years
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 443
Checking in -- 4 years
I haven't posted in a while, but I wanted to check in and mark the occasion of four years sober.
When I quit, I had no idea how much change was in store for me. I had to go back to first principles, really, and find out what I wanted from myself and for myself. I had spent a long time in a kind of dictatorial/fearful relationship with the world -- always striving to change others, change myself, achieve success, receive praise, avoid exposure, and reach perfection -- or at least never let on otherwise. These feelings were not "why" I drank, exactly, but rather the accompaniment to drinking.
So what changed? I recently read a passage in Anthony de Mello's "Awareness" that spoke to me:
"There's a story of a disciple who told his guru that he was going to a far place to meditate and hopefully attain enlightenment. So he sent the guru a note every six months to report the progress he was making. The first report said, 'Now I understand what it means to lose the self.' The guru tore up the note and threw it in the wastepaper basket. After six months he got another report, which said, 'Now I have attained sensitivity to all beings.' He tore it up. Then a third report said, 'Now I understand the secret of the one and the many.' It too was torn up. And so it went on for years, until finally no reports came in. After a time the guru became curious and one day there was a traveler going to that far place. The guru said, 'Why don't you find out what happened to that fellow.' Finally he got a note from his disciple. It said, 'What does it matter?' And when the guru read that, he said, 'He made it! He made it! He finally got it! He got it!' "
To the extent that I have found peace in the last four years, it is because I've learned to let certain things go, to throw so much BS overboard. I let the drinking go along with it. I worry less about tomorrow and think more about today.
"What does it matter?"
I can hear the wisdom in that now.
Hope you are all doing well in your journeys.
When I quit, I had no idea how much change was in store for me. I had to go back to first principles, really, and find out what I wanted from myself and for myself. I had spent a long time in a kind of dictatorial/fearful relationship with the world -- always striving to change others, change myself, achieve success, receive praise, avoid exposure, and reach perfection -- or at least never let on otherwise. These feelings were not "why" I drank, exactly, but rather the accompaniment to drinking.
So what changed? I recently read a passage in Anthony de Mello's "Awareness" that spoke to me:
"There's a story of a disciple who told his guru that he was going to a far place to meditate and hopefully attain enlightenment. So he sent the guru a note every six months to report the progress he was making. The first report said, 'Now I understand what it means to lose the self.' The guru tore up the note and threw it in the wastepaper basket. After six months he got another report, which said, 'Now I have attained sensitivity to all beings.' He tore it up. Then a third report said, 'Now I understand the secret of the one and the many.' It too was torn up. And so it went on for years, until finally no reports came in. After a time the guru became curious and one day there was a traveler going to that far place. The guru said, 'Why don't you find out what happened to that fellow.' Finally he got a note from his disciple. It said, 'What does it matter?' And when the guru read that, he said, 'He made it! He made it! He finally got it! He got it!' "
To the extent that I have found peace in the last four years, it is because I've learned to let certain things go, to throw so much BS overboard. I let the drinking go along with it. I worry less about tomorrow and think more about today.
"What does it matter?"
I can hear the wisdom in that now.
Hope you are all doing well in your journeys.
Member
Join Date: Oct 2012
Posts: 5,937
Congrats, Deckard! It's great to see you post again. I'm at about the same length of sober time as you and my experiences seem to have mirrored yours. At first there's fear- of everything! Then some relief to be off the treadmill of addiction. After that (at least for me) there was this pregnant sense of expectation, of what I don't know. I suppose I figured the skies would part and I'd have answers from On High about how to live my life. But there was just life itself.
Member
Join Date: Mar 2015
Location: Florida
Posts: 874
Good job on 4 years.
When first sobering up one of the things I did to keep busy was clean out drawers, closets, garage, etc. It helped mentally to have less clutter physically. Got rid of items that did not seem to matter any more.
When first sobering up one of the things I did to keep busy was clean out drawers, closets, garage, etc. It helped mentally to have less clutter physically. Got rid of items that did not seem to matter any more.
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