Brain fart #1 - sober, but still a bit shit
What's the point of sobriety if you're still a bit of a dickhead?
I want to preface this by saying that my brain farts aren’t my best work - but they’re thoughts that I need to put down somewhere, no matter how messy.
I sometimes get asked if I ever get the urge to drink, if I have ever ‘relapsed’ in the 6.5 years of sobriety. Funnily enough, I only get this when I’m in periods of relative life stability - maybe because at those times, I’m not as ashamed of my alcoholism, because it seems like a distant memory. Completely removed from who I am now. So it’s easier to answer with the situationally-honest response of “no”.
In a way, this is always true - I don’t have the urge to go back to my drinking life, to the absolute mess who was slowly dinking and self-sabotaging herself into an early grave. But there are times where the universe will conjure up what seems like repeat tidal waves of situations where I am forced to sit with the messy reality of being human - the times where I desperately want to retreat into the comfort of oblivion - and pals, I am currently starring in Deep Impact.
It’s almost a natural tendency to want to see the world in black or white, to divide everything into “good” and “bad”. The same goes for choices - there are correct, and incorrect, choices. But I’d wager that, if you’re reading this, you’re old or wise enough to know that this isn’t really true (please don’t ‘devil’s advocate’ me here with ‘what abouts’ - you know what I’m talking about). I fully believe that most people extend grace towards imperfection of others around them usually (unless you are on twitter, where this doesn’t happen at all, but I digress), but we are often unwilling to extend the same to ourselves.
So when we DO fuck up, or have to make decisions or take action that are the proverbial lesser of two evils, the shame can move us into territory where we either want to hide (drink ourselves into oblivion, go into a depressive state and not retreat from under the blanket, withdraw from those we care deeply about) or move into obsessive control mode (immerse ourselves in work, hobby, whatever it is). And why? Well, for me, it’s because I don’t want people to know who I really am underneath the 6.5 years of sobriety - a failure, a fraud, and still the absolute mess from years ago (albeit with very different coping strategies).
The burden of being an okay person, and relief in being slightly less shit
When I first started contemplating sobriety, after repeatedly googling ‘how do I know if I’m an alcoholic?’ I stumbled upon Holly Whittaker’s excellent blog, hip sobriety (while that particular blog is now-defunct, Holly is here on Substack, and I delight in getting notifications that she has penned something new). I connected with something in her writing and her narrative that I didn’t find in any other sobriety or recovery space. Holly talks regularly about how she conflates life responsibilities and admin with recovery - that if it slips at all, if she shows any sign of human complexity, she goes back to who she was back in 2012.
For me, it’s similar - if I avoid a bill, withdraw from my friends’ messages, have even a glimpse of those intrusive thoughts I thought I left behind in 2017, struggle with having to make a difficult decision at work, have to surrender control of anything in life for myself or for anyone who depends on me in any way shape or form, I am back to the person I was in alcoholism. Despite not having touched a drop of booze in 6.5 years, I have failed in my recovery, because I am still a fucking failure of a person. I guess that these are the times where I have most missed hiding in booze - where I could just be numb to these feelings of failure and discomfort.
On the train this morning, I stumbled upon this from Holly in On self-worth and being the person you thought you’d outrun:
And then there’s this: There is a part of me that enjoys this conspicuous failing, because there is a part of me that is so sick of the mask I feel I must wear to convince myself that I am a together kind of person by convincing everyone else of it first.
and it made me reflect on the ‘black and white’, ‘all or nothing’ thinking I have towards myself (that I dare say many of us have), that I need others to know that I have it all together or I am a failure. I believe this comes from good intentions, and a genuine regard for those we love - don’t they deserve us being the best people we can be for them? And of course, they do. But I would also suspect that we would hold them through their own imperfections, their own pain, their own human messiness - and we would do this without hesitation, because we love them for exactly who they were before, who they are now, and who they will be in the future. Why can’t we trust that they will extend this same grace towards us? Hint: it’s not a them-problem.
And I tell you what - it’s exhausting to hold this internal ultimatum. In my work and personal life, I support others in sitting with discomfort and grey areas. I encourage people to hold compassion, even love, for the parts of themselves they feel shame over. There is, I say, a sense of freedom in being at peace with being flawed, in recognising that all we are really doing in life is trying to be less shit every day. But I am also admitting my own hypocrisy here, in that I still cannot hold this for myself most of the time. I guess I need to be okay with this…..for now.