So So Sober

In a couple of days, I will have strung together two months without alcohol. Not only have I not had any booze, I have not had cravings for it.

Weird!

For about two years, I have dabbled with experiments to control my drinking, to manage it and tame it. I really wanted to keep it in my relaxation toolbox, at least that was the story my one brain told my other brain. My drunk brain was doing a lot of the talking, actually.

There is a large measure of grace in the way this has come to be a feature of my fall–my autumn, rather.

Oh, no. Here comes the God stuff again. I know, I know.

I’m not educated in these things, so I’m probably going to annoy anyone who is, but the way I see it, grace is both seen and unseen. See?

If we’ve lived any time at all, we’ve had the scary close call that improbably worked out to land us safely exactly where we needed to land. It’s really difficult to ignore those moments. Those are the kind of incidents that make even a non-believer say, “Somebody up there likes me.”

Much more subtle, style-wise, is the unnoticed grace. We may have no idea until much later that the creepy dude who offered us a ride was a serial killer. [Yeah, that’s a true story. Maybe he wasn’t a serial killer, but odds are excellent. In 1979, you could hardly swing a lamp without hitting a serial killer.] How many times have we been spared calamity that we didn’t even sense? Or been helped in some chance encounter completely unaware of the coincidence?

Anyhoo, I have been observing a ridiculous amount of grace in my recent experiences, which makes me wonder if my drunk brain was numb to wonder on top of being numb to most everything else.

It’s lovely to have some help with this new experiment. Other hard things have come up, because that’s the way life behaves. So unruly. Why can’t we have one challenge at a time? Why can’t it be like an old karate film where the adversaries form an orderly line?

So yeah, while my tippy top brain is well convinced that booze is bad news, not all the other brains have received the signal yet. I wake up clenched because some deep sleepy brain is annoyed that the chemical party is over. She snaps her little brain fingers and stomps her little brain feet at random intervals throughout the day. To me, it just feels like nonsense tension and white noise.

How odd, to be intellectually relaxed and yet aware that some wily nerves are trying to organize an annoying display of self destruction. All this time I thought I was relaxing with booze, I was building a weird relaxation drain instead.

So, this brings me back to grace and the priceless reassurance of recognizing it. I think we are all floating in grace, like a gentle current of water. We can get very busy with paddling this way or that way, but we can also rest in it and see the gifts of the tide. Okay. Bad metaphor, this stream has tides. Whatever. I’m still not well yet.

You are a miracle, like it or not, name it or not, poison it or not.

Love,
yermom

Note: the book is still missing from Kindle. I get emails reassuring me that my email is very important to them….