Vol. 6: A Hundred Forms of Fear

When I decided to pause #parentingSLACKS (you know, the blog you're reading) for the entirety of June, I did so based on a laundry list of excuses my admittedly disordered mind deduced.

The main issue I kept revisiting was time management (or lack thereof), specifically multi-tasking (something I'm terrible at); school is out, and my one small child will need my undivided attention. So how can I find the time to write weekly articles during the first month of summer break?!

Thus, I convinced myself that I could not.

So I did not.

Motive was the matter I failed to look at with rigorous honesty. Was it really because I couldn't find the time? Or was it because I didn't want to? And, if it were the latter, then why?

I refused to admit that fear could be the culprit.

Me, afraid? No way in hell!

I spent the tenure of my twenties taking the New York City Subway home to Queens from the bar in Manhattan at all-night hours that crept into eerily quiet mornings, alone and drunk.

I'm fearless!

Or, so I believed.

I am defiant, manipulative, and strong-willed. I possess a penchant for pushing the good out of my life on purpose so that I may climb upon my pity pot and join an inner dialogue between me, myself, and I—otherwise known as the shit-show committee. Collectively malcontented, the three of me plot my escape from reality, typically convening with a drinking spree in order.

I have this track record of self-sabotage, most especially occurring in mid-June. Now, I don't want to blame Summer Solstice for my self-will run riot, but dammit, if I don't want to place the blame on something other than me!

Since initially getting sober in March of 2014, I have experienced more relapses than I can count on both hands. Seriously, I have lost track at this point. And, for reasons that I comprehend solely on a subconscious level, I tend to screw things up most severely during the dog days following the inauguration of summertime.

Reflecting on that truth, I remember Father's Day after my son was born in 2016; the felony arrest, county lock-up, guilt, shame, and remorse. Then, I recall two years later, on the 23rd of June, 2018, when I'd managed to stay away from alcohol for exactly thirty days, then overdosed on my Adderall prescription, which I abused fervently.

All the while proclaiming, "I'm an alcoholic, not a drug addict; these pills are not my problem!"

Until I flat-lined three times strapped to a gurney within an ambulance en route to the emergency room and ended up in a coma for four days, I blamed the liquor and the humid southern heat for my life problems.

Then, there was 2019, when I underwent medical detox from alcohol for the first time in a rehab facility. As a reminder, I tattooed the words: one is too many along the middle finger of my left hand and swore I'd had my last sip after five long days of doing the Thorazine Shuffle throughout the halls of the treatment center.

Even after all of this, I wouldn't admit defeat.

No surrender for the fearless!

Roughly three weeks ago, an intervention conducted by well-intended but grossly under-qualified family members took place on the front porch of my home.

The orchestrator of the event didn't show up in person, but her claw marks were all over it, each additional player spewing a rehearsed script dripping in the director's vernacular.

God-willing, by the time this article is published, I'll have nineteen days of continuous sobriety. Yet, I don't feel the divulgence of intimate details regarding my latest slip back into self-reliance is relevant to this blog post. 

But, I will tell you this:

This time hits different.

I ceased fighting anyone and anything, and the inexplicable clarity I'm experiencing, as a result, is a true testimony of hope. Much like the second chance at life given to me four years ago when I lay immobilized, confined to a hospital bed, it is nothing short of a miracle.

If you've attended a twelve-step meeting, you've likely heard of the Big Book. However, perhaps you've stumbled upon the wrong blog if A.A.'s basic text is unfamiliar. Either way, the principles and practices of Alcoholics Anonymous are of inestimable importance to me and my work-in-progress recovery from addiction.

Within the first one hundred and sixty-four pages of said book, I learned that alcoholics wishing to recover must undergo a fact-finding and fact-facing moral inventory of themselves. Much like a successful business might take a quarterly review of their stock in trade, I, too, should take a detailed look at what is salable and what is defective in terms of my character, thoughts, heart, and soul; my core.

But, it doesn't stop there. If I wish to have any long-term success in living my life to its fullest potential—with integrity and serenity and without mood-altering substances—I must do more than avoid the first drink or the first hit. I should also surrender the unsalvageable parts of me while remaining steadfast in my belief that there's a power greater than me on this astral plane willing to take such a load off my shoulders.

This higher power can restore me to sanity, too, if I ask.

You read that correctly; I am insane otherwise.

Anyone who takes a drink knowing that tragic consequences follow ninety-nine percent of the time must be off their rocker, the very definition of insane.

A woman with nearly thirty-two years of continuous sobriety recently heard me cry out a desire to stay on the wagon so that I'll be a better mom to my son. Then, she looked me in the teary eyes and said,

"Anything you put before your sobriety, you will lose."

Later I asked her what she meant by that exactly. That's when she explained that we real alcoholics must let go absolutely.

But, how do we let go of the fears surrounding us, the resentments we foster, and the harm we inflict when parenting our children?

Better yet, how do we let go and let God (or the higher power of your choice) take control of our lives when we're responsible for another human life far more vulnerable than our own?

Unfortunately, I haven't amassed an antidote for fear, but I have cracked a dormant surface within myself, and the light I feel seeping in is sunbeam bright.

Although I didn't check myself into an in-patient facility to rehabilitate the highly symptomatic yet incurable disease of acute alcoholism that's riddled me for decades like the interventionist demanded I do, I did retreat into the wilderness with a spiritual guidance counselor for nine days.

I want to tell you those two hundred hours of enlightenment changed me, but that would be a lie. It is my belief that people do not, in fact, change; instead, they adapt to the evolving circumstances of life. 

My six-year-old son didn't have the easiest time with my sabbatical. However, I am candid with him about the negative way alcohol has affected our family as a whole, including the indirect effect on his own ambitions and fears.

Still, whenever I hear him whisper in my ear,
"Mom, don't ever leave me again,"
I find myself mentally preparing a target for blame. But then, I remember stomping the metaphorical toes of my fellows before their retaliation making me aware of my role in all of this.

As I embark on the next chapter of this evocative journey to the root cause of the optional misery I often participate in, I keep my son in the loop. We're in this together, after all.

Though many might argue that kids have no business amid adult matters, to a certain extent, I respectfully disagree. Once the child of a mother in and out of rehab, I'm now an adult who sees—only in hindsight—that the hidden pieces of my childhood, mysterious then and now, are the missing fragments I tried to unearth with drugs and alcohol.

I don't want that for my boy; thus, I work to keep our shared line of communication unsullied.

Next week, I dive headfirst into purposeful derealization or, for lack of a better term, an undressing of the ego.

In my experience, an external crisis reflects severe inner turmoil. So when things fall apart in our lives, we can usually point the finger at ego without question.

Many of us, me included, get to a point where we don't know who we are anymore; we have become our egoic identities, consumed by fear. 

Tearing down egoic structures is the first step in uncovering our true selves.

Hubris and overreaching nature stem from egoism. Fear is fostered by ego.
The ego is violence. Without it, there is no war against anything; no fear.