you know when i knew i had a
drinking problem
it wasn’t when whiskey drove
me home, my mind as black as the asphalt
it wasn’t the trickling,
maddening throb of pancreatitis
it wasn’t the years i skated
over
the “grow with you in mind and spirit” part of our wedding vows
the “grow with you in mind and spirit” part of our wedding vows
it wasn’t when i put shared
paper to lips, inhaling deception; exhaling betrayal.
it wasn’t when my head
smacked the concrete and it felt like a pillow or when
my knuckles bent back against
his face and the sound felt like an shrill alarm
or when my dad’s pleading tears competed with the rum and lost
or the legions of times
or when my dad’s pleading tears competed with the rum and lost
or the legions of times
i believed the problem to be
the solution
no, hell no, my bottom needed
to vise me in the gut, needed to
unsettle itself there like
unsettle itself there like
parasites that wouldn’t let
me live this way anymore
this is when i knew
it was when i chose a second
drink over a second heartbeat,
the kick in my stomach, her
hand over it before
she would lean over and kiss me and
she would lean over and kiss me and
the moment would be pregnant
with more life than bourbon ever birthed
this is when i started to
drink even more until the night when
sobriety dawned on me like the face
of god
Hope, baby. Always always always hope. Even when there is none visible. When the pit is so deep and dark and wide and engulfing that you cannot imagine that there ever was light, or ever will be again. You know in your gut. YOU. KNOW. In your gut that it exists. Light. Hope. Don't quit. Don't ever ever quit. We are all here together, in a greater consciousness than we were ever led to believe. When you have none, lie back and let our hope carry you. All you have to do is wake up, show up, and do your best. Let the Universe carry you. Let your wife, and your friends, and benevolence carry you. Stop doing, start being. It takes unbelievable courage to be present every day and to put down the medicine. But what is on the other side of that is the only life you were made to live. You have no choice - you are too valuable to surrender.
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