A Reflection On Rejection; Nineteen Years Of Changing Gears ~ Pt. 4

PART FOUR

In the interim I had also quit my job as that had been a long time thorn in my ass. I'm not blaming my partying lifestyle on my job but without a doubt the daily stress wasn't helping matters, that's for sure. I had also left the beach and moved out to the boonies. After living there for so many years I knew that being surrounded by so many others living the lifestyle, it would only make it that much more difficult to ever make the necessary changes in my life.

While I had managed to make some huge strides forward, as I mentioned earlier I was still miserable and I certainly hadn't done enough to reach my intended goal. In fact, far from it. Yes, I had quit drinking, which I will without a doubt give myself a pat on the back for, as that was a huge hurdle for me to overcome. Yet my transformation to the new me was anything but complete. Deep down inside I knew what had to happen, I knew all too well what needed to be done. Like it or not, I needed to break off all ties with my 'other' bestie, Mary J.

As much as I told myself that I was still in control of my life, that was anything but the case. If anything I was even more of a mess than I was back when I was drinking. I continued to chase something that no longer existed and I needed to admit that to myself. I had always connected my partying with fun but when I really dug deep down, I had to admit to myself that the fun had ended years ago. And what once was fun had become a full time job. A full time job with no pay and who the hell wants that.

I know it sounds crazy when I say it was work to keep up my habits but it was exactly that. All of the stress that comes from hiding it from the world, from sneaking around in the shadows, from doing everything possible to insure that nobody knew I was drinking or smoking pot was a full time nightmare. Unless you've been there I'm not sure you can relate but let me assure you, if you haven't gone through it, it's difficult to describe just how taxing it is. Not only on your body but your mind as well.

In fact, I believe even more so on your mind. The guilt alone is enough to make you consider alternatives that one wouldn't ordinarily consider, which in itself I'm ashamed to admit. All I'll say about that is thankfully I never pursued any of those alternatives. Put it this way. If I had, you wouldn't be lucky enough to read this exceedingly long blog post and one can only imagine how unfortunate that would be. For both of us.

With my life continuing to deteriorate all around me and despite living in huge denial of that actually being the case, the downward spiral continued. At that point I had been out of work for over seven months and to say my savings were dwindling is putting it mildly.

It was around this time that I had an episode where I lost a reasonably large sum of cash. To this day I have no explanation for it. I know I had the cash as I had the bank receipt for it but the physical cash itself was nowhere to be found. One of those inexplicable mysteries that just can't be explained.

Checking my bank balance at the time confirmed that it was indeed gone and with no steady income, things weren't looking too good. Last thing I could afford to do at that juncture was to lose money. But I still needed to eat and with that, I headed to the bank to close out my account. Yep, I was basically at the point where I was going to be forced to admit defeat and lemme tell you, I don't take defeat well.

But there I was finding that I was staring at rock bottom, a place I never thought I'd get to. I always had a way of surviving, a way of digging deep inside to find the strength to get over the hump and to continue moving forward.

Yet this time it was different. I knew I couldn't continue on the same path I was currently living. It was becoming increasingly obvious that that was no longer a viable option. Despite how much I wanted to just keep things status quo, the good ol' days (as it were) were coming to a end. And damn fast at that, I might add.

As I sat there in the Drive-Thru line up at the bank, grinding over all my options in my head, of which there weren't many, I was brought back to reality by the ringing of my cell phone. Turns out it was a friend of mine that I had met through the purchase of some property. I happened to be driving a 'special' car, a car that my buddy on the phone had never seen prior to that day.

And the chance of a car like that existing in the town that I was living in at the time was like zero in a million. He knew I owned such a car but had no idea I had it up there with me. And as he began to tell me how amazed he was that he just saw such a car driving down the main highway through town, I interrupted him long enough to tell him it was me driving the car.

We laughed a bit at the craziness of such a coincidence and then we started talking about what was going on in each others lives. He had no idea that I was living up there full time at that point. I usually went up three or four weekends a month but again, he had no idea I was a full time resident at that point. He knew I'd never leave the beach and so something had to be going on. I let him know a bit of what was happening and he asked me to swing by his office to talk for a while. So I said sure. After all, what else did I have goin' on.

His office was only a few miles away and it only took me a couple minutes to get there. Sure enough, he was waiting outside to check out the car. Not many people had ever seen a car like it, especially up there. So we BS'd a bit more and then went in and sat down. I began to give him the scoop on what was going on, the changes I was making in my life and that so far things weren't going quite as well as I had planned. As I began to open up, so did he and surprisingly enough, he could relate to everything I had to say.

As it turned out he was in recovery as well. As I recall, he had something like six years under his belt at the time. Hmmm, I hadn't thought about that until this minute. Talk about a coincidence, that is odd.

Anyway, as we got to talkin' and I explained where things were, he semi-casually mentioned Alcoholics Anonymous as an option. Of course AA certainly wasn't an option. Not for me anyway. I mean, wasn't Alcoholics Anonymous for losers? For people that had real drinking problems? And that surely wasn't me, no way. I was totally in control of my life. Or was I?

Wasn't that me in the Drive Thru of the bank just an hour earlier, taking out the last few dollars in my account, basically broke? Yes, as a matter of fact that was me but as if in one of those out of body experiences I mentioned earlier, I was still living with a severe case of denial. I still couldn't nor wouldn't allow myself to admit that I was done, wiped out and at the end of my road. Nope, not me. I'm better than that. After all, if I'm anything I'm a survivor and it's gonna take a lot more than a bad luck streak to take me down.

And that's when it dawned on me that perhaps this was much more than a bad luck streak. Maybe this really was my rock bottom and as much as I didn't want to admit it, my time was up. I was officially wiped out and if I didn't make a drastic lifestyle change and make it immediately, I truly would lose everything I owned. Next stop after that would be a career as a professional Dumpster Diver. And that was completely the opposite of what I was striving to achieve when I quit drinking five months earlier.

And so, based on that quick analysis, I gave in and agreed to meet him at 6:45 the next morning for my first AA meeting. That was a day that I won't forget any time soon. A day I can't forget and to be honest, now a day that I don't want to forget. Ever.

Yes, August 2, 2006 was a biggie for me. Not only was it my first AA meeting but it was the first day of my new life. A new beginning, another shot at life. And I wasn't gonna screw it up. I saw rock bottom and I'll be honest, I didn't like what I saw.

Sitting in the meeting that morning, basically scared to death, wondering how in the hell I was ever gonna survive thirty minutes, let alone thirty days, was a feeling that I still remember all too well. Even six years later, which in and of itself is amazing. That shows you what kind of an impact it had on me. And looking back on all the strange things that had to come into alignment to make that day possible is a lesson in how the Universe works.

If it weren't for that random interaction (or lack thereof) on that fateful Friday at the car event, more than likely I never would have attempted to quit drinking. Had I not been driving that particular car on that Saturday morning, who's to say that my buddy would have called. After all, he had no idea I had already been living up there full time for a few weeks as I was just layin' low and doin' my best not to drink.

And had I not taken the time to go by his office that day I more than likely would have had no idea he was in the program. And I certainly wasn't about to search out an AA meeting on my own. After all, AA is for losers and that sure as hell wasn't me. Or was it? Huh, I guess it actually was after all.

If you can relate to getting sober and the struggles involved in doing so, I'd appreciate your comments below and if you know of anyone that can relate to this long journey to sobriety, I'd appreciate it if you'd share this post with them. Thank you for taking the time to read all the way through. It's obvious that I had quite a bit to get off my chest.