Depression, Booze, and Second Chances

 I apologize for the length of this blog, I had just made a vow to myself to write shorter blogs but I've sung that tune before, haven't I? I am reading a fascinating book right now written by Howard Storm titled, My Descent Into Death: A Second Chance At Life. In the book, Mr. Storm describes how he, an atheist, fell very ill and then "died," and it details his experiences on the other side, but also the changes in his life since he "came back." I'm finding the material of the book exciting on many different levels and I think it is important reading even for those of you who don't believe in life after death, maybe even more important. I thought some of you guys might find what he had to say about his drinking and how it changed after his "after death" experience interesting.

I was very weak for seven months following the surgery. When I eventually returned to work in January 1986, teaching my art classes exhausted me. During this time of recovery, I thought, studied, and prayed. My life had been lost and given back. Physically and spiritually I was born again. This rocked the foundations of all that I had previously believed, demanding that my entire life be rebuilt. I had a myriad of critical questions that I needed to answer, such as: What had really happened to me? Why me? What was I going to do? How did I know it was not a dream or hallucination? Was it real? All my life I had had dreams, but this experience was not a dream. When I had a nightmare, I would wake up. The experience in hell was far worse than any nightmare, but there I never woke up. My dreams had always had a sense of the surreal, but what I’d experienced after my “death” seemed more real than being awake.
Rather than surreal, it was super-real. During that experience, my senses increased from above-normal to levels of sensation that are beyond explanation. I was more alive in every meaning of the word than I had been before or have been since the experience. There is no comparison between any dream state I know and my Near-Death Experience. Could this have been a psychotic episode brought about by the extreme physical trauma of dying? I became obsessed with this question until it was resolved by several facts that collectively refute the explanation of trauma-induced hallucination. Before the experience, anxiety and depression had spoiled my life. I justified my melancholia by convincing myself that this was the only state of mind a realist could have. I had believed there was no God, no heaven, no hell, no Christ, no angels, no miracles, no life after death, and no ultimate meaning to life. One is born into an utterly random universe; one struggles for survival and pleasure, then one dies. What was the point of living? There is none. Why not die? Too afraid to die, I kept on living. Many times I had considered ending my life, but I always chickened out before I did it. Driving down the highway at ninety miles per hour late at night, thinking: just head into the bridge piers and it will all be over in a second, oblivion! I could never quite do it. Maybe one day I would have the courage. There was very little joy in my life. In order to be happy I drank alcohol. At every social occasion, drinking was the means to a good time. The more you drink, the better you feel. The more you drink, the more you need to drink to get that high. Booze was happiness and lack of booze was melancholy. Alcohol use is encouraged in our society. In the circles that I ran in, one was expected to drink at social occasions. A party, going out for the evening, getting together at someone’s home, going on vacation, visiting relatives, having dinner, sporting events, and other occasions were all accompanied by drinking. The only time one was supposed to not drink was at work. After my experience, I quit drinking. The primary reason was I was happy and knew that alcohol would rob me of my happiness. Alcohol is a depressant that depressed people take to anesthetize themselves from their depression. I don’t need it because I have a joy in my life that I want to keep. Alcohol degrades that sense of well-being with a counterfeit sense of well-being leading to depression in a vicious cycle. My experience didn’t frighten me out of drinking. It removed the need to drink. What kind of hallucination heals the soul?

Storm, Howard (2005-02-15). My Descent Into Death: A Second Chance at Life (Kindle Locations 1411-1420). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

I have always considered myself very fortunate to have never suffered from clinical depression, and I know some of my sober friends still struggle with the horrible disease, even after years of sobriety, so I know quitting drinking doesn't end all depression.  But I am active on several message boards where people who are still drinking frequently post about their struggle with depression and I remember very well a night in a bar a couple of years ago where I sat listening to a couple of friends of mine as they talked about their antidepressants meds at the same time that they downed bottles of beer.  Alcohol is a depressant, we all know that, we all continued to drink when we knew what it was doing to us.  I guess I am just here to give a testimonial.  I have never been diagnosed with clinical depression but I regularly ingested a depressant for 30 years.  How could I not have been depressed?  I was, but didn't know it.  It didn't take long after I quit drinking, I'm talking days, before I started to feel better, happier, calmer, more joyful.  Those feelings have only increased as the two years have gone by.  I can't believe I walked around in that fugue state for years.  I didn't know I was.  Not until I quit drinking.

So if you're drinking and you're depressed, stop drinking.  At least for a little while.  Give yourself a chance to get back to normal and then see how you feel.  If you're still depressed, at least your medications will have a better chance of working.

Drinking is not worth it.

It really isn't.

I didn't have to have a near death experience to find joy,  neither do you.

Flowing

“When you’re young you prefer the vulgar months, the fullness of the seasons. As you grow older you learn to like the in-between times, the months that can’t make up their minds. Perhaps it’s a way of admitting that things can’t ever bear the same certainty again.”
― Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot

I have never been able to anticipate any event, no matter how small, without some trepidation.  "How should I act?"  "What should I say?"  "What does everyone expect of me?"  "Who do they expect me to be?"  It happened every time I met someone new, walked into a bar, or even just passed someone on the street.

Alcohol smoothed that awkwardness, it ironed out all of my wrinkles. When I quit drinking, I found myself, once again, feeling like I was walking around wearing last season's outfit, pulled in haste from the dirty clothes bin.

Words no longer trip off my tongue, I no longer dazzle people with my snappy comebacks or my witty repertoire.  

The old fears still haunt me, but now all I have to offer the crowds, the strangers, and the old friends is me. Wrinkled, rumpled, and worn.

I told Riversurfer yesterday in a comment on her blog Me, My Voice and I , I can't believe how much energy it took to try and be who I thought everyone else thought I was.

Now I'm just me. Going with the flow.  It is effortless.

It feels....wonderful.

 

Messengers

The first time I met her, she had just wrested the spatula out of the hands of one of my fellow elves who was turning out sub-standard pancakes at our Christmas Toy Drive's First (and last) Annual Pancake Breakfast fundraiser. I saw her giving the pale runny discs on my griddle the evil eye.

I soon found myself out of the kitchen and waiting tables.

Message received.

This was on one of my rare good days when I was neither hung-over or drunk.

The next time I met her was during one of our toy drive's bingo nights and I was drunk and in charge of making change for the players.  A drunk gringo trying to make change in pesos is not a good combination.  Once again, I felt her hawk eyes on me and I was soon relieved of my responsibilities.

Again, message received.

The next fall, when I was  back in the states, I received a message about her from a fellow elf.  She'd had a terrible fall and was in the hospital.  And, "Oh by the way, you know she is an alcoholic, don't you?"

No, I didn't.

This was about two months into my "recovery" so I sent her a message.  I said:

"I am like you.  I am an alcoholic."

I didn't know how my message would be received.

She replied:

"I am a binge drinker.  I was once sober for 6 years and then one day I had a bad day at work and I decided to have a drink.  I've never been able to get back for long."

We met up when I returned to Mexico.  I was a newborn in my recovery, all enthusiastic and shooting rainbows out my ass.  She was fresh out of the hospital, barely able to walk, sparse gray hairs sprouting from the wounds on her scalp.  Her eyes were ringed with dark shadows, their depths dark and bottomless.  We both swore we'd learned our lessons, we'd never drink again.  I looked for the spark I felt in those blackhole eyes and couldn't find even a glimmer.

The message was drowning in those fathomless depths.

But we kept meeting, she gave me her 90 Day AA chip and I promised to give it back to her when she reached 90 again.  Slowly she got stronger, slowly I saw the fire return to her eyes.  Once again she brooked no argument.

Message retrieved.

But then the messages fell off, my phone calls went unanswered.  When I did manage to catch up with her, she was wearing an outfit I recognized.  She had wrapped that cloak back over her shoulders, the one that we alcoholics think others can't see through.  A cape made of the shoddy material of flimsy excuses and threadbare lies.

Last year we sent a few emails back and forth, a few telephone calls promising to get together, but we never did.  But I heard from a few people that ran into her that she looked great, better than ever, smiling more than they'd ever seen her.  There were rumors of a man in her life.


This summer I saw a message on fb from her daughter that her mother had returned to the states and that all of her things, including her beloved sewing machine were for sale.

I wondered if I should send a message, but I didn't.

Last night I received a personal message from her daughter, her mother has stage 4 colon cancer and had a stroke last night.  Would I pray for her?

I sent a message back.  Would she please tell her mother that I remember what she said?  That I still carry her message with me.  That she is still helping me.  The message?

"I was sober once for 6 years, then I took a drink and I have never been able to get back."

Message passed.

I've often asked my Co-Writer why he put her in my life if we couldn't save each other.  I now know why, she is a messenger.

Please pray for my messenger.

Hoppy Hoppy Day

Today marks two years of sobriety for me and as I sat down with my rosary this morning I said thank you for the gifts I've been given in the last two years, a different gift for every bead. 54 in all and I could have kept going.  I won't bore you with the whole list, instead I'll just name one gift for each year of sobriety.

STRENGTH:
Remember that was my word for this year?  Today on my fb page I announced to the world, my world that is, that I have been sober for two years.  Funny how something that was so shameful has become such a source of pride for me. (The return of self-Pride was another gift I thanked the heavens for this morning, but I promised I wouldn't go on and on about all the gifts sobriety has handed me.  Again.)  I've received over 30 responses to my fb post this morning and 60-some likes.  I'm not bragging, but the fact that so many people took the time to say congratulations blew me away...and made me cry.  A few of them posted about how strong I am, one guy that I've known since grade school said, "That a girl! Congratulations, but it's not really surprising, you've always been able to achieve anything you set your mind to."

See, that's what I just couldn't understand all those years, it's what so many people don't understand..  I'd always been able to do what I needed to do, I'd always been the strong one that other people relied on.  Why the hell couldn't I control my drinking? I just wasn't trying hard enough.  I was weak.  And then I prayed for strength and it came when I had nothing left.  My own strength was never enough.  So thank you, God, and everyone else up there who pooled enough strength together to get me sober.  I owe you. I promise I won't waste it.

On to the next gift:

 I remember a day  four years ago when I had just moved to Chelem.  I thought Chelem was going to be the answer, my new life.  I was off the damn boat and nobody knew me, I could start all over.  But on this day, I found myself, yet again, wretched and hungover and so thoroughly disgusted with myself that I couldn't show my face.  My new housekeeper, Gabi and her father Felix, were at our house that day working, tip-toeing and speaking in hushed voices, I'm sure about their new employer who was laying out on the porch and couldn't even come in and talk to them.  "Who is this woman?", I imagined them asking each other. "Just another drunk gringo who thinks she is too good to talk to us?"   I wanted to tell them, "No, I'm not like that, this isn't the real me."  But it was.

Since then Gabi and I have grown to be very close friends and confidants, she knows all about my drinking and, now, my not drinking.  Felix, however, has remained reserved.  He meets us at our casa every time we return from up north and he always gives me a stiff and awkward hug, but he never gives me the kiss on the cheek that is customary down here.

Until last weekend.

Last weekend, the cap'n and I wandered across the highway to the little tienda that our neighbor Nancy runs.  Felix and his wife, Christina, were sitting on the verandah having a beer with Nancy and they asked the cap'n and I to join them.  The three of them had obviously had one or two already and were wearing the happy countenances of people that were finished with their work week and were enjoying a couple of beers with good friends.  We were honored that they asked us to sit down.  I sat sipping my coke-lite, as we all communicated via broken shards of language and hand gestures and laughter.  At one point, Christina, Felix's wife and Gabi's mother, turned to Nancy and said something about me.  I could catch that she was telling Nancy something that Gabi had said about me.  I look at Nancy, who was doing a comical job of playing translator for our little group, I haven't understood a word of her English in five years, and she said, "Christina say, that Gabi say, that Mary esta always..".at this point she took the index fingers of each of her hands and drew the corners of her lips up in a smile, "Hoppy! Hoppy!"

So Hoppiness and Strength are the two greatest gifts that sobriety has given me.

What more can a girl ask for?

P.S. Felix kissed me on both cheeks when I left that night. Just the icing on the cake.

Scaling The Sublime

Sublime:

 

1. Characterized by nobility; majestic.

2.a. Of high spiritual, moral, or intellectual worth.

b. Not to be excelled; supreme.

3. Inspiring awe; impressive.

4. Archaic Raised aloft; set high.

 

My work stint is done for the time being and, as if I haven't whined enough about it, I feel the need to describe the experience to you yet again.  Like some whiny kid who got sent off to camp for the summer when she'd rather stayed home and played with her friends.

But truly, for the past four months, since I knew I was taking this job, I've felt like a wimpy kid that was being sent off to one of those wilderness camps to toughen him up.  I was terrified every single day, and when I say terrified, I mean terrified.  I've come to realize that my biggest fear is looking stupid.  That fear has held me back from so much, and I'm sure it had more than a little bit to do with my drinking.

I woke up every morning this summer terrified that I would make a fool of myself, and I did.  I was clumsy, I was out of practice, I heard stupid questions coming out of my mouth that I wanted to gobble back down as soon as I heard them escape my lips and saw the look of incredulity that crossed the person's face that I was talking to.  

And I had nothing to combat this stupidity and fear with except getting up every morning and facing it again so I'd get less stupid and less fearful day by day.

But every day was a new opportunity to display my lack of knowledge, and boy, did I.

 

With nothing in my own power to abate my terror and embarrassment, I turned to my Co-Writer and I got up thirty minutes early every morning and said a rosary, some mornings that meant getting up at 4:30 am.  I didn't pray for him to make it easier on me, well, not every day, instead I prayed for strength to get through the day.  

I prayed that he would give me the strength to be the person he needed me to be that day and I prayed to Mary to lend me a measure of her grace and kindness. So at least when the day was finished, my co-workers might look at each other and say, "Well, she might be thick as a post, but she sure is nice." lol

With four days left on my contract, no one had said anything about extending, which didn't surprise me.  Besides, I'd already decided even if they begged me to stay, I wasn't going to,  God didn't mean for me to be this unhappy.  This was a sign that I needed to move on from the nursing profession.

Then they asked me to stay.

I worked another two weeks and on my last day, Friday, one co-worker pulled me out of a patient's room to hug me goodbye and say that he wished I would stay and that some of the others would go.  Another co-worker said she would miss my smile, my laughter and my disposition. Another that he had never heard me complain or criticize and he had worked with traveling nurses for ten years and that just didn't happen.  My charge nurse said she wasn't going to let me go.

I got my morning prayers answered.

 

In spite of my terror-filled summer, I had so many sublime moments.  Moments when everything was right in my world.  Where I was right in my world.  Even when I felt the stupidest and most scared, I loved myself and I was proud of myself.

I never had that when I was drinking.

And you can't reach sublime until you do.

P.S.  I'm glad to be back, I missed you guys.

 

 

 

 

Just LIving Life

Ok, I guess I better check in, if I must, do I have to ?

My work assignment finished up on July 20th and I have been living a very self-indulgent life since then.

Last week my two oldest grandsons, they're cousins, came to stay with me.  Just me and them with no Gameboys, no Xbox, no Playstation, hell, the DVD player didn't even work!  Boy, did we have fun!  I have to admit that I did lose my patience a couple of times though.  One night as we were playing Pictionary the younger of the two kept switching what he was supposed to be drawing in the middle of his turn.

Now I don't think I'm that hard core when it comes to playing friendly board games, but at one point the older cousin turned to the younger one and said, "Whoa! Don't get her so frustrated that she starts cussing again." ( I let a couple GD's  slip this week after one boot down the river incident and one ball-kicking incident. I'm not talking soccer or footballs, I'm talking gonads.)

I never laughed so hard in my life.  I told them they were more fun than a bunch of drunks.

This week, I have been completely on my own up here, (don't worry, the cap'n is still in the picture, he's just working.).  I can't even begin to explain how wonderful it has been. I get up in the morning, I piddle, I'm not talking about that kind of piddle but I do that too, and I write.  I eat lunch, btw I've gone back to an old diet site I used to follow Dr. Gourmet, the recipes are great, even though I have to admit I cheat a little bit on the no-salt and no-fat mayo and sour cream dictates.  I've lost a little weight but the best thing is, I feel healthier and the sugar cravings seemed to have abated.  A little bit.

Anyway, I eat, I procrastinate, I write a little more, I read about writing, I think about writing, I check my fb page, Mr. Stan decides he has to go out and piddle.... Let me tell you, this business of writing the world's greatest, most life-changing American novel is time consuming, hard shit.

So there you have it, an idyllic, extraordinarily, ordinary life.  I'd be lying if I said that old asshole liquor doesn't whisper my name sometimes. It does, some days more than others.  Some days it tries to convince me that I've learned my lesson, I'd know better next time. I'd be able to stop.

Fucking liar!

I just gently remind myself, that some people can drink and have the life described above.

But I can't!

But my little hermit world is about to come to an end, the cap'n returns home tomorrow then I leave on Sunday to go back to work at the same hospital where I was working before this short "stay-cation."  They actually want me back, can you believe it?  They must be desperate! LOL

Mountains

Last night my brother, sister-in-law,  nephew and I were returning from the cancelled fireworks show in our little mountain town.  The windshield wipers were slapping at the rain and my sister-in-law and I were singing along to "Chapel of Love" on the radio as we turned onto the "bumpety" washboard road up to our cabin.  It was full dark but you could see the hulk of the dark mountains in the night cloud mist.

I thought of those settlers that had lived in the group of log cabins up the road from our place more than one hundred years ago.  I thought of how those mountains had stopped them in their tracks and kept them from getting to where they wanted to go.  The promised land of California or Oregon or Washington, where the soil wasn't stingy and full of boulders, where the winters didn't last most of the year, where people could hang onto the promise of spring.  I thought of how even in the dark, you can feel those mountains looming over you, threatening at any moment to crush you, both physically and spiritually.

And I thought, I can't believe I'm singing along aloud to the radio with other people listening and I haven't been drinking.  And I can't believe that I my brother and sister-in-law brought my nephew back to see me after their last visit.  The visit that spurred this blog and my recovery, you can read about that catastrophe here in my very first blog Forgive Unto Thyself .

To give you a short synopsis, that visit started with me giddily drunk and playing ballerina across the stream, breaking my toe while trying to rescue an escaped flip-flop.  Somewhere in the middle of the visit my sister-in-law threatened to hide my bottle from me, I just smiled woozily at her and then promptly puked up the dinner she had just fixed as she sat beside me on the couch (nice, huh?).  The last three days of the visit I was in withdrawal and couldn't get myself out of my bed in the loft of our cabin while they tip-toed down below.  Did I mention that my six year old grandson was also visiting?

Suffice it to say, that I wouldn't have blamed them if they never came back.  But they did come back. Because, since that last visit I have climbed me some mountains and I've moved or torn down the ones that were standing in my way. 

 Mountains don't scare me anymore. I am no longer trapped in the dark, waiting for that crushing blow to come. 

I know how to climb.