Hitting Bottom…

I forgot how hard that is. I got an up close and personal view of it the last two days and it is so very sad, and heart wrenching, and awful.

It has been awhile since I have been with someone who cannot stop drinking. That they are drinking every single day to the point, and well past the point, of intoxication. I have been privileged to not have that in my daily life, or even my periphery.

Today I wake up grateful. Like overflowing with gratitude for my life. For every single minute of the last 29 + years I have been sober and not putting my family through fucking hell.

My heart breaks for all involved in the instant crisis. And at the same time, I am just grateful for all the very many miracles that happened yesterday to bring this person we all know and love to his knees so that he was finally in a place to accept and receive help.

I am elated and exhausted today. It was a long two days. But I wouldn’t change a thing. It is something to be part of a miracle like this. It makes me remember and see that people and circumstances do change and that sometimes, if you are really lucky, you get to be a part of that happening in the lives of others.

I am also grateful for my lifelong practice of letting go because that is what is required of me now. I have done everything I can do, and that is all I can do. And now I have to leave him and his recovery up to him. He must find, just like I did and everyone else does, a part of himself that is worth saving. Of course, we all know there are so many good things about him worth saving but that matters almost not at all. If he cannot find something within himself that he truly loves, some iota of something he values that is real and honest and true, then I am not sure he has much of a chance.

I pray he takes a chance on himself and finds peace within. I hope that the people charged with helping him, can actually help him. I pray that all of us who love him can and will find some peace of our own.

Self destruction is something I think I have always romanticized. For myself and others. The tragic losses we endure and create. There is something so tragically beautiful about it all. But yesterday all I could feel was the loss. Loss of life, loss of potential, loss of opportunities for love and service and life. It was all so very fucking sad. And I am left with this resounding feeling of immense gratitude. For my own path and trajectory in this dangerous land of recovery. I am left with this immense pain but also this immense well of love and equanimity.

I am so fucking grateful I am here. I am sober. I am able to show up in my life and in the lives of others in productive and relatively non-destructive way. I am so incredibly grateful for everything that happened, every puzzle piece falling into place. I will not say that I felt distant from God, but I did feel somewhat disconnected, from God, from everyone really. And watching this all unfold, knowing how very differently this all could have turned out, I see the divinity in all of it. And all I can feel today is this overwhelming connection with my God. I relied and leaned heavily on it, as I really do every single day of my life. God in charge of outcomes and me in charge of footwork. And today I realize and have immense gratitude for my part, and my part alone.

I am very grateful for the new trajectory of this person I love dearly. But I am also grateful for the attendant reconnection I feel with source. There are times in my life where I feel plugged in, where I see everything in stark relief and contrast, where I see how very fucking blessed I am to be here in this life of mine. And this in turn generates in me a feeling of wanting to serve better, more completely and with less reservations. I want to give back because I have a debt I can never, ever repay.

Thank you God, for all of it. The misery, the bliss, the hardship and the peace. I am changed. Rearranged again, still.