Four days of soberity after relapse

Four days of sobriety. I wouldn’t say I relapsed four days ago, I did the normal actually. That Thursday until Friday was my usual drinking days. Thursday s are shirtless men drink free from 10-11 and I can count on one hand the number of Thursdays I’ve missed it in 4 years. It used to be every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday but I’ve cut down from going out but still drank on those days. If I’m binging I know I can go through 7-8 liters of rum in a week. That’s eight bottles. When I drink that much days are foggy, I don’t know who I spoke to or did, it’s like it starts and then I lose time. I guess that's what they call black outs. I wonder why during black outs the mind shuts down but the body keeps going. I go out, i curse out people, and then when i start to sober up my mind has no memory of it. It's foggy like it was a dream not reality but i usually get the calls afterwards or end up in jail. I remember once i had this dream i called pulled over by the cops and i decided not to stop because i was drunk and i gave them a car chase. I woke up with my heart pounding because it felt so real, and that's what black out feel like, like my mind is taken hostage and somebody else is in control and he's crazy but i will have to pay for it.


But what’s change I ask myself. What’s change for real? I can’t lie to myself. The thing that’s change is my desire to live. After my last suicide attempt, I took an honest look at myself. I wanted to understand the hate. I wanted to understand the depression. I also understood I couldn’t do it alone. I tried and kept ending up in the same place. After my last suicide attempt and I lived, I figured god must want me to live. It was only like my sixth attempt. The first time I tried to kill myself I was nine years old. I stole my aunts ankles weights, and jump in the deepest part of the boys and girls club swimming pool. I don’t know what made me do it. I just wanted to drown. I remember going under the water, swallowing, then panicking, then finding peace with my death, and then just darkness. I was saved by my older cousin. The life guard performed CPR. I was banned from the pool for like a year. My cousin told my grandma about the ankle weights when I got home. I got a beating. My grandma said next time they should just let my black ass die.

It seems I’ve been suicidal my entire life. There’s always been this dark cloud. It’s like it comes and everything goes dark. I shut completely down. I withdraw and if anybody tries to get in I attack them. I just want to disappear. I don’t want a name. I don’t want tombstone. I want to make it like I was never here. I want the birth and death certificate erased. I want those who knew me to just forget, go on with their lives.

But what change, was in the hospital I was put on decapate, Zoloft and lithium and for the first time in my life I felt at peace with my self. It took about four days but one morning I woke up and my brain was at peace with itself, like my soul was at peace with itself. I went to the window and I could see the sun shining. It was like the world was a good place. It was like I could be somebody in that world. I was talkative, took over the group meetings. The light in my eyes came back. Life wasn’t so hard.

And then I got scared. I never liked happiness. If I felt anything good I would just shut it down. Happiness for me was like waiting for the bullshit to happen, because something always ruined my happiness. I got scared, told myself I needed to drink, act up, kill the feeling somehow.
But what changed, I told my therapist about the feeling, how I felt good but wanted to kill it. I told her that suicide was my way of escaping the dark cloud. It wasn’t that I wanted to die per se; I wanted to escape that in my head, like it was the boogie man, that misery coming to smother me to death. So I figure I beat it to the punch. And then she said something profound, she said, how is that winning, how is that logical. I never thought about the illogical aspect of suicide, that it was irrational fear, almost schizophrenic; I just gave into the desire.
I never even thought about my life. That it was my life. That it was the birth of a soul in a body. That I was that soul that destined that passage of time we call memory. That I was in control of its perception, serenity and salvation and redemption. I always considered my life noise. It was the noise of my drug dealer father. The noise of my crack addicted mother. The noise of my fucked up childhood. The noise of not being close to not one member of my family. And then the noise I created with my addictions and acting out for attention.

I didn't want the attention that destruction brought me anymore. I just wanted peace. I wanted that peace i felt after a suicide attempt but make that a life. I decided to stop killing my body that house my soul but kill those demons that tormented my soul.

But what’s change is the will to live. It's to continue to connect via this body, this body i never claimed like never claiming my eyes to see the world or mouth to speak or hands that type these words. Instead i chose to look at my body as a prison thinking with all the abuse i did to it was me breaking out of that prison. It was me harming not the soul but that which i had looked at to be harmed. it's like burning down the house in which the rape happened. it's not the house fault. it just where it happened.

I finally had a desire to live in this body. I can’t say that enough. Even I only live for another year; I have a will to live it. I want to be remembered, loved and heard. Now I’m just trying to reduce the noise in my life so that I can hear god’s purpose for me. I can hear me. That’s what change.

So on my fourth day of sobriety, I tell myself why I’m doing this. It’s just isn’t about sobriety but more sanity. I know it’s going to be hard. I have a lot of noise to silence in my life. Today I start with my grandmother. She was a bitch saying what she did when I was eight. I forgive her. I didn’t go to her funeral. I was told she asked for me when she was dying, but I was in Chicago and I ignored her phone calls. When I ran away at 15, I did it for good. I never saw those people again. My grandmother died ten years later. I spoke to her on the phone when I was twenty one. I was drunk and it was thanksgiving. I hate the holidays. She asked for my forgiveness. I told her no. I wasn’t ready to forgive. I wasn’t ready to forget. I didn’t understand holding on to pain becomes something worse, that’s why the soul needs to practice forgiveness. I didn’t understand what it really meant to forgive. I know forgiving on my part is understanding it can never happen again, the hurt can never happen again. I’m not a child anymore. I silence you today grandma. I silence living with you for those awful six years. I silence you spending my trust fund and social security check on your addictions and not saving any money for my future. I silence you not protecting me from the abuse I suffered by you and other relatives. I silence you for not understanding my need for being myself. I silence you for not celebrating me, that when I walked in the room the look on your face was more disgust than love. I silence you trying to hold me back for your selfishness. You can hurt me anymore, not just because you’re dead, because you are no longer a voice in my head. And when you speak, I understand I silenced you. I forgive you to silence you. I will not feed the pain anymore. I will not hurt the body that you made me look as hurt anymore. I will not worship the wounds. I wish you peace in eternity and forgive you finally. I silence you as no longer a noise in my head. and when i dream of you like i do i will tell you that you are silenced.