I woke up this morning thinking about change. I don’t believe it. I feel as if I’ve been the same person since I was born. Yes, my body changed. I got bigger. I learned to talk. I learned to walk. I learned to use the bathroom properly. I didn’t learn to tie my shoes until I was like in the second grade. Yet I could read at five years old. I didn’t learn to tie my shoes until I was in the second grade because I never wore tennis shoes. I usually went barefoot or sandals. I guess during those days, Child Protective Services weren’t that active.
I woke up this morning thinking about change. So much this past year has changed. I moved three different times. At the beginning of the year I moved into this really nice house with some psycho guy. That only lasted for like a month. He taught me some great lessons. Don’t trust crazy people. I used to think I was crazy, but that dude was really crazy. And then I moved into a transitional house. I hated it. I decided to move back in with my ex. I felt like Anne Frank at his house. It was important that none of his neighbors knew I was back. I had actually gotten kicked out of his place in 2007. Lucky for me, all the old residents moved out. Then I moved to my own apartment. I found that living on your own was a little overrated. “I need supervision.’ I don’t trust myself alone. I moved into my own place but never unpacked; instead I paid the rent via mail and stayed with my ex. I liked his place better. After a year of wasting money, I decided to not renew my lease and moved back in with him temporarily. The truth, I never moved out.
Change, I don’t believe in it. I believe we just refocus our energy. The only reason I’m up writing this blog at 6:30 in the morning is because I’m sober. When I started getting blocks of time with sobriety, I found I had a lot of energy I didn’t have before. I don’t drink as nearly as much as I used to. That changed. I didn’t change. I just refocused my energy.
I believe we evolve or die. Its how man went from ape to walking up straight. Its how the brain grew when humans started using tools. Its how the world is getting smaller by the second.
I don’t believe in change. Change can be a lie. If someone changes their clothes and start speaking in a different accent, is that change or something they’ve consciously decided to manifest? I don’t like those make-over shows. Just because for one day a person gets a new pair of teeth or a new dress don’t make them a different person. Usually they go back to being the same person about a month later. On that show the Biggest Loser, yes during the show they lose weight but they end up gaining it back as soon as the camera stops rolling. They changed their physical looks for a brief moment but who they were internally hadn’t evolved.
I knew when I seriously considered getting sober I couldn’t listen to other people tell me how to do it. I knew I didn’t need rehab. I stopped going to AA. Most important I knew I could lie. I’d been a liar my entire life. Yet, I also knew I couldn’t lie to myself. I knew the truth. I knew what I did alone. I knew only I alone could stop me. I also knew I needed to evolve in order to survive. I was going to die. I thought at the beginning that’s what I wanted. I didn’t die. I decided to reexamine the experiment we call life. My life.
I was dying. I had been standing in my life in one spot away from the sun. I was slowly withering. I could see it when I looked in the mirror. I could feel it in my sleep those nights when I wake up gasping for air. I knew all the debauchery was finally catching up to me. I couldn’t outrun it any longer. I finally understood when people would say “I had to quit or die.” Yes, as an addict I could’ve lived a couple of more years. But being an addict it only gets worse. It never gets better. Nobody has figured out a way except “William Burroughs” to control it.
I needed to evolve. Just like I learned how to walk. Just like I learned how to talk. I needed to learn how to live. I had to understand the definition. It’s how the internal and external balances each other. For a long time, externally people used to think I was doing great in my life. I hid my demons well in the beginning. I was the most miserable person I felt. I hated everything about me. The hate used to be so evil sometimes it felt like it was strangling me in my sleep. The depression used to be so deep I felt I had drowned. My soul was just a ghost haunting me.
I believe if addicts really begin to understand why they self medicated true change can happen at the soul level vs. the human level. I’m still working on it.
Today, at this moment, I am sober. I am happy. Internally I feel great about myself. I didn’t die. It’s miracle. I am a miracle. I bask in this sobriety. I wish it for those looking for it.
