this grand and terrible waking up
killing the myth of america is the same as the work of recovery
events with me this month:
👉🏽 Register for Sober from Bullshit Recovery Club here (NEXT Monday, 1/18)
👉🏽 Register for Disrupt the Narrative: Writing Through Chaos* here (Sunday, 1/24).
Questions? Conundrums? Ask away. Would love to see you and be together.
The worst part about my trouble with alcohol wasn’t the hangovers; it wasn’t the countless times I stuck my foot in my mouth and the mini-apology tours that came after; it wasn’t making choices in the dark of night that crumbled me in the bright of morning; it wasn’t the simmering rage that encased me like a second skin; it wasn’t the blackouts, the years spent running in place, the incessant lying, the self-loathing and shame.
These things were terrible, but they weren’t the worst. The worst was the story I told myself about myself, how I tried to understand and make sense of things. What kept me sick for so long was telling myself this isn’t who I am.
For many years, I felt at the mercy of a force beyond my control. This force became one of my core images: a pendulum. Dissociated, I’d watch myself being bandied back and forth between light and dark, utterly confused by my behavior. This confusion was caused by a discrepancy between my actions, and the story I told myself, which was that I wasn’t the type of person who would behave in the way I was behaving. What kind of person would stay out all night getting increasingly fucked up, only to roll into a yoga teacher training the next morning? What kind of person claimed to have certain values and ethics, but then couldn’t seem to stop lying, even over the most inconsequential things? What type of person ran near overflowing with dreams, and goals, and desires, yet spent most of her time chasing things that kept her checked out, numb, distracted?
The process of forgiving myself for not walking away from booze long ago—for not seeing it as an option until it was the only option—has been slow and tender. I trust that I had to take as many drinks as I did in order to finally be done, and that it took as long as it took to finally take steps toward recovery. It also helps with the self-judgement to remember that I was swimming in the waters of Big Alcohol, which gaslit me into believing that I couldn’t do life without booze, another thing that fed the lie that there was something inherently wrong with me, not the poison I was ingesting.
My orientation toward recovery is that it’s a recovering of: of who I was underneath all the stories and lenses through which I viewed myself and my life, of who I was before I started engaging in all the bullshit behavior I engaged in. I’m not recovering from a substance, though that is a first and vital step. I’m in the business now of claiming and taking responsibility for every realm of who I am, even the ugly bits. Especially those.
The reason I stayed sick for so long was because I was operating under a lie. I had to move from this isn’t who I am to this is exactly who I am in order to heal.
It was a profound fear that kept me from facing these dark parts of myself. It was true that I was desperate to change my life. It was also true that that if I did tell the truth—that I am not a liar; but I am capable of lying; that I am not a terrible person; but I am capable of behaving terribly; that I am capable of all that I judge and loathe and hate in others—that I would finally fall over the edge I’d been flirting with since forever, straight into the murk of oblivion.
Which is exactly what happened.
Until I began to claim, instead of deny, my own darkness, I would have never gotten to the other side of oblivion, to experience the opposite of the lie, that thing that every last one of us is seeking: freedom.
The opposite of obliterate is revive, which is to restore to life or consciousness.
I am exhausted by hearing this tired-ass narrative—that this isn’t “who we are”— repeated over and over every time we are terrible to each other.
We know this is a lie. Voice from marginalized groups have been calling our attention to this since the beginning of the lie. And yet. Setting aside the terror of the events of last week, hearing this repeated over-and-over is what most pissed me off. We are being gaslit by this lie. And yet we continue to say it.
Every time a politician perpetuates this, every time the media transmits it, every time something awful happens and social media is a storm of faux-shock, we are grinding away at the rut of all that is keeping us sick.
If we want America to recover, we have to tell the truth. Which means diving head first into the waters of denial, and annihilating the lie.
This is one of the ways the grand and terrible soup of waking up we are collectively swimming in corresponds to the grand and terrible work of recovery: we are also sold a myth that was actually a lie.
I’m obviously not the first person to say this but I’m going to keep saying it: the first step in order for change to happen is that we must tell the truth. In recovery we learn that we have agency, that we can change our story, disrupt the narrative. This doesn’t mean we are absolved. That we don’t have to face any consequences.
People are so afraid of taking accountability, telling the truth, facing consequences, and acknowledging all the ways we’ve made mistakes because we are so afraid. What we don’t realize is that on the other side of these processes is a life beyond our wildest imaginations.
Just as a whole new world opens up for us individually inside a practice of recovery, so too could it be collectively for this nation. We have no idea how it could be because we’ve accepted that these lives we’ve built on a lie are as good as life gets. Like someone stuck inside an addiction, we don’t realize that we are stuck in a loop of only tolerating our lives. We don’t see past the lie. We don’t see that we have a say. That there is so much more, not just to life, but to being a human. This isn’t about stuff —though in this vision of freedom, everyone would have everything they need—this is about evolving our own humanity, and, forgive the, um, cheesiness here, our own day-to-day experience of walking around as a miracle. On top of the miracle that is the planet.
Sobriety is a miracle. And there is a miracle on the other side of this, which is the vision I’m holding, and speaking, and living ever into, even as grief and terror walks alongside me, whispering “fat chance.”
I have no choice but to carry this torch. And to reach out to you, my fellow lantern bearers.
We have to stop saying “This isn’t us.” We have to move past denial. We have to take accountability if we want what’s on the other side. Which is annihilation. Which is a good thing.
This is *exactly* who we are. Now what?
What shall we restore to life? What shall we restore to consciousness?
Slow Motion Sober is a newsletter and community for creative types who are sober or curious about sobriety, and all the life-y intersections along the way. It's written by me, Dani, a writer, facilitator and sobriety advocate in San Francisco, CA.
SMS is reader-funded. The small percentage of readers who pay make the entire publication possible.
You can also support me for free by pressing the little heart button on these posts, sharing this newsletter with others and letting me know how this newsletter helps you. Thank you.
Truth, exactly. "...even as grief and terror walks alongside me, whispering “fat chance.” --that's courage. The clarity from where this is written shines bright and illuminates what cannot be ignored. Enormous appreciation for your honesty and willingness to share your journey with us. It's really a frikkin inspiration.