Sleepless Dreaming : Thirty Days Sober

I began writing this entry October 25th and then, as we tend to do when living, got sidetracked away from it by other obligations, commitments and pieces I felt more pertinent to write.

But, sifting through some of these older and unfinished entries now--many of which I've had to resign myself to sending to the waste bin in the name of self-interest and better "blogging"--I'm finding that there are some that hold a curious power. They work as a way of cataloguing not only what I feel and believe now, but of how what I feel and believe now has already shifted in some ways in a handful of months. This is one of those entries.

I've gone through and done a bit of editing, a bit of rearranging, but I did my best to leave the overall flavor of the piece untouched. I did my best to keep the voice of the piece the same as it was "way back" in October.

Why?

Because this is not only a snapshot of my first month of recovery...but a snapshot of how I perceived that first sober month (it was August) and recovery itself in October. Re-reading and re-working this entry, I'm looking back doubly so; there are more layers at work in and around us than we are aware of at the time of doing. This piece functions like one of those strange, three-headed Greek Gods--the ones who can see the past, the present and the future all at once.

And there's power in that--in that resounding sentiment. For me at least, there is.

And so, without further ado...

My first thirty days of sobriety consisted of a lot of sitting around, of shambling about life as if I was hungover without the prerequisite drinking. I lived life as something I only half-remembered how to do. I half-watched a lot movies or television, barely ate and played video games and video poker until well after the sun had come up due to a crushing insomnia that was only rarely interrupted by uneasy, restless sleep.

I am looking into a drug called Campral, which is used to help recovering alcoholics find some respite from PAWS symptoms. The worst of my symptoms is insomnia, but I had a little taste of all of them. This drug may be what I need to help with my insomnia as well as diminish the other, less pervasive symptoms I've experienced (loss of equilibrium, fatigue, moodiness, etc.)

But, even with a drug like this, I'm afraid of my inclination towards abusing mind-altering substances. I am an alcoholic--part of that means that I am dependent on chemicals falling under the "depressant" family. Prescription sleeping pills, over-the-counter sleeping pills, cough syrup (both the powerful, prescription codeine and "vanilla" varieties): these are all substances that I've abused in the past. And knowing that now, and knowing that what I did wasn't "doing what I had to" but, in truth, abusing drugs frightens me away from the prospect of having any sort of mind-altering substance at hand's reach. A prescription from a doctor may make these pills legal for me to possess and consume, but that prescription does not act as a ward to keep away my addict inclinations. And, at this point, I don't trust myself enough not to start self-medicating with Benadryl, let alone prescription medication.

(Note from Zane: At this point, still on the "unmedicated" side of things--on a psych's advice and counsel.)

But more importantly than the pills or potions, there was me. Still here, still living under the same roof where my father pointed loaded guns at my mother, where he and I would fist fight, where he drank himself to death; the same roof where my mother drank and drinks, screaming and crying to no one, "Why did he leave me?! Why?!"; and where I drank my own life into ruination.

(Note from Zane: I've since moved to a nearby town, Red Lion, about twenty minutes away from York.)

I was still sober, and terrified not to be, but still as stagnant as I was in all my time of drinking.

I did not write or sing.

I did not spend much time with my friends--and when I did, they would tell me how my eyes looked pained and my smile looked forced.

And so I stayed home, same as I did when my drinking was at its worst, by my lonesome. Biding. Brooding. Hurting. But, in some fundamental way that must be--has to be true--I was healing. I was, for the first time, truly accepting the wreck my life had been. Looking back now, I feel that's what I was doing then--even now, only two months later, my disposition has improved. I believe this shift came from those initial, quiet, alone times; those were the moments where the beliefs I have now were tempered, where my feelings and thoughts were subjected to my first, honest chronicling. This was the real first time of self-inventory and the beginning of awareness.

But the beginning of something is only the beginning.

On many of these restless nights...hell, on all of them (openness and honesty, right?) I would sit at the computer, with the phone at my side, waiting--more so, expecting--the woman I had loved and had hurt so badly over all my years of alcohol abuse to contact me.

I would hit the refresh button on her art web page every fifteen minutes or so, waiting--and again, expecting--some new message to pop up. "Hello Zane, I'm still here. I'm glad you're doing better. Let's talk." And, of course, "I love you."

You see, I could remember her telling me those things. The fact that the last conversations with her that I could clearly remember were...hell, a year ago? Two years ago? And that during that in between period, that blacked-and-grayed-out period, there had been a lot of other conversations.

Horrible ones.

But, as I said, I sat there at the computer, waiting and hoping and feeling sick to my stomach. The phone was always at hand and how I resisted calling her number I can't rightly say; what I can say is that the same principle I applied to the internet I applied to the telephone. I would shift, one call at a time, through the caller ID function, prove to myself that she had not called that day...and then I would convince myself to forget that, to believe there was a possibility that she had, that I had missed her call, and I would sift through the calls again. The phone letting out its monotone, comfortless "beep" as I cycled through three months of calls one at a time, making a night out of it, letting the phone's lonesome voice keep me company as the hours rolled from 2 to 3, from 3 to 4.

And onward.

I began reading every piece of literature on alcoholism, alcoholic pathology, recovery, treatment programs and twelve step programs that I could get my hands on-- and though I was retaining all of the information I was taking in, I was only storing it away. I felt no empowerment or enthusiasm upon finishing each new book or medical analysis--but I stored it away all the same. I know this to be true, not only because I can recall having done it now--but I can recall what I had read. And take comfort and meaning from it now; find further insight and awareness.

My belief is that, during that first month, I was an emotional "zero:" everything that I was experiencing, feeling and thinking was being taken in and recorded. But I was incapable of processing it at that time; the system was down. But I believed that once things rebooted all of those events would still be there in my memory and I that I would be capable of deriving emotional sustenance from them. This turned out to be the case for me.

But not so much then, if at all. Not so much then during that first month.

I attended AA meetings, counseling sessions and early recovery groups--all of which I still attend with the exception of the early recovery group, which I "graduated" from. Like with my readings, early on I walked away from these sessions with only a head full of information and a heart that was still wounded and weary.

I was smoking then, but not smoking as much as I am now.

I've smoked since the age of 16 or so, but never considered myself to be a heavy smoker. A pack of cigarettes could last me three days or so, and even on my nights of binging, and taking into account the cigarettes I'd drunkenly bum from anyone around me I saw lighting up a butt, I don't believe I ever smoked more than a pack at a time even on those intoxicated occasions.

Unfortunately, I can't recall how much I was smoking during my worst period of drinking. I take some comfort in knowing that the amount of cigarettes I was smoking at the time is probably the very least important thing I could possibly remember out of all the things I can't.

What I can tell you is that I'm now smoking up to a pack a day, stone sober.

(A little less than that, now. 1/2 pack, 1/3 pack depending on how the day goes.)

It's on those long, sleepless nights that I smoke the most. Not during the day, when I'm relearning the joy and importance of music and writing make-believe, or on the nights when I can lay down, put on an audio book, and drift peacefully away to Stephen King's Dark Tower westerns. It's on those sleepless nights. It's on nights like those and this one; my bed is just a piece of functionless furniture and my mind defies me with its wakefulness and that pack of cigarettes just runs empty as the hours pass by. Sometimes, most times, I smoke one after another until my throat is sore and the smell of the smoke alone turns my stomach. Usually I'll smoke another two or three after I hit that point--cross-addiction is it's Name-O.

But I'm doing okay. I'm doing all I can do. This entire process is new to me; living without alcohol and...just plain living is new to me.

I've worked to find and to feel and in doing so I've found my own version of truth. I can utilize my counseling sessions for issues aside from my broken heart. It always goes back to it; but that's life, isn't it? It's a wheel and it always comes back around. And I was gone for so long, and missed so much of the spinning, I feel like playing a little catch-up is the best I can do at the moment.

I've found literature that can make as much sense to my heart as my mind, words and stories that are strong in both purpose and understanding.

I'm finding my own recovery; making a checklist in my mind and marking off my own convictions regarding the importance of my sobriety.

I've been working on songs again, honestly and without alcohol, and I'm pleased to find that both my ability and my joy is still there. Not broken; just packed away behind all of the booze.

I'm blowing the dust off and taking the sheets off of these precious things that I'd neglected in storage.

I've even begun writing a western of my own. It's called "Old Stone" and, unsurprisingly, it's primary themes are about the cycles committed by fathers and their sons and, of course, alcoholism.

So I'm stepping back into life, my life, and finding fulfillment in living it.

But, even with that, the emotional wreckage is still there. It's coming to the surface a little more each day, and I think that's a good thing. It was buried for too long and needs to come up to breathe; perhaps to drift away into the sky.

Due to my own alcoholism, I never grieved the loss of my father in a healing way. More so than healing from his loss, I can recognize now that what I had done was simply write him out of my life--not an incredibly hard position for me to take, seeing as how my father wrote himself out of his life by way of his own addictions long before his passing. But the wrong position to take all the same. The unhealthy position. And certainly the position that an addict would take; fuck dad, let's get drunk. Now I have one more reason to justify my atrocious drinking.

I began to think of all of this during those first thirty days--and I still think of it now.

(Note from Zane: And now.)

Due to my alcoholism, I hurt a woman who loved me. I hurt her bad. And, despite not being able to remember the worst moments, remembering what moments I can and the constant absence of her in my life now is all the evidence I need to confirm this sad truth. She loved me and I treated her to a nightly sampling of emotional abuse, directed at both her and myself; to manipulation and veiled threats; and, always at the end of one of my long binges, threats of suicide.

She came back time and again, time and again; I continued to drink. Because that's what alcoholics do.

If I could have one wish now, just one, I'd wish that she would've thrown my ass into rehab years ago. Or got my friends to. Or...

...Or nothing. There's no "alternate" scenario: this is how my life has unfolded. This is how my life is now because this is how Zane functioned as an alcoholic:

1. Wake up
2. Pretend to care about living; about having a life (write, music, work if I had work)
3. Drink
4. Get drunk
5. Shoot through the phases of drunkenness (talkative/emotional, "the professor," depressed)
5a. Blackout
6. Threaten the people that care about me that I'm going to kill myself
6a. Later this also became: punch out windows, fall through windows, get into drunken fights
7. Pass out

Hell, she was 19 when this craziness started on my end. She was 19. That's more a girl-woman than a woman and I treated this beautiful, intelligent, funny, wonderful girl-woman like a sack of shit. And she did not deserve it--nothing changes that fact; no book on alcoholic pathology, no group, no discussion. Nothing.

I was first able to begin realizing this during those first thirty days; I'd sit at the computer with the phone at my side, yes, but I would think as I sat there. And, like with my dad, I still think of this now.

(Note from Zane: And now.)

I realized during those first thirty days that I was abusing myself as well the ones in my life; I did not deserve the hell I had put myself through. I think about this all of the time now; it's one of the most powerful realizations that take the "shine" off of the prospect of drinking in my mind. It's one of the most powerful players in replacing the "alcohol good" thoughts in my mind with "alcohol bad."

(Note from Zane: And I still think of this now.)

Earlier I spoke of cycles pertaining to a western story I'm working on--my mind is filled with the inescapable concept of life existing as a cycle, or a sequence of cycles, right now. Some cycles are actually doing double-duty; they're a cycle and a spiral. That was my drinking; it was both a cycle, repeating and self-feeding; and a spiral, leading forever deeper down.

But this is a cycle I am free from now; of the drinking, the abuse, the shame and the hurt. And while life is full of cycles--life can be looked at as a cycle itself, depending on one's inclination--this is a cycle that I will never allow to spin freely within my own life again. The pain of such living, of such thinking, of addiction lives on for miles and is the only thing living inside it.