The Miracle of an Eclipse: My Before

So, I’m using this eclipse, like I have tried to use Christmas and New Years and my birthday and Easter, to fully jump-start a new path, a sober path. I would have had 8 years this past March 30th, but I had a drink in London (because I had never been to London!) and then another for some occasion, I can’t remember what, and then on and off for the next (almost) two years.

I didn’t see that coming. Seriously.

But how could I not? I’ve listened to person after person describe how one special drink led them into further drinking, but I knew that didn’t really apply to me. After all, I had transcended drinking. That was the actual word I used at some point in my blog, transcended. And it was true, or so I thought at the time. Or maybe it was true, and I changed that by opening the door just a crack, again and again.

And what’s both beautiful and harrowing is the realization that I am just like everyone else. I’m not special! I love that about me, at this moment, sitting at a bar, having what I’m telling myself is my final Cosmo ever. Because, you know, the eclipse.

So … what I’m reading here at the bar, the only person here at 1:13 on a Monday, as my apartment is packed up and moved to a townhouse, and as a total transition is about to take place, both in my life and in the world, God willing, and he is always willing …

What I’m reading is this: An eclipse can be used as a line in the sand. I told my husband this, as I asked to borrow a credit card because I’d maxed out my own, while he moves the entire household, while I tell him yet again that THIS is the moment, the before and after, that it’s over, this playing around with alcohol, and that he doesn’t have to worry about me anymore, and that I’ll be who I used to be, and that I will live instead of die, a little at a time.

And here in the bar! A miracle. It’s Peter Gabriel singing “Bring Me a Higher Love,” because that’s what it’s going to take. And that’s what it took before. And I am there again, at the crossroad, and all I have to do is choose.

So today, I choose love.

Starry, Starry Night

WOW.

I was going to blog about something else entirely, but when I found this photo, I was reminded of the song Starry, Starry Night. I heard Wayne Dyer’s daughter sing it live years ago at one of those “I Can Do It!” conferences. For the first time, I googled it and heard the Don McLean version. I’m sitting here crying. Seriously. It’s so beautiful.

So, back to 1972 with a throwback video that starts with an introduction in another language, here it is! It’s still so worth listening and watching, and for those who’ve never heard the song, it’s about Vincent Van Gogh and his struggle with mental illness. But really, it could be about anyone. As it turns out, he was heavily addicted to alcohol.

Starry, Starry Night

2024: Demi Lovato

Day 11 and a Puppy!

Although I just blogged about not EVER being able to get a puppy, I (and my husband) took a huge leap of faith, and we now have Cody, the cutest puppy ever. Of course, my husband wanted to talk about the pros and cons of getting a puppy, but my argument was that it’s never a good idea if you take this approach. (Neither are children, but we have 5 between us.) It’s always going to cost a lot, be inconvenient, cause dog-sitting headaches, and be super messy in the beginning. But logic has no place in this decision, I argued.

A dog is a miracle. And my yearning heart has wanted this miracle for a while. And this is despite the many reasons NOT to get a dog. So far, I’ve slept with my arm in a rubbermaid bin all night, petting the whimpering little guy. Rolled up our new rug because he mircro-pees every 30 seconds. Cleaned up worse messes because his parasite medicine gives him diarrhea, and watched stupid TV, because he loves to sleep in my lap with the sound barely on.

It has really been fun! Seriously, because I also take him to the park in the mornings, with dew still on the grass, and he chases butterflies. I am sooooo popular at our neighborhood Starbucks, because I carry him in when I order. Then I carry him around and show him ducks and geese and people, and he’s AMAZED. Almost like having a toddler. A furry toddler that takes a 2-hour nap in a crate.

But NONE of this would have happened without my 11 days sober. While drinking, I did not have the energy or focus or maturity to take care of a puppy. The only thing I would have managed was to take him to outdoor cafes where I could have a couple of drinks while “socializing” him. I would have eventually been too exhausted and overwhelmed to continue, and we would have had to rehome him to friends or family. But today, I am not thinking ahead, I’m just taking care of and loving a little miracle puppy.

And that’s only 11 days in! I wonder what else is possible….

DAY 6 and ALL is Well

Hello, all!

It never ceases to amaze me what a few days of taking care of myself can do for my mental and physical health. Just a few days in and I’m a different person. It’s almost as if … when you stop pouring glugs of poison down your throat, your health improves! Who knew?

I knew! And if there is a benefit to drinking again after a loooong period of sobriety, it is this: You are not starting over. You can pick up where you left off. Yes, there is some valuable time for reflection, and yes, now is the time to reach out to others in the same position, but overall, I’m not (yet) in nearly as bad of shape as I have been in the past. I have not (yet) drunk enough to be physically addicted, and I have not (yet) made my brain feel like I’m thinking through peanut butter. (That’s kind of my natural state anyway … why make it worse?)

A wise person might consider this to be a good time to quit AGAIN for good. Or at least for today, a concept I could never quite wrap my head around. I’m much more comfortable making pledges to stop for … 90 days! And then have a major celebration beforehand … with permission to overindulge, because I had committed to not drinking for 90 days. I was guaranteed to succeed because I’d already marked the days off on my calendar — never mind that I’d not yet completed a Day 1. I could always justify drinking today because I was about to quit for, let’s say, a year. Or forever! I was (and still am) very good at committing future Shawna to amazing feats. But don’t ask me about today.

But what if tomorrow never comes? (And from the tv droning on in the background … “sometimes heroes need reminding.”) I listen for those signs — the indisputable nudges that I’m on the right path. Of course, I know it intellectually, but I need encouragement from the Universe. Actually, I need the Universe to step in and lift me up in ways that I could never have imagined. It’s already happening, and I am choosing, just for today, to be grateful and loving and worthy of this outpouring of support.

And luckily, I really do want a sober life. I’ve had one before, and I know it’s going to be amazing. I just need to become my own hero, once again.

💜

Barely Made It Through Day 3

Luckily, I put my back out on Day 1, so really I could only lie around, take Advil, and drag myself to Cold Stone Creamery at 6:00, when most people eat dinner. Because it was Day 1, I could have anything I wanted to eat. (The trade-off is worth it.) I had a hot fudge sundae with extra fudge in one of those waffle cones shaped like a bowl.

Day 2, I went to a nearby Unity Church that I’d always claimed I wanted to really start going to, and maybe meet some people. Long nap. Back to Cold Stone.

Day 3, felt a good deal better, though still tired. As a surprise, my husband traded in my old SUV and got a new (to me) electric car, more of a run-around vehicle. This was so exciting! It’s much sportier and I like little cars anyway. We’d been talking about doing this for a while, but to have the old car gone and a newish one to drive around town in was so much fun! And the sun was setting, and we walked around a beautiful lake, and it made me so nostalgic … the humidity isn’t quite as bad, and it’s getting cooler … and this thought just snuck it’s way in: I want to celebrate.

I wanted to sit at an outdoor cafe and talk about what we might do this fall, and have a drink. Probably two. And then I got that really lonesome feeling, like when you’re a kid and you really really want something you know you can’t have. It’s that same feeling I get when I cruise the internet for puppies. I have allergies, and I’m now living in an apartment, and I don’t like taking out dogs in the pouring rain/freezing cold, but the desire to get a puppy overwhelms me sometimes. I want a puppy. I’m already in love when I see that furry little face, those dark eyes. The yearning I feel to hold that puppy defies any kind of logic.

You can’t have one.

Like the urge for a drink. Attacking a feeling with logic seldom works for me, especially when it’s a feeling this deep.

It feels like I’m losing someone close to me. A good friend is leaving, and I want one more evening of sitting on a porch, having a drink, watching the sun go down. And maybe talk about getting a puppy, because the bourbon my husband sometimes drinks will lower his inhibitions toward what he knows will be his responsibility most of the time.

But now we’re at the house, and I don’t want to ask him to go to the restaurant just downstairs across the parking lot, because I know he’ll say no. I told him to, when I started this latest quest. And then I feel even lonelier. Is the feeling strong enough to walk across the parking lot and sit at the end of the bar and order a drink, under the pretext that I’m just there to order take out?

I waver there for a minute, while two possible futures hang in the balance. And then I realize I’m hungry. Food tends to ruin alcohol for me. In an instant, just an instant, I’ve reached for the big loaf of sourdough bread and popped a couple of pieces in the toaster. A few minutes later, and I’m fine. And I recognize that another day will pass without me hurting myself again. And that’s the most important thing I could have accomplished today.

Another miracle.

Day 1!

Well, after much sobriety, years in fact, I decided to experiment again in the drinking game. What I found out, OF COURSE, is that the game hasn’t changed and neither have I. So … I now have the opportunity to follow my own advice and begin again, without shame or blame. I spent an entire year with a few months sober here, a few weeks there, but I never formally committed to new sobriety until today. So TODAY I have publicly outed myself, and I begin again on one of the most worthwhile journeys a human being can take.

So …. Happy Birthday to me! I’m determined to make this lapse worthwhile by using it as a springboard to go deeper into the incredible spiritual life that exists just on the other side of addiction.

Thank You for listening. ; )

Shawna

To Leslie. Watch this movie!

To Leslie, a great new film about a woman facing the depths of life lived via alcohol. It was painful to watch, but I loved it, and Andrea Riseborough is one hell of an actress. The movie claims it is based on true events.

Click here for the trailer.

Happy New Year!

Let’s make it one to remember.

2022 was a mixed bag, for sure. There were spectacular highs (two babies born!) and shocking lows (health on the downswing), but …

I AM HERE FOR THE NEW YEAR!!

I am CLAIMING this one OUT LOUD as the one in which I FINALLY put fear behind me and STEP OUT in a new never-seen-before way …

Starting … NOW!

Please join me!

There will be dancing and free popcorn. Maybe even world travel.

Six Years’ Sober

Six years ago, I went to a retreat center on top of a mountain in a last ditch effort to get sober. I was there for 8 days. Here’s what I wrote while I was there:

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

I’d never heard of an Ayurvedic massage, not before my self-imposed rehab at a mountain retreat that promised yoga, meditation, vegetarian food, and healing. No meat or alcohol allowed on the premises.

It was here on a table, on top of a mountain so high that we often walked through clouds, that silent women anointed my body — my forehead, my palms, my feet — with warm, fragrant oil. Their skilled caresses and the lull of soft Indian music made me feel like I was in another world.

Like anything might happen.

I vaguely remembered something about the anointing of saints, of Jesus. I read later in the Ayurvedic literature in my room that it was a call for healing. For miracles.

I wondered if the silent women could feel how desperately I needed a miracle. I knew, though, looking in the mirror later, that desperation was a feeling that I could no longer summon up. Instead, a familiar numbness clouded my mind, obscuring what used to be concern for my own wellbeing.

“Miracles happen here,” claimed the retreat’s website.  I needed one for myself, no doubt. But also some to bless those I had damaged with my need to anoint myself with wine.

During my final days at the spa, I was anointed for the last time. Afterward, the woman wrapped steaming towels around my head and feet so that I was covered in a shroud of white, with a sheet wrapped tightly around my body.

Like a corpse I thought. The anointing of the dead.

It’s up to you, she seemed to say.

I could take this blessing from the gods and hold it tight forever. Or release it and turn away. Let the unforgiving tide roll in and take me out to sea.

I want to hold on.