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Happy holidaze

12:58 am

I do sort of feel like I’ve been in a daze this season, mainly because of everything that’s been going on. The other day, I posted something and then deleted it, worried that it was too revealing about my father. And, I’m glad I did; this isn’t a blog about him.

I haven’t felt much like blogging recently; not sure why, it just feels like overexposure. I’ve also been working a ton and going-going-going with my brothers, getting my dad situated in a nursing facility–simply put, we think he has dementia, and it is *probably* not going to get better. I mean, we can hope it’s related to a transient, post-operative effect (he recently had surgery; the reason he had surgery, though, was because of his “dementia” thinking, which I see so clearly now)–but, he’s been in decline for like, at least three years, it just wasn’t presenting itself as memory loss, per se. Anyway, it’s been draining; there is no rule book, which is bizarre since so many people go through this!

In light of everything that’s come to a head this year–started menopause, put my dog to sleep, watched my dad literally go from, ‘Oh, Dad’s just being Dad’ in August, to, ‘Holy shit, there is something really very wrong here’ in November–I do feel grateful. I mean, I’m still here, for one. I’m still sane, still working (uber-grateful for this), still breathing, still loving, still content with most everything that comes my way.

Everything that has happened this year that could have definitely been given a strictly negative spin has actually led to something better. I lost my job–but I needed to leave anyway, and ended up finding something better, for the most part. I had to put my dog down–but she needed to Rest, and we were just holding onto a creature who was in unbearable pain. I went into menopause–but I feel SO much better, overall, than I did in perimenopause, and, I’m no longer on the birth control pill, which, I would say is much worse than hormone therapy (today’s bioidentical versions). What else? Oh, so yeah, my dad sort of “went into” dementia–but, considering that these past three years have been a long, crazy lead-up to what we’ve all just realized is actually cognitive decline, at least my dad is safe now. Even Covid has had many silver linings–one could say that Covid allowed nature to come back, people to take stock and be more mindful, mRNA vaccines to have their day probably faster than they would have had.

Anyway, it’s been a long few months. I had a GREAT Christmas, though; yes, we got together, and no, I don’t feel guilty about it (though, there are some people in places where Covid is still raging who would blame me and my friends for spreading the virus)–we are not a hot spot, and the people I hang out with are like me in that, no one really socializes! I am not worried that anyone in the group last night had Covid or has been exposed recently; there were three younger people (someone’s kids in their 20s) who had flown in, but, only two were recent arrivals and everyone has to take a Covid test before being allowed to enter the airport.

Tomorrow, we’re going on a boat trip–a big, twin-hulled catamaran, which should be awesome! I have never stepped foot on a boat like that, so I am looking forward to the experience. Speaking of which, I’ve had some down time to actually remember and cherish some old trips and friends lately–to mind come volunteer trips to Haiti, to Ecuador; a self-styled yoga retreat to Nosara, Costa Rica; years ago, a solo trip to Turkey; years before that, one to Greece; a year abroad in Paris; many exploratory trips all over the mainland through recent years. Ahh, the memories; I am proud of the trips I’ve taken of late, and really, truly can’t wait to be able to travel again…

I hope my dad can entertain himself with his own memories; it’s painful, wondering what he is thinking about right now, you know? I know he has some great memories, so…that’s a small consolation.

Oh, and we got another doggay! He is the most ridiculous dog ever–his cuddle factor is so high, he’s almost TOO cuddly! I do miss my girl so very much–and our boy–but…life goes on. It’s nice to have a little buddy to care about, to walk, to have sleep all over you (we are not letting him on the bed; he will never, ever leave if we do…).

Tags: 2020, aging parents, content, dementia, grateful, holidays, New Year, Parents, silver linings, wasn't all bad

Comments 9 Comments
Categories Addiction, Alcoholism, Change, Family, Gratitude, Happiness, Health, Higher Power, Holidays, Life, Long-term sobriety, menopause, Mental health, Parents, perimenopause, Random, Recovery, Sobriety, Women's health

Our girl is gone…

14 Aug

6:21 pm

…and, it feels like the end of an era. It kind of is, the end of an era. She was with us for almost a decade (8.5 years from the time I met her until the day she died, which was on Wednesday)–during that time, she lived her entire life…and we, too, lived a decade of our own lifetime. I think that’s what’s most jarring right now, is that we aged a decade, too; we saw a decade of our life disappear, too. A lifetime, in an instant–that’s how all those years of fun, growth, and love seem to me. Lifetimes are instants; the mind cannot comprehend, truly, the passage of time.

What did it all mean, I can’t help but wonder? Sure, she was my higher power; she was literally my entire (albeit small, I see that now) world, after I moved here and got sober, but before I got the courage to re-enter the “real” world (of work and friends and all that comes with stepping out). She, along with our other dog and my boo and my neighborhood–they were my world, for years; and there was nothing more I wanted, truly.

I feel a bit guilty that I “outgrew” only needing this dog, this world! As she aged, started to hurt, became more subdued in her older years, um, so did I! I mean, I grew up, so to speak, alongside her. When I looked through pictures of myself from back in her younger day, I, too, looked so much younger then, it seems: brighter, happier, more smiling. I was beaming, probably out of love for her, my new life, my newfound sobriety, maybe just the giddy youth that you don’t realize you still very much have in your 30s. My 40s have forced me to grow up and stop shitting (as many) unicorns, as it were; I still loved her with all my heart up until her very last day. I know she knows that, and I know it was her time, yet, I still feel a tad guilty.

But I also feel relieved. Her final night was really hard, and I woke up convinced that neither she nor I ever wanted to see her in so much pain ever again. So, we called the vet out to the house, and, surrounded by our loving arms, looking out at the water in her favorite spot (dating back almost a decade)–our girl passed, very peacefully.

It’s been quiet around here, that’s for sure. I am relieved that after about 1.5 years of tending to her needs 24/7, I don’t have to worry about what she’s doing and if she needs me. The final few weeks were really painful to watch, wondering with every passing second if she was in pain, if she was now deaf, if she was overmedicated or experiencing some kind of dementia or just in distress. Now that I have all my time and energy back, it’s like, what do I do with myself?

I was thinking that, it’d be a shame to not get another dog. You hear people who have gone through this say, Oh, I can’t do that again. Same thing with humans who lose a spouse–there will be no one who can replace him/her. Yet…we are made to love. And, to spend the rest of your life not doing what you were meant to do–I can’t see it.

I mean, what do we have to show for our lifetime together? It’s like, we’re back in the same house, the same place, and I feel like nothing happened; yet, it all did, right here. It all went down here, years and years of love. Is that all there is, really, is the love, the act of loving–and there is nothing tangible (unless you have babies or create art) to show for that, and there shouldn’t be. That’s the nature of love; that’s the nature of life. We come, we love, we go.

So, why do anything then? Are all our pursuits outside of loving each other and our animals simply neuroses, compulsions that propel us to work, strive, achieve, accomplish? Who knows?

Anyway, I’m glad she’s no longer struggling, and, I’m joyful, truly, that she got to live out her fierce, fun-loving life until the very end.

Tags: all you need is love, dog, dog is higher power, euthanize, higher power, love, love is all there is, pets are family, put dog to sleep, to love is to live

Comments 10 Comments
Categories Addiction, Alcoholism, Binge drinking, Death, Family, Higher Power, Life, Long-term sobriety, Recovery, Sobriety

Days go by

25 Jul

5:05 pm

Days go by, and I keep plugging away.

There’s my job search, which is going well. I’ve got a great lead on a great company/gig, and I have what I believe might be my final round of interviews on Monday. I am trying to not overthink it, as in, wonder all sorts of things about the industry, full-time vs. freelance, my own emotional and/or mental investment… However, here and now, in the midst of a pandemic where over half of my own organization was furloughed; where jobs in THAT space are few and far between; where a TON of people are without work and I should be thrilled that this job even exists, let alone that I have the potential opportunity to be offered said job–I am trying to not overthink it, keep an open mind, and focus on the task at hand.

Which is definitely being helped by me being off Facebook! I actually went on last night–and, of course, I got sucked in for a whole hour, from 2 to 3 am! The good news is, I didn’t really obsess about anything or anyone’s posts; I didn’t let much affect me–that felt good; it felt good because I was able to check my groups (which I miss), read a few people’s updates (I miss keeping up with some friends’ lives, more regularly that I would in person), and then…log off. I will probably continue to go on periodically, but I don’t have a desire to get hooked in on a daily basis.

Speaking of my 3 am bed time, um…yeah. I am trying, but it’s hard for me to get to sleep before 3–especially when I don’t have to go to work the next day. I mean, I have always been a night owl, but I actually want to see if I am waking up after three hours (so, 6 am) every night because I went to bed too late and it’s sunny as shit by then or because, well, menopause.

I started on the estrogen patch this week, so, I’ve been off the birth control pill for two weeks. I have to admit, I think I’m actually having daytime hot flashes/flushes now, and I never had those before on the pill. Hmm…maybe it’ll just take a while for the patch to start working? Or, maybe I’m just hot (it is really hot here right now; 90 degrees in the shade, lawd knows how humid)? Maybe I need a higher dose? Who knows? (I’ve stopped trying to figure it out…because, well, menopause! WHO KNOWS what’s going on? I don’t, and I majored in physiology!?)

Maybe I’m hot because I am taking care of our dog all day long? It’s like a crossfit workout, taking care of her! My girl hasn’t been able to walk for oh, three days now. Her hind legs are just so tired–atrophied , crossing each other (it’s like, her left hind has lost all tension). She’s struggling. We spend a lot of time helping her get up, walk across the room and outside, go for walks on the harness. I say, it’s a crossfit workout, taking care of her, what with the bending and kneeling and lifting. She’s been pooping on her bed for months now, but recently started losing control of her bladder, SO…lots of wiping and washing and drying, spraying and folding and moving and tucking in… I love her, but we’re all getting tired.

I was thinking of how much of a higher power she was to me when I was getting sober. I’ve written about it on my blog before, how she and our other dog (RIP, sweet boy) were my higher powers. He taught a newly sober me how to love others; she taught me how to love myself. That’s all I can say. They were such a huge part of my early years here, on island; such a huge part of my sobriety–I know, I know, they’re “just dogs,” but, to me, for me, they were so much more than that; they helped me more than most humans could have helped me. I just can’t imagine life without her, her not having life–it’s too hard to contemplate. She wants to live, and until she lets me know otherwise…?

What else? I swear, my chikungunya is back. It usually resurfaces to a degree when either I am infected with another virus (the flu, for example) or my immunity is low (when I work out too hard, for instance). Past few days, I’ve felt achey all over, especially in my ankles and wrists and fingers, and like, have had this familiar internal burning feeling in these areas; just blah–“chikungunya-y.” I hate to say it, but, maybe I’ve contracted the COVID? Hopefully not. I’ve been reading about the chronic nature of COVID for some patients, and it reminds me of the way chikungunya virus can hide out for a long time in some people (apparently, me; I got it in 2014, and I still have symptoms once in a while). Yipes. No, thanks!

On that note, I’ll sign off.

Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down/into the blue again, after the money’s gone/once in a lifetime…

Tags: anxiety, birth control pill, canine, chikungunya, coronavirus, covid, dog, estrogen patch, Facebook, Facebook addiction, get off facebook, get off social media, higher power, hot flash, hot flush, insomnia, job interview, job search, menopause, osteoarthritis, perimenopause, social media, social media addiction, the patch, the pill, virus

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Categories Addiction, Alcoholism, Binge drinking, Change, Gratitude, Higher Power, Insomnia, job search, Life, Long-term sobriety, menopause, perimenopause, Random, Recovery, Sobriety, social media, Work, Writing

Almost a week off social media…

19 Apr

4:26 pm

…and it’s better than good-ish! I mean, I am starting to see how hugely beneficial this “break” from Facebook might actually be in terms of my relationships, including with myself.

At first, I felt a sense of relief; as in, ahhh, I don’t have to follow all the news/information; ahhh, I don’t have to “care” about this random person’s feelings or thing they did. I felt like there was much less noise in my head, and that made way for more space to think about *my* life, this blog, my future employment prospects, i.e., what I want to be when I grow up (after lockdown ends and we all are supposed to go back to normal).

Then, I had a sense of clarity around relationships, accompanied by some sort of resentment and ultimately, mild disappointment. As it turns out, some of my “friends” on social media are just that–friends only on Facebook. In real life, I guess we don’t have that much to talk about, and frankly, we probably kind of annoy each other. I just can’t anymore with passive-aggressive behavior, so I might just let them go–it’s probably for the better if I feel this good!

Past two days, I seem to have “remembered” that I have, um, really old, really good relationships with some people–cousins, old friends from growing up, my family–so, why the HECK have I been chasing the comings and goings of people I barely know? It’s just crazy-making, and I see it now as such: I mean, why not focus on your actual, tried-and-true relationships, the ones that have already given back and will continue to do so? That’s what I’m going to focus on this week when I get bored or restless wondering where all my “friends” have gone–reach out to those friends that I have, to those that have already proven to be worthwhile, to be relevant (as in, we have a real history together).

On another note, my furlough is going well; I mean, I have a ton of things I want to do (read my last post), and have just started to get back into reading. I am supposed to be reading 50 pages a day in this book (it’s over 1,000 pages long, and I just want to get it done!), but I’m already behind on that! I love taking walks, and of course, I go running outside and do yoga (and sometimes lift weights) indoors. I mean, life on an island is pretty glorious as far as “lockdown” goes; we’ve got space here, and no one is enforcing any strict orders (except for the beaches; they have been closed the past two weeks, supposedly reopening tomorrow). We have all this beautiful outside world to explore, and I love it–more than ever, since now it’s truly empty of humanity and I get it all to myself! (as an introvert, I am dreading when things open back up…and the pressure of having to socialize is put back on us)

On a different note, we woke up this morning to our sweet dog–a chow-shepherd mix–in what I have come to call an “osteoarthritic crisis.” She’s had a few of these crises, which seem to come on at night, usually around dawn (um, thanks to perimenopause, I am up most of the night with her, to witness when all this takes place–haha). She pants really, really hard, and kind of paces around, obviously in a lot of pain based on the way her limbs have stiffened even more than they usually have by the end of the day.

This morning, however, she was in a state that I have never seen: not just panting, but panting SO VERY hard that her tongue was extended to breaking point and was almost purple; she was like, almost seizing/having a seizure, her legs and arms would not move her around no matter how hard she tried. She finally got to one of her beds and eased herself down to a half-sitting/half-standing posture; and she kept panting, her body shaking with the force of her panting (I thought she was going to have a heart attack, I really did), for like, an hour.

We gave her her morning meds–gabapentin and rimadyl–and on top of that, some old pills that we never give her, save for when she’s in a lot of pain, both a tramadol (a pain reliever) and a trazadone (a sedative that the vet gave us for the flight down, which we never used). Finally, after much panting, watering, and just sitting next to her with my hand on her side, she settled down, eased down onto the bed, and went to sleep.

I think it’s getting really close to time… I mean, other dog owners would probably shame us for letting it go on this long–she started to limp badly almost 1.5 years ago–but, it is what it is. I have never had a dog go through this, and most of the time, she is fine in her mind. Lately, though, and especially this morning, which scared me, her body is just showing severe signs of “I can’t do this for much longer.”

At least I have time to spend with her now, not having to work. Today was like a hangover day for her: those days that were 100% wasted, sleeping off the sobering up, and then, waking up at 5 pm to realize that it was almost dusk, you still felt like shit, and you had just wasted another day (and night before; none of my nights of drinking were ever memorable, if remembered at all). That’s a dark comparison, but one that I can’t help but make.

It’s almost sunset time here, which means, time to go onto the deck and watch the colors fade from the sky, sinking into the horizon until everything turns to ink, then black. The stars will appear, first Venus, then the Big Dipper; then, the night will fill out as the evening plods on, and the black will become peppered with a spray of pinpoints of light. I wonder, how many of those are stars and how many, satellites? I can never tell which points of light are planets, and I can never pick out but a few constellations. Every night, though, I go out onto the deck, and look up, and gaze in awe, and in gratitude–most nights, I am burning up and feeling awful along every inch of my skin, BUT, I can still muster gratitude…and hope. I hope that our girl knows that she is up there, already, one star and many–she is my shining star, my Higher Power; she will light up my night sky forever. I hope she knows that, or at least knows that mommy is thinking about her when she steps out into the night and looks up.

Tags: arthritis, canine, coronavirus, covid-19, dog is my higher power, Facebook, Facebook addiction, get off facebook, get off social media, gratitude, hobbies, lockdown, mental clarity, night sky, osteoarthritis, perimenopause, quarantine, shelter in place, social distancing, social media, stars

Comments 9 Comments
Categories Addiction, Alcoholism, Binge drinking, Boundaries, Friendships, Gratitude, Higher Power, Long-term sobriety, Mental health, Psychology, Random, Recovery, Relationships, Sobriety, Triggers

The power of a sound bath

14 Sep

10:19 pm

I think I mentioned in my last post that I recently spent a week on the west coast of Costa Rica, mainly to do yoga, but also to be alone to process the fact that there are changes and evolutions going on in my life, and there is grief, and I am having a hard time dealing with all that AND keeping everything else in place. I only spent four days there–two were traveling to get there, and then, the final two days were spent getting home (and, stressing: I was booked through Miami on the way home, and Hurricane Dorian was just picking up speed that week and it looked like it was going to blow through Florida). Anyway, my time there was short and I only had four days, but four days was enough to see a transformation.

Whirr. Whirr. Whirrrrrrrring. This was the sound of my mind–the sound of my incessant thinking–during the first two days (well, all the time). I filled those days taking yoga, walking along the beaches (gosh, the Pacific is immense and amazing–and warm!?–down there), eating fish and rice and fruit (my perfect diet, I must say), and going to bed. Yet, my mind! Would. Not. Stop. Thinking. JESUS. I mean, I could literally hear the whirring sound…like a swarm of mosquitoes, filling my skull to the brim, spinning in one huge loud circle of BUZZ, WHIRR, WHIRRRRRRRRING.

On the evening of the second day, I decided to take a sound bath. The instructor was fantastic–the resort where I took my classes had some of the best teachers I’ve ever had, actually–and the sound bath was really cool. I mean, I’ve participated in sound “healing” ceremonies before; and yeah, afterward I do feel calmer and I can remember at least a few interesting visuals that came up during the ceremony; but, I have never felt anything beyond that. I enjoy them, that’s true, but I’m not sure I would consider them to be healing, per se.

Until I woke up on the third day feeling…quiet. QUIETED. Happy. Calm, clear, optimistic. Like, the sense of clarity was unmistakably uplifting! The whirring had stopped. What the…? I walked along the beach that morning, noticing that all my confusing, conflicted thoughts and thought tendencies and thought patterns–this mental weight that had been bogging me down for the past two days–had just gone away. The whirring was gone. Now, I don’t know if I should credit the sound bath, but…

The following night, my last, I went to my second sound bath–and this time, I listened a bit more closely to what the teacher was saying before he started in on his instruments (I have to admit, during the first class, I was just like, yeah, uh huh, right). And what he said was: by utilizing sound waves, sound baths ultimately allow your higher mind to distance itself from your lower mind (the thinking, the judging, the ego mind)–which helps to quiet the lower mind. I was like, what? That is literally exactly how I felt; that I had this newfound sense of clarity because the whirring just seemed to have ceased, and my higher mind was now fully present–quiet, not as judgmental, open. This, in turn, made me feel happier, friendlier to self and others, more willing to have conversations with strangers, more able to take in and enjoy the scenery…

At home now, what this clearer, quieter state of mind has allowed me to do is be more positive, in general, and resist negativity (from my own mind, from others). I don’t feel like judging people or situations or getting angry; I just want to let it go and continue to vibrate, as it were, at my higher, quieter level. It’s helped me feel and be more positive toward my relationships, my job, my coworkers; it’s helped me let things roll off my back and maintain a sense of calm happiness.

This feeling was really strong during the first week after I got back; I’m on my second week now, and while I don’t feel as happy and/or quieted, I find myself going back to that place of quiet clarity in my mind. I mean, even if I no longer presently own that sense of clarity, I can remember I once did and what it felt like–which goes a long way toward cultivating (I guess you could say) that state of mind.

It was definitely worth suspending my disbelief! Now, I feel like there is hope, there is a place to go, there IS clarity and quiet to be had–it’s just a matter of finding the tools to get there and developing those tools to keep you there.

Tags: clarity, higher mind, incessant thinking, mental clarity, quiet mind, quieting the mind, sound bath, sound healing, whirring mind, yoga

Comments 8 Comments
Categories Addiction, Alcoholism, Alternative medicine, Higher Power, Meditation, Mental health, Mindfulness, Psychology, Sobriety, Yoga

You don’t have to be awesome, or win

25 May

4:16 pm

Yes, that’s right, folks! At 43, soon to be 44 next month, I have at last made the realization that, nope, you don’t have to be awesome, and you don’t have to win.

You don’t have to do anything amazing, or challenging even; you don’t have to do it perfectly, or better than someone else; you don’t have to win any prizes.

Life goes on; life will go on, whether you publish a book, or open a business, or make millions as a lawyer or doctor. NONE of that really matters; what matters, I say, is the fact that you got to fall in love with a dog, and walk him–he laughing into your tears with his tongue–until you stopped crying and starting laughing with him. Our boy is gone now, but he lives on in my mind; and most days, that’s the only thing that feels like it matters to me. And, I’m not sure if I am supposed to feel liberated by that or straight up SCARED to death that I am getting closer and closer to just not giving any fucks anymore!

There is so much consumerism here–buying and selling of things, of work, of jobs, of people, of relationships, of experiences–in America. Maybe it really is everywhere, but, man, does there seem to be a desire here, almost a frenzied one, to acquire experiences. I’m in on it, too, of course, and as frenzied as the next person–and enthusiastically so most days! Yet, I try to remind myself of the existence of my higher power, the higher things, the lessening and loosening and lessons of sobriety. Life is about the wind, the breath being taken away; the letting go. Sometimes I do feel…estranged, I guess, in a “land of plenty” where there is never enough, and in some cases, feels like nothing.

I am trying to write these days, and all the usual bullshit comes up; somehow, though, I had this thought the other day that it just doesn’t matter–for real. It’s a thought that I’ve tried believing before, and I got to a certain level and then you know, went back to being my normal competitive, hard-on-myself self. Yet, the other day, I just thought, you know, you’re going on 44, you don’t have to win anymore. You don’t have to get into a good school (did it, twice), be the best in that school (failed at that, but I’m sure I tried and tried), do this and that and the other (did it all, in search of “growth” and “challenge”); you don’t have to get another degree and even if you do, you don’t have to do well in the program! You don’t have to DO anything or BE anyone except…yourself. A person who will maybe be loved and maybe be forgotten; that is life, and that is what we fight for, and against, it seems, every single day.

At this, I drank. I drank so much trying to be and do and achieve and win–and also, to NOT be and do and achieve and win. Now, I don’t want to drink at this; I have accepted that this is how I feel sometimes, and what I think, and well, maybe the reality that we all have to face now and again in this lifetime.

It’s so hard not being hard on myself; it’s so hard for all of us, I assume, to not be hard on ourselves. And, I would venture to say that, even IF someone tells you, Oh, DDG, don’t be so hard on yourself; in the back of their mind, they’re thinking and plotting and planning because there seems to be so very little example here (I’ll just call this world USA, Inc.) of actually choosing to not do, to not achieve, to not regard the world and your place in it as part of a game whose very existence hinges on your winning.

I’m not sure I know anyone who has completely said, fuck it, and decided to do away with the need for validation, by self or others. I am not there yet, but there is a voice inside me that is screaming, quietly, DDG, it does not matter what you do, just be. Just breathe. You can try stuff, and do stuff; and trying it is good enough; doing it is good enough. There are no prizes, and there is no winning, and when you die, your name and your achievements will not really be remembered as much as who you were, and what your presence meant to people. So, just be.

Ahh–if ONLY I could practice this now-ness all the time, and not for about three minutes a day!

Tags: achievement, acquire experience, competition, competitive America, consumerism, definition of success, drinking thinking, fuck it, just be, just breathe, live in the moment, live in the now, neurotic thoughts, self-validation, validation, winning the game

Comments 14 Comments
Categories Addiction, Alcoholism, Binge drinking, Change, Higher Power, Life, Mindfulness, Psychology, Recovery, Sober truths, Sobriety, Work, Writing

Our bear passed on…

21 Mar

10:58 am

On Saturday, March 17th, our “son” (beagle mix, almost 10 years old) passed on to the next realm, or whatever you believe exists after our brain turns off and we take our last breath. We were beside him on the bed as the house-call vet (who happened to have gone to vet school in the islands, which was actually quite comforting–we just moved here, and it still feels quite foreign) stabbed some “feel good” drugs into his heaving frame, and then followed that with barbiturate. I have had people and pets die, of course, but I have never been in the room as the creature took its last breath.

I almost took my last breath as, a moment later, our dog stopped breathing and his eyes went glassy and still. It was heart-wrenching, and it was seared into my brain.

As I’ve written, he was such an intimate part of my island life, and was everything to me for the 6 years that I knew him: coworker (I work from home), confidant, best friend, higher power. Once, when I was still drinking and had just arrived on island to visit the man who is now my fiance, I drank and blacked out and yelled; and our boy was so scared he hid outside under the truck. That was before I knew what a gentle, sweet soul he was, apt to cower at even the slightest expression of frustration, the smallest rise in voice. I vowed never again to scare him like that, and it was that memory, along with so many nights of love, comfort, and simply his presence that kept me from uncorking a bottle of red wine.

As my mind, however, begins to do what I could not imagine a few days ago–accept the unacceptable, normalize the horrific, move on from death–all I’m left with is a sense of awe and anger: the mind is an amazing, if not entirely effed up, place. Haha.

As we moved through the first hours without our little man, I couldn’t help but recognize in my actions the similarities between coping with death and dealing with a hangover! I spent the day clinging to “micro-goals,” like, breathing, like thinking about my next breath without having a panic attack; putting some food down my throat; paying my bill; rearranging the pillows on the couch; forcing a smile just to know that my face was still there.

And I gasped when I suddenly realized that EVERY one of my hangovers was a small death–a little death, but a death all the same. And, of all the horrific events of the last few days, that realization was kind of the most horrifying–that we, as alcoholics, put ourselves through a death every single day, for months, years, decades. How cruel are we to ourselves! Our bodies, minds, and souls deserve so much more; we deserve to be sober, we deserve to live.

I have wanted to smoke a cigarette the past few days, when my heart has felt so tight I could barely think; but not drink. I can’t imagine going through this trauma and being drunk or hungover. I still think about my old drinking buddies, some of whom are still using booze to coat, soothe, forget; and I wonder, how is it that I got here, that I GET to be free, to actually live through this pain alcohol-free–such that I can, again, transform it to something else, something positive, something light?

It was interesting to watch our other dog sniff at death and then immediately move away; it was saddening but also interesting to watch myself caress my boy’s corpse right after he stopped breathing, check his eyes (I was like, Is he definitely gone?) a couple times, and then…move away. We instinctively move away from death. Likewise, eventually, we instinctively move away from drinking alcoholically; drinking alcoholically is death, and we move away from it to life, to light, to clarity, to actually processing our reality.

I miss him, but I know I have to be grateful for all the life he gave me, the love he allowed me to see in myself, the thing that we conjured together by loving each other–that lives on, I have a strong sense. And for that I am grateful.

Tags: accept death, canine lymphoma, death of dog, dog, dog is higher power, dying dog, hangover is death, hangover is like dying, higher power, lymphoma, mortality

Comments 6 Comments
Categories Addiction, Alcoholism, Binge drinking, Coping mechanisms, Death, Gratitude, Hangover, Higher Power, Life, Mortality, Psychology, Recovery, Relationships, Sobriety

Emotional support animals for alcoholism

15 Dec

3:21 pm

This past week has been rough, and Monday, especially. I think it’s all just hitting me now. And by all, I mean the two hurricanes and the aftermath that has changed entire lives, some in the forever sense. We are recovering, and things are starting to settle back down…

And then…a few weeks ago, we discovered a couple swollen lymph glands on one of our dogs, took him to the vet, and the vet was like, Oh, Wow, and scheduled him for a biopsy. Our little man had his biopsy yesterday, is wearing a cone, and is still sort of out of it. (While the vet did prescribe him the usual course of antibiotics, which I think covers a number of different infections, they haven’t seemed to significantly lessen the swelling. I am more optimistic than I was on Monday, and I am not sure why–he could have swollen lymph nodes for many reasons, but of course, we can’t help but jump to the worst possible conclusion.)

My sweet bear. He has been with me these past 5 years through it all: love, addiction, aging, hurricanes. I honestly cannot imagine a life without him!

I have written (with my science journalist’s cap on) about emotional support animals (ESAs) for recovery from alcoholism and substance use disorders, in general. There is no doubt in my mind that my recovery was helped by my two dogs–having them to care for and love helped to negate the triggers, lessen the cravings, and simply kept me from drinking when I really wanted to drink. Did they understand my mental health crises far better than I, in terms of how to manage them? Probably.

Walking the dogs–in the morning sun, through the heat, with the gleaming blue water reflected off every green leaf, decaffeinated coffee in hand–was something I LOVED doing when I first got sober. It was something I relied on to start another day, sober; something that served as a touchpoint to both staying sober and then, growing emotionally and psychologically; to becoming a loving human being again. I loved all of it–that I could get up and feel so good in the morning, that I had “someone” to care for, to not let down (dogs don’t understand hangovers). These two dogs were my higher power, my pink cloud.

Both my dogs were my emotional support during my PAWS period, too–a post-acute withdrawal that lasted 18 months. They quelled my fear of “what now?,” eased my anxiety, helped to block the triggers and numb the cravings with their physical (soft fur, dog scent, warm presence) and psychological support–unconditional love. My boy was strong for me when I could not be, and did not want to be–if I drank, I would yell, and he would hide under the car, and I NEVER EVER wanted to scare him like that again. So I did not drink when I really, really, really wanted to. He was there for me when work frustrated me, or I was (am) beyond frustrated at the pace of my writing life/career–one whiff of his odor was like a hit, one touch of his soft ear like a balm; a belly rub, a roll, and his dog laugh and furious shaking it all out before jumping up on my knees for more. I adore him so much, and I love what he has meant to me, through my recovery–what he means to me, present tense. No one knows this but me; even he might not know it, but I truly believe he does.

Now, to imagine the possibility of my boy going down is just…very saddening. When I watch him struggle a little bit on the walk route he used to BOUND along, tears come; when I obsessively feel his lymph nodes, hard and nodular and big under his neck and behind his legs, and notice they aren’t any different than yesterday, I tremble a little inside; when I kneel on the floor in front of him sitting on the bed, and tears rush down my face, and he licks them away–there are no words for this growing fear.

GAH!

I cried all day Monday, which is not something I want to repeat–too draining, and not helpful to anyone. I have since started to feel better, optimistic, even. He’s had his biopsy and all we can do is wait for the results, and then go from there.

One step in front of the other, that is how this is done. What will be, will be. I want to accept the things I cannot change, but sometimes I feel so very helpless amidst all this “breaking down,” all this ending, aging, dying–in essence, renewal, but I can’t see it like that through my self-conscious ego.

Maybe I am overreacting–I think I’m just bracing for the worst so that I’m not floored when the worst happens. Life goes on and things will get better, but why does it feel like we’ve lost SO much of our lives here over the course of a few hours of hurricane activity? The storms took so many of our physical landmarks and mental and emotional signposts, all of which are now only memories; why do they have to take my boy, too? And, at the very moment that we are planning to move on, start over someplace new? I want to show him the world… We have SO many more walks to go on…

Tags: dog, dog for recovery, emotional support animal, ESA, pet for recovery

Comments 8 Comments
Categories Addiction, Alcoholism, Alternative medicine, Binge drinking, Higher Power, Psychology, Recovery, Sobriety

Moving on

23 Oct

11:50 am

I seem to post monthly these days, and I guess that’s got to be OK for now–I’ve had other things on my (very scattered) mind. Things are rolling along, sober, of course. It’s been about 7 weeks since we were hit by Hurricane Irma, and life hasn’t been the same, or in any way normal. We’ve tried to keep it “normal,” but it’s really been a matter of survival on big and small levels.

We have food and water and ice (thank goodness my boo works at a bar, so he has been able to get us ice on the regular–a very, very “hot” commodity, even now, 7 weeks post-storm), and a couple generators; I’ve managed to use my phone to connect to the Internet to work–those are big things. On the small side, I still go running (albeit, I stay in the ‘hood because I don’t want to take my car out on the roads–and, running up our hills in this heat is just plain ridiculous!), and we still go out to eat (albeit, half the places are still closed, and the other half are still only offering “hurricane menus”), and we managed to finally take a day “off” from all this survival stuff to sit on a beach for the first time in 6 weeks on Saturday (we didn’t go in the water because many beaches are still testing positive for bacteria from runoff).

Through all this, I haven’t wanted to think much about being sober; yet, I could (and do!) think about it all the time, if I allow myself the space to feel gratitude (and not just feel, ‘I have to do this,’ and ‘I have to do that’–which, admittedly, we’ve been doing a lot of lately in this post-hurricane situation).

I am planning yet another trip–maybe that’s my true “addiction,” traveling–this time back to the cold city where I started my sober journey; and I have to admit, I have thought about drinking while there. At this point, though, after all that I’ve worked for and all that’s passed, it’s a fleeting remnant of a thought. In fact, I don’t think I would ever act on it, but…that’s not to say I trust myself completely. Yes, I trust my “higher power” (my higher self, or mind) completely, but I can say that I don’t trust “me,” which is my lower mind, my urges, my ego, my negative, black-and-white thinking patterns that continue to be obstacles in my otherwise clear path.

Like I mentioned, these days, we’ve been dealing mainly with post-hurricane stuff: how to keep our food cold since the refrigerator crapped out; how to maintain the generator and when to turn it off (you can’t use any of the tiny appliances like the toaster oven and coffee maker if you are also running the water pump off the generator–who knew those devices took SO much electrical power?); how to keep ourselves entertained with spotty cell service and no electricity in sight for months. It’s all become somewhat boring to think about, actually, and well, we’re doing FINE–I feel ever-grateful that we didn’t get hit harder. Still, it’s taken a toll on our stress levels. On the flip side, it’s encouraged us to move on.

To that end, my next step is to fly back to the mainland to visit a couple more cities, and then come home, make our choice, and move on. Sure, this place is familiar and at times, magical in how beautiful it is; but it’s simply time to move on. I got sober here; we fell in love here–it will be undoubtedly bittersweet to leave. Yet, no matter how I slice and dice it in my mind, I have to move on. We must move on. When I moved back to a place that I left (years ago), I experienced the absolute abject horror (it was truly a waking nightmare for me) of being that ghost in my own life, wandering around a current place as my former self, living in the nostalgia of what was, and how I felt–not changing, not growing, not evolving. I don’t want the sepia-filtered version of the picture of our lives, especially while we’re still living it; I want color!

So, these things have pushed sobriety–both staying sober and appreciating being sober–out of my mind. Luckily, I am on autopilot when it comes to saying no to wine, and never crave it. But, I’d really love to truly be present again in my sobriety–and maybe simply writing about it more frequently will help.

On that note, I am going to sign off. It feels good to reconnect with all my readers, new and old. I am so glad you’re here!

Tags: moving on, nostalgia, not living in the past

Comments 8 Comments
Categories Addiction, Alcoholism, Change, Higher Power, Life, Moving, Recovery, Sobriety

Redefining yourself sober

30 Aug

11:40 am

I know, I know, it’s been a while. Seems that once we finally do make it through that whirlwind of sh*& called getting sober, and actually ARE sober, and actually have a ton of amazing and good and interesting things going on, to write about–we stop writing about it! I, for one, have always tended to write, to express myself, in general, only when I’m experiencing negative emotions. I always used to drink when I felt bad, to self-soothe, not necessarily to party or celebrate (sure, on the surface it was to party, but really it was to pass time, to avoid committing to spending time, to soothe my social anxiety in group settings, etc.). Anyway, I’m still here, and still have a lot to write about–being sober is challenging enough, but writing about daily life challenges without whining about being or getting sober is, well, one of the hardest things I’ve had to try to do!

Another thing that I’ve found a LOT harder than I would have thought before getting sober (I know who I am, pfft) is redefining myself. Man, this is hard. Everything from how I feel and how I express how I feel, to managing my emotions, to figuring out not only what I want to do, but if it’s OK to actually do what I want to do–all this stuff relates to figuring out how to be sober, how to LIVE sober. And, it’s a process. It’s been about 5 years since I got sober, and most of the time I’ve spent getting there. Now, I’m definitely here (sure, I have a twinge now and then of wanting my old self back, my old life, but it never lasts long and it almost doesn’t make sense to my brain anymore to feel this way), and I’m like, now what?

Of course, I’ve figured it out along the way, but it hasn’t been without angst. And, every day, I wake up wondering, now what? Not in the sense of, what am I going to do today? I have my freelance career (as it stands, I don’t write as much as I work for one place, doing one thing, getting paid once every week–woop!), and my life here, which I try to live to the fullest (walking dogs, meeting friends–err, investing in a social life is still a huge problem area for me–doing yoga, working out, eating out, traveling here and there, etc.). It’s just…there are all these other things that sort of don’t come naturally that I have to work on–and I often sincerely wonder if “normies” have to “work” on them, or if they just live them, and move on?

Some of these things include wondering what to do next, and how to make it happen; wondering if I should invest in a home, a piece of land, a business, or…a new career; learning how to not feel, in general, that the world is an abrasive, combative place toward me; managing my moods (which have been SERIOUSLY controlled for the better simply by going on the pill last year) such that I don’t let the negative feelings and thoughts set my course for the day and disturb not only my experience of the events but also my productivity… So many daily things that, well, maybe are new because you grow and change and that is life; or, maybe are new to me because while I was drinking, I was able to avoid dealing with them. I did what I “had” to do, or thought I should be doing, and then I downed myself in wine every night in order to not have to deal with the stress, or manage the pain, or confront the why and how of the stress and pain in the first place.

Exhale–it’s still my mantra these days. I realize that there is a higher brain, a higher power, and maybe I’ve sort of neglected the “getting sober” lessons that were so animated in my early sober days/years? I don’t think about getting or being sober, and I’m kind of starting to think that I need–not want–to put myself back there. Not to avoid picking up again–that’s unfortunately over, over–but to…I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, MOVE FORWARD IN MY SOBRIETY. I feel stuck, and it’s because I’m not dealing, or confronting. I’m being, and to be is great. However, I think I need more.

I think we’re definitely going to move this fall–it’s a big deal, a big change, one that I know we need to do and want to do, but that will bring a lot of bittersweetness (I know what mainland life is about, and I know what this life is about, and I think my soul likes this life better, but my spirit needs out of this place–you know?). I bring it up because I think once we do hit the road, I’m going to look into finding a counselor to work through some of this…confusion, I guess is the best word to describe it. I saw someone a few months into getting sober, and it helped, so maybe this will help me iron out some of those big folds in the landscape?

Hope all are well, and here’s to blogging more often! (Jeez!)

Tags: being sober, confused sober, how to live sober, learning how to live sober, living sober, plateau, redefining yourself sober

Comments 7 Comments
Categories Addiction, Alcoholism, Change, Choices, Higher Power, Life, Psychology, Random, Recovery, Sobriety

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Drunky Drunk Girl

Happy holidaze

Our girl is gone…

The power of a sound bath

You don’t have to be awesome, or win

Our bear passed on…

Emotional support animals for alcoholism

Moving on

Redefining yourself sober

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