Growth

Fear emanates from me like a thick mist of moisture. It permeates and fills me until there is no ME left and only the Fear exists. I am not my self, I am no longer human. I have become my nightmare.

This is me on many days, not as many as a month ago and not nearly as many as six months ago when every day was filled with fear and anxiety. It was my drinking fuel.

Today and yesterday have been weird days for me. I have accomplished so much in the past couple of months, in regards to a new career in writing, and sobriety. However, yesterday was one of those days where I woke up, and everything was as it usually is. I did everything I was supposed to do. I checked everything off the list. But, I still felt a sense of unease and foreboding, like I was waiting for God to part the clouds look down at me, realizing he made a mistake and squish me to death. Of course, this never happened and I went to bed like I usually do. But again this morning, I woke with a great sense of anxiety as if I was somehow behind the 8ball.

Still, I did all the things I was supposed to do. “What the hell is going on?” I had to ask myself. It would be easy to think that I am not doing enough or that I am somehow just working a mediocre program. But everyone around me says I am doing well; my sponsor says that I am doing all I can.

I came to a realization, which I usually do throughout the day, either during meditation, prayer, writing, or talking to another alcoholic.  I am anxious about travelling and being out of my, oh so wonderful, routine.  Which led me to the next realization, that everything will not always be on my time table and most importantly,  I am not always going to feel great. I will repeat that, I AM NOT ALWAYS GOING TO FEEL GREAT. I know, I know blasphemy. But the pure and simple fact is that I spent my entire life running from feeling’s any feeling’s the only thing I wanted was the feeling of no feeling. That is why I drank. If I didn’t feel, then I didn’t have to deal, not with life, not with people and definitely not with myself.

The program teaches me that only by dealing with what I feel I can grow. It is a gift of life to be given all the emotions and uncomfortable anxiety-inducing situations that teach me to grow. And I am almost certain that is what I am here to do, to grow. When I am not growing, I am simply dying. What a waste of life to be born to die. That is not my lot, that is no one’s lot. I believe that my Higher Power, placed me on this Earth to grow and to help others grow. It is why, I feel so alive and fulfilled when I am assisting another alcoholic, or learning something new, or accomplishing something that inspires me. Growth is the most natural and frustratingly painful thing in life. Call it change if you will, but I say it’s Growth, one and the same.

So this anxiety that I am feeling, its ok. I am ok with being uncomfortable, it is a symptom of being human, and to deny my anxiety, which honestly is only present because I am traveling tomorrow and will be out of my routine, is to deny my humanity. I will no longer deny my humanity because that would be denying the very essence of who I am.

I know who I am today and that is a blessing.

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