Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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Art, Extreme Sports, Creativity, Friends, Family, and Life with Addiction
Alcoholism, by it's nature and regardless of who are the victims, is determined in the end by the alcoholically drinking person themselves. The alcoholic can only begin finding recovery by assuming the mantle, and owning up to the fact that at some point alcohol became their master.
Having drank alcoholically from age 12 to 32, and having been continuously sober for 27 years since that time, I believe that I qualify to offer this opinion. It is my unequivocal understanding that only the Alcoholic themselves can begin the process of sacrifice and self examination required to establish any lasting and enduring sobriety, using whatever support system they chose or is available to them.
Poets, climbers, gonzo madmen or not, alcoholism doesn’t discern the difference. Although this post in itself might be a form of codependent response, and gives attention or serves in the interim to help prop up the abuser, I am compelled to point out some possible positive outcomes.
My recovery is a lifetime process; to state that I’m a ‘recovering’ alcoholic is a cathartic reminder that I chose not to drink today, I know I’m only one drink away from a drunk, and my sobriety is based on a day to day decision not to drink. Of course the idea of drinking for me after so many years may seem absurd, but that’s the catch.
Drinking oneself to death is absurd to all but an alcoholic in the final throes of a seemingly endless cycle of celebration, inebriation, loss of control, embarrassment, hangover, remorse, apology, drying out, craving, broken promises, ruined finances, ruined families, ruined health, and broken dreams.
Once again, any real recovery requires that the patient begin to understand that they are truly afflicted. Alcoholism is a medically accepted and treatable disease, misunderstood by many, but mostly to the primary victim themselves. The periphery of secondary victims is many and passes through generations.
But the good news is that there is life in recovery, I climbed my sixth El Cap route sober and climbed for several years after, before bad joints and injuries took me out of the sport. My marriage of 35 years has survived, my kids still speak to me, and I watched my grandkids grow up.
My life since my first epiphany on August 17th, 1989 has been a gift. But to get there I had to experience a period of complete and incomprehensible demoralization that I would wish on no one, but which I found necessary in order to decide to ask for help. And then I had to become completely willing to do whatever it took to get and stay sober.
I know, it all sounds so grim, but I only began to understand after I became fully sober for several years that for me to continue drinking and drugging would have led to incarceration, insanity, or death.
-bushman
11/07/2016
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