I have so many fragmented stories and concepts brewing in my head and my heart right now. I have half a dozen untitled starts that just went nowhere so they never saw the light of day. I suppose part of my struggle to put figurative pen to paper is that for some reason, I believe my musings have to go somewhere otherwise it’s just word vomit and self indulgence. If I don’t find my way through my words, they aren’t worthy of sharing. Well today, I’m just going to type, see what happens, stop when I’m done, and hopefully press “publish” and accept imperfection and messiness. I mean, after all, that’s a huge part of why I do this. I want to show that it’s Ok to be awkward, uncomfortable, and unfinished.

I’m tired – so very tired. I’m soul tired, if that makes sense. I’m too tired to haul my ass two blocks to my favorite, grounding place – the beach and ocean. Feeling the warmth of the sun on my skin, the warm breeze, my toes in the sand, and the cleaning salt water, it’s so incredibly healing for me but at the moment, I just don’t have it in me to pull on the swimsuit, cover myself in sunscreen, and walk out the door. It’s a jammies all day kind of weekend. 

Why am I so tired? Well, it’s the accumulation of many months of challenge without a break. The hustle has been ongoing since about December 2021. Well, that’s not entirely accurate since I had a few months off while out on disability but it was hardly a respite. My health was not great in that I was in a constant state of triggers – panic, anxiety, and fear. The job I’d moved to Hawaii for had changed dramatically. I’d met and lost the love of my life in the span of six weeks, and I was trying to figure out what next while in a state of mental dysfunction. My emotions were huge. Grief over those two gigantic losses was all consuming. I surely wasn’t resting despite not working. Sure, my life looked like one of leisure. I would go to the pool several times a week and nap daily, but that didn’t reveal the inner turmoil that was constant. I needed to leave Hilo, so I did. 

I came to Maui, got a shitty job that shook what semblance of confidence I had left. Overt insults from my employer – “you’re a loser. You’re not a keeper. You’re not a winner. You’re a high school girl. You’re poison. You’re toxic. You’re a drama queen. You’re a cancer on our team.” Despite all the work I’ve done to construct teflon to ward off such offenses, it somehow got in there and lit up the part of me that will never feel enough. Then, I met a man in person that I’d been talking to daily that had professed his love for me and his desire to create a long future with me. The sweetness of that moment lasted mere hours before he told me that in order to have said future, I would basically need to change who I am. It wasn’t in so many words but that was the end result. So six weeks of trying to figure out what to do with or about him and experiencing yet another big loss – the loss of what I hoped I’d have with him that I no longer wanted because he wasn’t who I thought he was. I had another man in my life that I’d known as a friend (friend with benefits?) for about a year and a half did something entirely out of character for who I believed him to be and I severed that relationship as well. I did get a new job which has been wonderful, for the most part, but my tiny world in Maui is now microscopic. As a result, I’m feeling. I was going to add a lot of emotions to that sentence but the reality is…..I’m feeling, a lot, and that’s exhausting.

I’ve decided that as I reflect on my decision to move to Hawaii then to Maui and go through life here that this chapter of my life is about digging deep, resolving prehistoric bullshit, and discomfort. I wouldn’t say when I decided to move to Hawaii that I intentionally embarked on a journey of self discovery. Quite the opposite. I felt at the time that this move was the culmination of the hard work that I’d already done. This was sort of my reward. This was my “I’ve arrived” moment. While I knew I had no idea what was to come my way on this adventure, what I didn’t anticipate was the inner journey that’s come to pass. Sure, I could have noticed these things that showed up in my path and said “oh well,” but I didn’t. So here I am. 

I have a trip coming up to Oregon and I’m excited and filled with trepidation. The last time I went “home” was July 2021. I’d been in Hawaii for 4 months and none of the big things had happened yet. And, that trip was about my daughter’s wedding and connecting with friends that I hadn’t seen in forever both because I moved away and because of COVID isolation. This trip, I am not the same person – not physically, mentally, or emotionally. I read a quote yesterday that resonated – philosopher Heraclitus wrote, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” While Oregon is still “home,” a LOT has happened for me since then and it’s been very challenging. I’ve had limited support. Sure, I have my now two therapists and my Al-Anon sponsor. I have a friend or two that I stay in touch with but let’s be honest, everyone has their own lives and at the end of the day, it’s on me. I’m on this island alone facing some pretty hefty demons. 

And while it’s been difficult, I’m not backing away from it. I’m coming up against some scary choices that could potentially further isolate me but here’s the thing. Do I want to fit in or do I want to belong? Fitting in requires conforming. Belonging requires being. If I have to change in some way to be a part of, that’s something I’m no longer willing to do. I’ve spent my entire life abandoning myself. Much of that time was not consciously. It was just how I was raised. Be liked. Be nice. Be pretty. Be agreeable. Don’t argue or debate. Nod and smile. That’s who I was raised to be then I married a man that was also raised that way. So here we were, two shells without personalities of our own trying to please everyone but ourselves and truth be told, I wouldn’t have known what that meant if you’d asked me at the time. Hell, I still struggle with that dilemma – what would you do if you knew you could not fail? What do you dream of doing? I got nuthin though I’m a lot closer than I’ve ever been to knowing. I can now sort of see what that might look like but fear and scarcity loom large between vision and execution.

For me, this is the epitome of being brave. When I was in Oregon, I immersed myself into 12 step programs – AA and Al-Anon. I traded one compulsion for another out of what I now know was fear. I had decided that my drinking had become problematic and due to family history or genetics or whatever, I was an alcoholic. The only antidote to that “disease” was full immersion into AA. So I did that in a big way for a lot of years. I went to a meeting every day, sometimes twice a day, for nearly a decade. Then I moved to a small town that didn’t have meetings so I stopped but by then I thought, I’m good. I went to a meeting here and there but not consistently. The result of that period of time was misery. Now I was sober AND miserable. Where was the peace and serenity that AA promised if I did the work? I did the fucking work. This is bullshit. I was 10 years sober and wanted to die again. I was going to therapy. I was taking medications. I was seeing a psychiatrist. I was sitting in front of a SAD light. What else am I supposed to do? If this is sober life, I don’t want it. At my sisters insistence, I switched psychiatrists. I remember during the initial intake, my sister was with me. He was asking me all the medical history questions but he asked me a very smart question. He didn’t ask me if I was suicidal, if I had a plan or the means. The answer would have been no, of course not. He asked me “how close to death are you?” I’d been crying the entire appointment already because I felt like such a failure and so broken beyond repair but that question opened the floodgates. I simply said “I don’t know how to answer that.” To which he said “so if you had a heart attack tomorrow, you’d be Ok with that?” I just nodded. It was true.I didn’t ask to be born. Just because my parents decided to create a life, I didn’t ask for this life. Why am I not allowed to end it? Which is saying a lot since that’s the choice my father made and I know the tremendous and traumatic aftermath of such a decision. But the will to live is strong so once again, I tried. I crawled my way back into the rooms of AA and asked for help. Except this time, I didn’t sit quietly and listen. I told the truth even though I felt like an outsider for doing so. At ten years, I “should” be happy and I wasn’t. Fortunately, I was scooped up by a few women that could see my pain and wanted to show me another way. Those ladies helped me reassemble myself. But here I was again, trading addiction for meetings. Once again I was going to a meeting every day, reading the literature, meeting my sponsor, lather, rinse, repeat. Is this really all there is? This or that? Depths of despair or cult like devotion to the program? Surely there’s another way. Well, not according to AA.

So I moved to Hawaii. I left ALL that with the intention of connecting to people here through AA and Al-Anon. I went to a few online meetings in Hawaii while I was still in Oregon. They weren’t well attended – like 2-3 people. It just felt awkward. I tried when I got here – more virtual meetings but they just didn’t do it so I stopped. Life went on. It was exciting and wonderful, until it wasn’t. But that had to do with external events, not deteriorating mental health. I decided to find a different therapist. He had worked previously where I worked and his methodology was what we used where I worked. It was eye opening and made so much sense for our clients. I couldn’t get enough of it. When I connected with this therapist, even that was a radical act because I had to choose myself over loyalty to my employer. They’d had a falling out and there was animosity there. But while it seemed like a simple decision, it was choosing myself over the comfort of others. Can I be a loyal employee AND seek the help of a perceived traitor? A subversive? Yep, I sure can. And, I did.

This work is radical and life changing for me. The basis is to question my beliefs. I adopted and accepted the beliefs handed down to me by my parents and then AA and Al-Anon. But were they really mine? Truly? No. Did they help me out of the gutter? Absolutely. It got me to a place of somewhat steadiness so I COULD question everything. And now, I’m a bit untethered, sort of. I guess the best I can describe it is I’m on a leash in the eye of a hurricane. I’m spinning but not out of control, if that makes sense. I’m grounded in this quest to discard the bullshit that doesn’t work for me but feeling the blows of confronting scary things. I haven’t yet figured out how to tackle these things without feeling somewhat either beaten or exhausted. I’ll get there. It’s progress and I’m committed to slugging my way through it. 

This week has been a week of questioning everything including why am I here? It would be so much easier to go back to Oregon, back to my people, back to my routine, back to familiarity and safety. But this is a bell that cannot be unrung. I wanted a life outside of the rooms of AA. I didn’t want to trade one compulsion for another. The whole point of healing is to have a life. But unfortunately, much of AA is fear driven and requires utter conformity. Sure they say “take what you like and leave the rest” but that’s conditional. There are some concepts that are non-negotiable. Like, “don’t let the gifts of the program take you away from the program.” What that means is if people stop going to meetings, sooner or later, they will be in the gutter again. And if they are lucky enough to find their way back, while they claim “we don’t shoot our wounded,” there’s a prevailing judgment of “see? Told you you’d be back.” You are not allowed to do it differently and if you do and don’t feel so good, shaming happens. Come back into the fold and all will be well. Well, LIFE exists outside of church basements and potlucks at parks. Studying a book written damn near 100 years ago by a bunch of white dudes in the depression has its merit but at some point, you gotta test your wings and fly. You’ll fail, for sure, but again, isn’t that the point? To live? To feel the feels? ALL the feels?

So back to fitting in vs belonging. When I found myself in the rooms of AA, I felt as though I belonged. I’d found my people. We had this disease which sort of lets you off the hook for being an asshole. In order to not be an asshole, you need daily doses of the medicine because all you have is a daily reprieve. Your disease is just waiting for you to ease up so it can at the very least, sucker punch you and at worst, kill you.  You will never be well, fully. You’ll never be cured. You’ll never recover. And that’s what I heard that was so radical with my job here when I got here. You’ve been going to AA for 20 years and you’re not recovered? It’s like my opinion on chiropractors vs physical therapy. You’ve going to your chiropractor once a month for 20 years? Because your back is out of alignment? How about you to go PT for a bit, learn to strengthen the muscles to hold your spine in place, and go have a life? What I’ve come to realize lately is those WERE my people, in the rooms of AA. But the bond wasn’t a disease. It was trauma. Another quote that I whole heartedly believe is from Gabor Mate – “Addiction is neither a choice or is it a disease. It’s an attempt to solve a problem – and that problem is rooted in trauma.” For me, THAT is the answer. I CAN recover. I absolutely believe that I’ve had problematic drinking, abusive drinking in my life. And I can tie those years to situations that I lacked the skills to navigate so I would numb or drink courage. But what if I resolve those? Can I drink again? Not according to AA. Never. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. 

I’m not suggesting that AA is wrong or that those that subscribe to all the things are mistaken. But I am suggesting that it’s Ok to question. AA is founded on fear. Keep doing these things or you WILL, without question, be not only right back where you were but progressively worse. It’s fate. It’s in your genes. There is no solution which is funny because we’d talk about how “normies” would see drinking as the problem but we addicts knew that alcohol was the solution to the problem! So remove the solution(quit drinking) and you gotta replace it with AA. An alcoholic without a solution is a suicide waiting to happen. Well for me, the solution is trauma resolution and learning skills that I never learned about belonging to myself. 

So the question on the table as I consider my upcoming trip home is do I risk losing my community that’s been such a tremendous support for me by making the choice to explore my relationship with alcohol? AA would say see? Why would you take such a risk? Is alcohol really more important than these people? I’ve been wrestling with that question for about a year and I finally have the answer. Alcohol is NOT more important than these people however, belonging to myself is more important than fitting in with ANY group – even super cool people that I love dearly. If it’s a requirement to believe the same things about addiction and alcohol to have these people in my life, then I guess my relationships were based on something other than who I am. 

We’ll see what I do with this. Just writing this and putting it out there is big and scary. “People” will read this. And maybe this will cause the loss of important relationships. But maybe it will spark curiosity and their own questioning. I don’t want a life dictated by fear. I want a life of choice, empowerment, and freedom. I want ALL the choices available to me. Which choices I make are mine, for my reasons. Being able to stand on my own square and own my story feels radical and oftentimes lonely. But I’d rather try and fail and try again and LIVE. My whole life has been created by fear but safety is an illusion anyway. I spent so much time trying to predict the future and making plan A, plan B, and plan C for every eventuality but did that really have any influence over what was to come? Did it really allow me to feel equipped and “safe” when life threw curveballs at me? Not at all. All that accomplished was a lot of worry, anxiety, and paralysis. “Don’t do that” because you can’t predict the outcome. You might get hurt. Again, what’s the alternative? A pseudo “safe” fucking prison where nothing ever happens. I think back to when I met that incredible man on the Big Island. THAT was scary. But it was huge and real. I had a moment between when I met him and when I was told he’d be leaving. Do I back away slowly because I know it’s going to sting and leave a huge mark or do I walk bravely into the firehose of big emotion and have a beautiful experience? Well, we know what choice I made and I still grieve the loss of him but I wouldn’t do it differently. I felt, big, beautiful and tough. Notice I didn’t say good or bad. Emotions just are. And I’m tired.

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