The Sober Spitbath

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The Sober Spitbath

Unread postby soberspitbath@gmail.com » Sun Mar 14, 2010 1:46 am

Redemption..The Best Martini...The Martini of Love!
POSTED BY ELIZABETH MENZIES

"Well I'm guilty, yeah I'm guilty, 
I'll be guilty for the rest of my life. 
How come I never do, what I'm supposed to do 
How come nothing that I try to do ever turns out right…
Well you know how it is with me baby, 
you know I just can't stand myself. It takes a whole lot of medicine, for me to pretend to be somebody else"
~ Joe Cocker
Did my foot just land in my mouth…again? 
My foot has found it's higher power in my mouth.(good thing I have small feet!) I can go weeks without letting my verbal-fur-fly and then like a blast of natural gas :I blow! And it takes a band of brothers and sisters who normally "do not mix", to pull me back into my humanity. I would certainly be casualty of this war, if it were not for my comrades, my war buddies: my reflection made flesh...I would certainly be out there...deep in my own destruction…cause I am, by nature…a drunk!
Some friends and I lost a troubled soul this week to our disease. This soul was very troubled. Things were made profoundly difficult when one got too close to him. Yet there was an irresistible quality, a charm…glamour. And glamour as it described in ancient mythology, can be oh so dangerous. Witches and wizards engaged glamour to manipulate. When the glamour strikes, you are a helpless hostage.
My energy happened to survive the glamour and I learned to give him a "wide birth" as a human. Others, not so lucky, were glamoured and then suffered the agony of disappointment and loss. It is my belief that even the most troubled and destructive human was once an innocent, a baby… then something happened. In the karmic evolution of things life is a poker game, win, lose, draw. We find ourselves where we are in the brilliance of this life, faced with choice. It is how we handle the moment-to-moment process of choice that will decide our character and our future and oft time the future of those around us. I don't know if I believe in evil as much as I believe in bad choices and ego-driven desire. It has always been my challenge...the rub.
If we all woke up every day and felt loved and accepted would there be war, poverty or corruption of the spirit? I think not. If there were no disappointment what would we have to fight about?
I once heard Orson Wells speak in a PBS interview. The question was about the way he lived his life: his "bravado", his "nerve" as a creator and he replied: “if you woke up everyday from the first moment you could think and understand: let’s say three years old: if you woke up everyday and everyone around you told you: “you are the most wonderful, precious, brilliant thing on the planet”: you would be pre-disposed to think: “I can do anything! Be anything! Wouldn't you?" He continued with his signature chuckle: “so I did, I know my choices were not always based on what other peoples idea of me was: they were based on what I "knew" I was." 
I never thought this was a bad idea. 
Not a bad idea, but perhaps dangerous.
If you have read my blog before, you know I got a DUI in '99. I was charged with not only driving under the influence but other charges that stemmed from the fact that I had, in my alcoholic blur, failed to pick up my child from day care. I didn't forget. I was just busy being arrested and booked for DUI. I was drunk and on my way to pick him up and in a God shot: I was stopped. This is and always will be my "white light experience". The moment heaven took over and I was rendered helpless. And I will always be grateful and protective of that miracle.
It took a year in court to get my life back. I found my recovery or rather my recovery found me. I was stopped. I was lucky! That was March 8, 1999. On March 27th I visited my soon-to-be Ex-fiancé, my Eskimo: and had one last drink: a sip from a glass of wine and then: I was done. The “bookends” to my last days of drink. The "martini" of my martini days. It was over.
I am one of the lucky ones, the blessed ones. I am one of the "who's" of Who-Ville", who saw the light and grabbed it and who keeps seeing it... no matter what. The Grinch didn't win, my heart did. I knew I had dodged death and more importantly I had not lost my child.
In the twelve hours after my arrest I experienced more heart pain than I could have ever imagined. More than the death of my brother, more than my Ex-husbands betrayal.
I spent twelve hours separated from the one soul who was closer to me than any soul ever has been or will be. Someone once said, "having children is like watching you heart walk around outside of your body". I am no exception. My brain may have been saturated, but my heart was attached to this other being and it would always be so. That attachment to my son was the conduit to the light and the force of life that was still inside me. Like a lamplight, he was my life buoy. That is a pretty profound reality to wake up to. Especially for a perfectly self-obsessed, ego driven: drunk.
But "drunk" is a choice; Mother hood…not so much. 
Motherhood is a role and once taken on, your power of independent and irresponsible choice becomes irrelevant. You can fight it or deny it. But heaven knows. Even if you do not believe in heaven. Heaven knows. And from then on you are left with faith and hope. You only have to be willing. All parents who are active parents want to be good parents. Sometimes we just don't know how.
So why do some get it and others don't? Why can some of us just let go and others, no matter what the loss or consequence, cannot? 
There is no logic. And if you try to use logic, you will be disappointed. There is no special order. Some are lost and some are found. This is the simple fact. If we are blessed with the sense to recover and the ability to take direction, we may find our way back. To recover by definition means: To make good by reparation; to make up for; to retrieve; to repair what was lost by injury or illness. 
To regain something you already had.
There is such possibility in the word "recover". There is love in the word. And love, as we all know "is the answer and you know that for sure". I hear the phrase, "bless and release" all the time. It could as easily be, "love and accept". Or just "love". I have come to believe that love is a nebulous energy force. Even science agrees: well scientists do. John Nash (Nobel Prize winning mathematician) said it and I have lived it. The power of love is irrefutable.
It is 5 a.m. and my head and my heart are at 6's and 7's. It is muddled. Someone has died. A son has lost a father. Dear friends have lost a brother. The pain of the loss is felt in many ways. Within me it is conflicted. For this troubled soul was in so much pain he could not help but affect all those close to him. His inability to stay sober was not as much about behavior as it was about nature. His nature was that of an addict and therefore no power on earth could have helped him stay sober. He is now at last, at peace. His struggle is over. We have only to forgive, to bless and release. To find what was good and remember that. To celebrate the gift of his son. Who is and I believe will continue to be the example of what is best in all of us. The triumph of the spirit made real. It does not matter where you come from or who you come from, the light of love is in all of us. Our only task as humans is to discover the light and in many cases, to recover the light.
We were all born innocents, clean and yes…sober. 
We are all born with the same humanity. 
The ability to love and be loved. Why some of us slip and fall into addiction will always be a great human mystery.
I messed up and God and the universe forgave me. I know what is possible. Miracles are possible. Grace is the place where your heart says "ahhhhh". 
When you can completely trust the free fall into heaven. 

To fall…in love.
Blessings
soberspitbath@gmail.com
 

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