“disentangle”: free (something or someone) from an entanglement; extricate. (Oxford)
Every story is different while being the same. These posts reflect our journey and our discoveries. We write because we have found a peace. We share with the hope that others can connect to serenity, the state or quality of being serene, calm, or tranquil (an understanding that everything is okay).
This peace, this serenity, eluded us for decades. We spent years tangled in a self-made web of fallacy fueled by falsities, denial, deceit, grandiosity, missteps, and manipulation.
The more we were in motion, the more we spun. We would bounce around regret, remorse, shame, and guilt. This was, we felt, our lot, our destiny. Entangled in our own muck, the drink was the ore we thought would help set us free. With no rutter, the alcohol instead drove us to more of the same and worse.
We came to a point of pain that begged for a change. Desperation overtook independence. We caved to conquer. We surrendered to survive. Like so many, we began with more questions than answers: why did we turn to the drink, and why did it turn on us?
For us, it was mostly a lot of little things, combined with a few big things, that added to the weight that we spent far too long trying to get out from under. For others, maybe the comment, incident, or interaction would roll, but for us, it made a lasting impact: these traumas, these weights, fused to create a snap point, a need for lasting relief.
Early on, the poison persuaded us that we were okay. In the beginning, it was the perfect combination of relief and reinforcement. We saw others turn it on and turn it off. We were different. Afflicted with more-ism, we argued that if some was good, more would be better.
It never delivered as billed. In return for consumption, we received chaos and catastrophe.
Everything we thought we knew about ourselves and alcohol proved incorrect. We weren’t healthy and it wasn’t helping. We solved complex scenarios and willed through challenging obstacles but couldn’t survive the sip. We thought we knew what made us tick but found we were tricked.
Sobriety has been a journey of learning the new while unlearning the old. This process of self-examination, self-analysis, self-awareness, and self-reflection has been as beautiful as it has been painful. We had to examine the past in order to lay a path to the future. We had to expose the pain to place it in the proper perspective.
Embrace has replaced escape. We have dug deep and are determined to deal with life’s complications rather than disengage from them lest they return as the weights that drag us down. The mirror has become our go-to place to start an honest conversation.
We still get tangled up. We are not perfect. Today, we know how to disentangle. As we write this, we declare ourselves free from the entanglements we were bound by. We have been extricated and will remain so if we stay connected to our commitment to self-discovery and the healing process.
We do not have exclusive access to this gift. Anyone who comes to the table with openness, willingness, and a huge dose of honesty has the same chance we did.
Thoughts and ideas for this blog post were taken and built upon from a sober.coffee podcast #61 titled “Special Guest: Serge Prengel - Author of “The Proactive Twelve Steps"” … The podcast dropped on 5/25/2022. Click here to hear the podcast.
Photo by Kier in Sight Archives on Unsplash
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