Beyond the Struggle

Alcohol is the master of making you stop caring about what is important in life and instead make you focus on what is completely unimportant. Forget my family for a night out with a complete stranger. No problem. Miss an important meeting because of a hangover? Super easy! Neglect my body which does its best to help me being healthy? Absolutely! The big question is why I would decide to live my life half the man instead of fully aware and alive? The question is impossible to answer because there an error in it: there is no active decision made. I just let it happen. By acknowledging I didn’t DECIDE to ruin my life it got way easier for me to forgive, stop feeling sorry for myself and focus on the task at hand: to not drink.  The beauty of it is that it goes both ways: as much as drinking makes me focus on the wrong things, being AF makes make me focus on the right. Which is why so many things just has clicked and fallen in place since I stopped drinking. Onwards and upwards!

In my dream you took my hand and led me into the little park with the one hundred year old labyrinth. We sat down on a bench and you looked me in the eyes: “Will you stay with me?” “Yes.”, I answered. “Then show it to me.” I saw a tear rolling down your chin and I instinctively dried it with my shirt. “No!” Do not dry my tears! As long as you keep forgetting me I will continue crying.” You pointed at the entrance of the labyrinth. “Go in there and come out with the blue flower growing in the core. And remember that whenever you do not know the way, choose what is right.” “How do I know what is right?” “As long as you focus on the crossroad at hand, you will know which turn to take”. I woke up alone in my bed. The November rain was tapping on my windowsill. I had lost you once again. I never got you the blue flower, because at every fork I forgot to focus on where I was, always ahead in the future. I knew in my heart that alcohol made me forget about here and now and you and still I con...

Us humans like shortcuts. We like to go from A to B the shortest possible way. We love to read books that helps us to realize things about life without the need to think it up all by ourselves. And we build robots that does the work for us. One could say that laziness is a hidden driving factor to a lot of our development. We do this even without thinking about it, like a subconscious process to optimize our well being. When I try to explain why I let alcohol get to me the way it did for as long as it did it all comes down to this: I subconsciously chose alcohol as a shortcut to happiness. I didn’t decide to do it, I just let it happen over and over again. And I chose to neglect how much of a lie it is. Alcohol is no shortcut to happiness, because happiness you haven’t earned you loan from the future until you have run out of it. And at that point alcohol will instead be the express highway to anxiety. I now feel that I’ve earned every piece of happiness that I feel. I can choose to fe...

I’ve got two voices in my head: Why and Why-not. Why-not is strong with me and has given me lots of unexpected joy in life: spontaneous lunch with a dear friend I bumped into or living in South Africa for half a year. But during my drinking days Why-not also got me into lots of embarrassing situations and poor Why mostly was associated with bad conscience the day after. I hated Why when I was drunk and romanticized Why-not: ”You only regret what you didn’t do”, which is such bullshit for someone who more than once ended up in situations I deeply regretted.  Why always became the embarrassing afterthought of the stupid situations Why-not got me into. Now that I don’t drink Why and Why-not are in balance. Why-not comes from an unclouded heart and gives me lot of joy without guilt. And I’m starting to love Why: it listens to my inner needs, does not take any bullshit and makes me listen to my heart no matter what. If I decide to do something I know that I want to do it and will not ha...

I drank to be more social But it made me lonelier I drank to see the beauty in life But it just became uglier I drank to make good memories But it just made me forget I drank to laugh But it made me cry I drank to feel like a better person But it made me feel worse I drank to fit in But it made me feel odd I drank to start fresh But my mornings became horrible I drank to become more attractive But it made me fat I drank to live my dream But it made my life a nightmare I drank to be more sophisticated But it made me crude I drank to be more relaxed But it made me more tense I drank to become more brave But true bravery is to cope with life as it is. Enough of alcohol! I am enough.

She looked at me with disappointment. It was obvious that I had lied again. I hadn’t gone home when I should and I hadn’t drunk as few beers as I’d said. To top it the hangover shame-train now ran me over. I couldn’t stand myself right now and the fact that I would never be able to hold my promises when it came to alcohol. But what made it way harder was that I continued doing it nevertheless. Alcohol opened up a door to a parallel universe. In the beginning that universe seemed like a blessing, like a place I could go when my everyday life felt dull or uninspiring. I loved that I had a choice to switch track making my regular life feel better. But as these things go I found out that I didn’t really have a choice and that my regular life was not enriched but drained of energy and happiness. What I never could piece together was how I could love who I became while drinking but hate the same person looking back the next day. If the whole point of drinking is to lose myself why would I fe...

The road forward has not always been clear for me even though that as long as I stayed to the constant “don’t drink” it has taken me in the right direction. But if I do not fill the “don’t drink” with motivation or reasons it will only be an endurance test, like walking in the desert or in the snow with no purpose apart from just taking the next step looking down into the ground. I’m bound to fail. With the whys and motivations in place I will lift my head and gaze further ahead and will be able to see the bigger picture why I don’t drink and what benefits it will give me. But alcohol is a devious bastard: even with whys and motivations in place it will try to trick me. The strategies for HOW it will try to trick me varies: in the beginning it’s very much like an angry voice or one making me fee sorry for myself. When that doesn’t work the voice in my head will change tone and instead start congratulating me for being so good at not drinking that I deserve a drink. And when that does n...