Thoughts from My Addiction

This is a poem I wrote at about 8-months sober - when I was sometimes a very angry two-year old in the body of a woman – bargaining with God and throwing a tantrum whenever I thought about a lifetime of sobriety. This homage to my “Ex” was written during such a tantrum…interesting to see, not only the addiction talking, but the depression seeking its own balm.

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i

"My Addiction", by PHT, done in group therapy
Copyright 2006

am

alone

i was born alone

            i cry alone

                        i’ll die alone

i am an alcoholic…alone

alone in a crowded meeting,

as everyone around me is brow-beating,

and rehashing the same story ten times over.

alone

in a group of my former “drinking buddies”,

as they nod and smile,

breathe a tinny word of encouragement,

and quickly change the subject.

alone when they turn to each other and whisper,

“oh, she’s just a hypochondriac…”

i used to be

alone with my green glass bottle,

but never felt alone.

my bottle never droned on and on and on

in self-deprecation, and never talked about me behind my back.

it just sat there

calmly

on the grocery store shelf,

waiting,

holding in it all the promise of a sunrise and the comfort of moonlight.

standing there in the store alone,

staring at the rows of shiny bottles perched

like sentinels guarding a deep, dark secret ,

gleaming like gemstones in a stream,

i reached for the shiniest.

standing in the kitchen alone,

i felt contentment well up inside me as i stuck the screw

into the soft, brown cork,

twisted it in

and…POP!

playful gurgling, as if from some mystic brook,

as the wine slipped out of the bottle,

and wound around the inside of my glass like a bloody serpent.

held to the light, it was a garnet sea.

held to my nose, a decent into the earth

                                                damp moss,

                                                            aging wood,

                                                                        cool stone,

                                                                                    brooding darkness

on my tongue

it was celestial!

i let the first sip linger for a moment

penetrating my darkness like a warm arrow,

slicing through my solitary world.

i gently swallowed and suddenly

                        i was no longer

                                               

alone

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…but you know, I truly was alone.

Addiction fostered isolation. The center of my universe, that to me was the sun, was really a black hole. No light escaped its reach and no social interaction got in the way of the drink. The drink came first.

Seductive, alluring…deceptive, it seeped into my skin and my psyche and made upside-down seem rightside-up.

I am grateful to be 7-years sober and do not want to ever go back that dark mirage again!