True, it is a modest accomplishment. People like my mother thought nothing of it. To her, sobriety came naturally, was a done deal, always active. Sobriety is not a positive good, per se. It is merely the absence of a vice.
H. Sapiens, including many people I know and many people we read about in the media, has a huge problem with drinking in particular and also other drugs. That is why I am proud to be sober, because other folks aren't. I can look at them and think, well, I'm better off, wiser, stronger, etc. In reality, perhaps, just a modicum. It is a small thing. Perhaps I have grown ambitious. I want to find more in this life, see more meaning, and I see no meaning in a bottle, none at all. I see the desire for death in the bottle, and it seems to me, so many people are weary of this mortal coil, and in their hearts wish to fade and disappear, to which end, drinking serves like rocket fuel. For the thinking mind gets retarded by the progress of alcohol, and base animals we become under its influence.
To drink is irrational. Upon accepting that drinking is harmful, the mind must solve a riddle, why drink at all? Everywhere, at many social functions, drinks are offered, and booze is easy to come by, plentiful. Temptation is everywhere. Yet to a mind armored in the magic of NO, there is no temptation. This enchanted armor protects me. My gratitude and love increase every time I emerge from a store without clutching cans of poison. I know that I am no longer contributing to my own demise. I am not actively working to harm the self. Indeed this is what drinking is, or any drug use really, and also many other activities engaged in by humans. I hate to say it, but folks like to self-harm. I don't know of a better word for it. The mystical term I borrowed from Freud is Thanatos. Human beings are in thrall to Thanatos, the inverse, perhaps, to Apollo.
One must accept a certain level of boredom. Coping with boredom is one of the first skills a newly sober person must master. How to deal with bouts of boredom, anxiety, mild depression, and worry. Finding new coping methods is a big challenge. For me, I found that in abandoning one irrational practice--drinking--it helped to embrace another irrational practice--spirituality. There is no logical reason to believe in X, Y, or Z, but I feel that belief is unnecessary, even irrelevant. How can such an insignificant, temporary accumulation of cells suppose that it has gathered enough data to actually believe in something? No, working hypothesises are quite acceptable, as we grope our way through this dark and misty veil of the world, where so much is unknown and unseen, and our sensory apparatus so limited, and our knowledge so small. Belief, bah!
If necessary, make-believe. Nothing wrong with pretending, really, either consciously or unconsciously. The main thing is to be positive, to be aligned with that which is good and wholesome. Kindness, gentleness. As far as theology or theory or doctrine goes, that sort of things gets rewritten and revised every Aeon, and who knows, really? Perhaps some things are quite beyond full comprehension by the mortal mind, but is comprehension really necessary in the first place?
I would rather spend time contemplating Light than digesting alcohol sugars (and getting fatter and slower). Simple as that. I think being a touch anti-social actually helps, because so many self-congratulating, very self-satisfied social people I see require the drinking of alcohol in order to be social. If alcohol is the only way to be social, then perhaps it is not worth being social with such individuals. Sober people offer better company, in general.
No comments:
Post a Comment