Trying to Sleep in a Muddy Foxhole

I went to bed last night wishing I could just get in a time machine and go back several weeks. That's progress. For the preceding three weeks I either didn't sleep or went to sleep hoping I wouldn't wake up in the morning. Right now I know it will be difficult for me to sleep tonight. I am feeling an awful lot like I hope I don't wake up in the morning right now. I am also trying to remain mindful, though, to focus on this very moment and each successive moment and not worry about either the future or the past.

I am reading No Mud, No Lotus by Thich Nhat Hanh. He was a Buddhist monk. I highly recommend reading anything by him. The premise of this book is embracing suffering, as that leads to happiness. Just as a lotus cannot grow on a marble slab, we need mud in our lives, ie. suffering, in order to experience happiness. The key is mindfulness, being in touch with this very moment and examining it without judgement. What we are learning in my Intensive Outpaitent program is very similar - being mindful, examining how we feel without judgement. I plan on writing more about mindfulness in the next few days.

I had told my therapist before that Alcoholics Anonymous is not my kind of religion, but as the saying goes, there are no atheists in foxholes. And, brother, there are bullets whizzing by me in the form of cravings for alcohol. So tonight was my second night in a row of AA. If you want to stop drinking, it's a great place to start. For my alcoholic friends who kicked it without the help of AA, I would also encourage you to attend at least one meeting. You may find there is someone there like me who really could be inspired by you and your story. It helped me yesterday and tonight to hear people's stories, to see people, young and old, a lot like me, relatively normal folk who just have no mastery over alcohol. It also hurts me a bit to see people getting their six-month chips knowing I had done almost seven months before I blew it all up. Those people were all on day 5 at one time though too. I have been on day five Lord knows how many times! One day at a time. One moment at a time.