Kurt and I have been together since 1997.
We have partied a lot together.
We medicated our way through our house remodel in 2007 with red wine on the nightly.
We had a great time smoking out in Hawaii in 1998 before he went to Italy for three months.
I have indulged in escape spending and eating to anesthetize my pain.
He has indulged in sexual and emotional avoidance and pornography and infidelity.
But after I caught a firsthand glimpse of what recovery looks like from one of my clients in late 2017, I have systematically, one compulsion at a time, when bricking off the exits of the moment, the places I would go to escape my feelings, to escape the full sensations of the present.
And by getting sober, putting down alcohol, sugar, flour, compulsive eating of all sorts, compulsive spending, compulsive course-taking and book-buying I have come to reside in the present. I have come to find I am able to feel what is here without either indulging my feelings and fondling my misery or numbing myself and trying to sidestep my own lived experience.
Sober living allows me to show up for my own life.
Since 2018, I've paid off $80,000 in consumer debt.
I lost 95 pounds of stored pain.
Today, maintaining that weight loss, that debtlessness is effortless, natural, because I am deliberate and conscious. Not hyper vigilant or using mountains of willpower but divinely inspired, wide awake, willing.
So, rather than looking to the next purchase, the next restaurant, the next cooking project to feel like I have a vibrantly alive life, I now look to this moment, this day.
The sunlight outside or the rain on my face.
The look in my son's eye or the dance my daughter wants to show me.
I look to my husband's touch or the feeling of pulling the sheets up to my chin.
The purr of my cat, the crunch of my salad.
And the thrill (and, yes, anxiety) of speaking truth to my people.
Sober living has allowed me to put down the constant nagging anxiety I used to feel that my own marriage was imperfect, often frustrating. And even though my clients got good results and my presence in their lives helped them create more of what they wanted, I was chronically frustrated, always rattling the bars of the cage I felt I was trapped in, perpetually dissatisfied.
My sobriety didn't bring about dramatic changes immediately in my marriage. It took several years for me to find more voice to name what worked well for me and what I was hungry for and to let Kurt know that I really wanted more either with him or through rearranging how our relationship looks,
Now, he says my clarity, my integrity, the way I was able to be loving of both myself and him at the same time has helped him wake up and stand up and deepen his own healing journey.
So, for the past many years now, we've both been doubling down year after year on conscious fully present unmedicated existence, navigating our marriage, our careers, parenting and sexuality without the crutches and the escape hatches that we used to rely on and that I know are such staples in so many relationships.
I haven't shared about it in the past. I certainly never want to come across as judgmental or puritanical. I don't have a moral grudge against alcohol or sugar or any of the other things that I personally need to be sober from.
But, what I know for me is that the life I dreamt of and was so frustrated as it eluded me is here now because one day at a time I'm here for it. I'm not jumping out into a supersize experience created by a substance or a purchase. I'm here in my real life and there's a beautiful authentic economy of income and outgo, financially and energetically with what I consume and what I utilize.
My invitation to anyone who wonders about their own marriage, their own drinking, eating or shopping, or web surfing or social media or reading or taking courses and self improvement:
It's not that what you're doing is wrong.
It's that if you're wondering if there's more for you, it may lie on the other side of the things you think you have to have to be comfortable. It sure did for me. I didn't understand how I would ever get through the day without the snacks and the drinks that kept me going hand over hand, hour by hour. I didn't know I had 95 pounds to lose. I didn't know how very much I was hooked on, dependent on my substances.
Putting down my addictions has allowed me to fall in love in a way I didn't comprehend was possible. In love, yes with Kurt, but also in love with the Divine and in love with being me. Self loathing and fear of my own self-destructive tendencies used to permeate the experience of being me.
Today. what permeates my experience is sensation. It’s not all pleasurable. There's joy and grief. There's pleasure and fear. There's peace and there's anger.
I feel all of it and I've come to believe that that's really what we come here to do: feel it all. We can't know for sure what made this universe or what its point is, but my sense is that experiencing this embodied existence is something that the Creator can't do from its infinite form.
And so I think I was sent here to experience embodied existence on behalf of the Divine like a Mars rover sending back data.
“Oh, this is what snow feels like on my tongue.”
“This is what betrayal feels like.”
“This is what that beautiful connection, forehead to forehead, eyes shining, feels like.”
Only through me, can the Divine experience all of this.
The other side of the coin of my purpose here is to love on behalf of the Divine. To love this existence, to love this body, to care for Michele in a way no one else is positioned to do and then to serve whoever else is put before me who wants what I can give, whether that's my family, my friends, or my clients.
I'm here to experience and to love and I can't do either of those nearly as well unless I'm sober. When I am sober, the vistas just keep opening up wider and wider, brighter and more beautiful before me. And even the most difficult times, like greatest losses and calamities become opportunities for deeper compassion, grace, willingness and sensation.
As a result, even as horrible things happen, I am aware that at a certain level nothing can harm me, that I will never be alone. That no matter what I face, I will always be held. No matter how alone I might feel in this world that I'm provided for. No matter what injustice or scarcity might be apparent on the surface, all is fundamentally well.
I'd love to hear what arises for you as I share my story and you reflect on your own access to sensation, to love and how that relates to your habits. Leave me a comment or send me a DM and let me know.