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For the second time this month, my house got overwhelmed with water from a hurricane passing through Connecticut. I went downstairs at midnight and the water had begun to creep in.
For the next five hours, I baled water almost without stopping. Bucket after bucket, gallon after gallon, till 5 a.m. And yet… it just kept coming. I was probably scooping nine pounds of water out for every 10 pounds pouring in. I felt like I was trying to fight the ocean.
The whole time, I kept praying for God to make the rain stop. And it didn’t stop, all night. I got a little frustrated with my higher power as the rain just kept coming, but the whole time, I also realized that that’s not really how prayer is supposed to work. “Hey God, I need something. Give it to me, ok?”
By 5 am, I was exhausted and I couldn’t keep going. By then, I’d figured out I just needed to let it go. My basement was completely flooded and I really couldn’t control it. So I walked upstairs and climbed into bed.
I had this weird feeling in my stomach. I couldn’t quite figure out at first what it was. I thought maybe it was just a normal thing that any person would feel as their basement filled up with water and you feel powerless and defeated watching it happen. There was definitely some of that for me.
But there was something else going on with me, and it wasn’t till I laid down in bed that I finally was able to put my finger on what was underneath that feeling. I think it was that scooping that water reminded me, deep down of how I lived for 10 years as an active addict and alcoholic—total chaos, trying to keep the lies and addictions going, barely keeping my nose above the water, hanging on for dear life knowing that the end result was inevitable. In that case, it was go to rehab or die. In this case, it was that the clouds either keep pouring rain down, or the rain stops. I was powerless and the situation was unmanageable.
So I actually fell right asleep and I rested easy. My wife took over for me early in the morning. I slept peacefully for a few hours, woke up, and we finished cleaning up the water and dragging ruined carpet and boxes out of the house. It sucked. But it is what it is.
I ended spending the second half of today feeling a strange sense of gratitude. I’m just so glad that that feeling of panic, of barely staying ahead of a storm, is something I rarely experience any more.
OK, twice in two weeks is a little less rare than I would like. But it’s an infrequent feeling these days, and I used to spend roughly 20 hours a day, every day for 8-10 years of active addiction, doggypaddling to try to survive. That’s no way to go through life, and I am glad I don’t have to live like that.
Now I am taking my beaten-down, sore, old-ass body and going to bed early!
ALCOHOLIC/ADDICT JOKE OF THE DAY
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
A guy goes into a bar, takes a seat and orders five pints. The bartender gives him an odd look since the guy’s all by himself, but he lines up five pints on the bar.
The guy downs them. One, two, three, four, five. He finishes the last one, and calls to the bartender. “Four pints, please, mate!” The bartender serves up four pints and lines them on the bar.
The guy downs them. One, two, three, four. Then he belches, sways on the barstool, and orders two more. He quickly knocks them back. One, two, three.
“Two pints, mate!” he calls, and when the bartender places two pints in front of him, down they go. One, two.
The guy slams the last one down, puts the empty glass on the bar, and says, “One pint, mate.” So the bartender fills the glass.
The guy sits there, staring at it for a moment, trying to focus. Then he looks at the bartender: “Y’know, it’sh a funny thing, but the less I drink, the drunker I get.”
(Credit: AA Grapevine, May 2001, Anonymous)
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