Life Becoming: The Creative Edge of Sobriety
How I stumbled into becoming myself for the first time and how I embraced this wisdom to create something more
Clearing the Semantics
Before we go further lets discuss addiction and abstinence. Addiction can be your run of the mill drunk, druggie, pill popper, porn addict, or a combo of all of these and more.
The less obvious yet not any less destructive are the addictions we find ourselves in daily that are sanctioned by others. Sugar, social media, bad news, gossip, over spending, hoarding, office supplies (wait, that last one might just be me). The point is: addiction can be called by many names. The recovery process and continued abstinence can also look as different as the faces that carry the baggage.
This essay and all others on Sobriety are for anyone that is struggling with any form of addiction. I will utilize the word sobriety because abstaining from over-spending requires that same sober mind as it does to not pick up a drink. Rather than being caught up in the semantics, lets support each other in our becoming in whatever form that takes.
Sobriety: Becoming 2.0
There is one thing that becomes clear to those that allow sobriety to be a reclamation of life: you must connect with and become who you authentically are at your depths.1
I knew for certain that I wanted to harness my connection with spirit. This was my vision when I entered sobriety. I knew it was time to stop hiding and step into life. I was 29 years old and I had never really known myself. My process to becoming authentic wasn’t streamlined or pretty but it was effective.
Transformation inside of sobriety starts like a wild fire. It should. You’re giving up something that has occupied nearly all your space and time in life.Â
The goal inside this fire is to get to a point where guilt is a transient emotion, where you don’t hide from your truths inside your former addiction, and you start to forgive yourself.
Becoming clear with the intention for why you are seeking sobriety, aside from the obvious, is where you begin. Then you stand in the mirror and realize you don’t even recognize the person your staring at and start to dismantle your false perception of life. Well, at least that’s how I did it.
Review your reality
I had been an addict since age 13. At 29, my emotional maturity was stunted. I was limited in my body awareness. I was coming undone. I was ready to transform into my new becoming but I had some initiations to experience before I was to become fully formed.
The complete reformation of my life happened in just one year. Beginning under a sky full of stars in the New Mexico desert and ending in the Olympic Peninsula. I had welcomed the process of transformation as the method for self-becoming. The miracle of Love entered, breathing life where there was once decay.Â
The freedom from addiction allowed all the talents I had denied to bubble upward. My connection to spirit was strengthening into a crystal clear stream of consciousness. In short, I was rediscovering myself and beginning to understand what it meant to be me for the first time.
If you are like me and your addiction began in childhood, I offer you a warm embrace. The challenges of stepping outside the comfort of numb ambivalence into the light of confrontational truth can be one of the most uncomfortable experiences we encounter as humans.
Regardless of the brand of discomfort we are experiencing in our becoming there is one thing that is certain: there is an equally reasonable response to that discomfort that can be a choice rather than a reaction. And where choice equals power, the power is actually the becoming.
Embracing the Now
To ease into the becoming we must make peace with our connection to the now. This is where your potential, your sacredness, and your fallible self all reside. Now is a holy place because it’s all that we truly have.
Without a focused intention, our becoming tends to go sideways. The now offers a foot hold into the presence that is required to witness the becoming as it’s happening.
Sobriety only happens in the present. Now is where you begin to discover the you that wants to Become.
The Overflowing Lonely Road
Sobriety is a great overflowing lonely road. I have spent 17 years only telling others my story if it felt safe or relevant. There are so many people that are walking this road. I am opening up to share my process because now is the time to be honest, real, seen.
Knowing you are not alone doesn’t make the personal struggle easy. I do hope it makes it more bearable. The now is full of opportunity to experience life and the authentic self for the first time or to remember again. I look forward to exploring all the ways we can do that together.
Loving you in all your glory,
Lenaleah 💕