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Work Hard Numb Hard
I learned in sobriety that the best productivity comes with not doing.
I used to wake up in the morning in motion. My eyes would open, and in one quick movement, I’d be going.
My hands would shake.
My feet would pace.
My mind would race.
All the alcohol I put in my body was still working its way through me. In the beginning, I’d joke about it with whoever was around. A morning case of the “DT’s.” Delirium Tremens. How long is a joke funny? A minute? An hour? A decade passed. 10 years later, the joke had expanded far beyond the first hours of the day. I trembled always, and nothing was enjoyable about it.
Little did I know, you can not lose something you never had.
I trembled in my relationship. I was unstable, and so it followed my constant movement. He wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. There had to be more, and we weren’t doing it right. I continuously searched for ways to steady us. We could have cocktails on the porch. Wine on the couch. Beers at the bar. These drinks, I thought, would provide an opportunity for us to reconnect and find whatever it was between us that we’d lost. Little did I know, you can not lose something you never had. We’d let the alcohol lead us in our search, hopeful it would bring us to the gold we so frantically wanted with each other and…