What Is This?

“Of course, one never knows whether the despair one feels is warranted or unwarranted.  But reflecting on it can give one a certain support; in the past, I have suffered from the lack of this knowledge.”  Franz Kafka, Diaries, December 19, 1914

I am suffering from lack of chaos.  I have so much peace.  Serenity.  I am an alcoholic, and my mind is swirling.   Like a squirrel on crack, I want to rush here and there and do something.  Something is wrong with me.  I am even keel today.  It is scaring the hell out of me.  I can’t take this.  I need to run here and there and DO SOMETHING.  

This is how my mind works.  Maybe I should be doing more.  Doing something.  Looking for that next excitement.  What if nothing fun ever happens again?  What if this is it?  

I hope this is it.  Peace.  I have peace today, and I want to screw it all up.

I am an alcoholic.  That’s what I do.  I am attracted to chaos.  I need excitement, and if I don’t have it, I will create it.

Fun and excitement are perfectly fine and should be celebrated, but so should peace and contentment.  I should be satisfied with contentment.  Recovery and taking an inventory of my personality traits, good and bad, make me aware of this.  I would never have been able to do this without recovery.  Without recovery, I would not have had the willingness and honesty to look at my character defects.  First, I wanted to stop drinking.  I had to stop drinking.   So I had to be honest with myself and admit I had a problem.  I cannot drink.  I have an obsession with alcohol.  My brain wants to calm itself, and for years, I thought alcohol could make me happy.  I thought it could calm me down.  I thought it was my answer.  Once I took the alcohol away, my mind swirled with other obsessions.  Impulses.  I mistook being still and calm for boredom.  I thought I was in a rut.  I needed FUN!  Something to do!  The next high!  I needed LOVE!  I needed the excitement of SOMETHING NEW!  I needed the next shiny new thing.  I needed....I needed....I needed...THE EXCITEMENT of life!  But, so many other needs and obsessions can be as bad as alcohol even if they don’t kill me.  They will screw with my serenity.  

Today I am serene.  I thought I was down, but I am not.  I am at peace.  I am calm, content, and I have everything I need.  I can run and have fun, but I think I will sit here and just be.  I will just enjoy this thing that recovery promises me.  Serenity.  I can still do new and fun things, but I need to understand to balance all that I do. 

I am an alcoholic.  I have a problem with perception.  The last few days I have been anxious.  Anxious because I saw peace and serenity and I didn’t know what to do with it.

I have suffered from my thoughts.  I see it all now, and I can breathe easier knowing what it is.  It is serenity.  It is peace.