Bombardment

Today I am back home after having enjoyed a very brief vacation in a lovely little location known as Sin City. While I was there I looked for documentation that supported the rather titillating, though discouraging, nickname for the town. I was traveling with a non-alcoholic and that can be a good time no matter where you are. We had been there a day or two when she said to me, "Have you noticed how many people are walking around drinking beer" Normie's are so cute. Don't they make you just want to pinch their cheeks and tell them so?

Since I was looking for evidence (supporting the name Sin City) I quickly put on my Nancy Drew outfit, grabbed my documentation notebook and set out on the hunt. The truth is that everywhere I looked, I saw my own "Ghost of Christmas Future". What I mean by that is: I can be just like that person, all I have to do is pick up a drink or a drug. The theme of the city was "Excess"; sex, drugs (including booze) and rock-n-roll blended with smoking, gambling, eating, shopping, begging and dead souls in living bodies. I used to look like that, once upon a time. Some examples were so real that it hurt to look at them. I used to be like that, once upon a time.

At first I recoiled at the sight of these people, disgusted, the picture of outraged virtue, I am sure. I quickly abandoned that pose and started seeing all kinds of analogies to my own journey in life. At night the lights lit the sky projected fun, glitz and attractiveness. In active addiction, I could project the same things. In the stark light of day the ugliness could not be concealed, either in this city or in my soul. It hurt to look at the reality under the bling and glitz.

Before I came into the recovery program ETA, I resembled a brightly colored balloon that was inflated with automobile exhaust. I kept myself afloat by repeated intake of automobile exhaust. Of course, eventually, I could no longer expand no matter how much exhaust I put inside, and I got sober. The other option was to keep adding exhaust until I exploded. I know plenty of people who got out of the hell of addiction by exploding. It is only by the grace of the old HP I got out the way I did.

We alcoholics and addicts have trouble differentiating the truth from the false and our lives in active addiction seem like normal ones. The excitement, beauty and appeal of the nighttime perception makes it all seem so glamorous and, obviously, I can be drawn into that illusion. My actions are concealed under the cover of darkness. With the day comes light, or the truth, and I am unable to look at my behavior honestly so I crave the cover of darkness. I have to, in order to live with myself.

I'm pretty sure that all of the lessons the old HP gave me while on vacation won't be realized for quite a while. That is how it usually works for me; He bombards me with truth, reality, lessons or whatever you want to call it, and then I spend months untangling the threads to get everything out of the experiences He has given me. Pretty slick, when you think about it. I think He does that to keep me out of trouble, or maybe out of my own head, which is basically the same thing.

Three cheers for vacationing with normie's and the old HP. They are the vacations of the 'educational variety' and I'm grateful for the experience.

Have a good and sober day.