I once had a life that was filled with action.
Working in Times Square, there was always something "happening."
Someone would be having mental illness. There would be a suspicious package. Naked women with pasties on their tits. Guys selling weed. Lots of Elmo suits. Gas leaks. Jackhammers. Break dancing. Painters. People exercising on the scaffolding. "Gang Initiation." (In the 2000-early 2010's it happened every Easter Sunday)
You could say that I was always overstimulated, but I was completely stagnant.
After my shift each night in over-stimulation, I went and drank. Multiple shots and beers. 4:30 a.m. I'd roll into the street, smoke way too many cigarettes, and topple myself into a cab.
My friend Jim likened us to "The Beats" and how right was he?
Through all of that, my drunken nights and the times I shared with people during this hyper-active, hyper-stimulated period of my existence, nothing was happening.
I mean sure, that's an exaggeration. We can't have complete inaction, despite my best attempts at it. But in terms of my deepening my relationship with myself, and getting closer to who I wanted to be? Very little of that happened while I was drunk at the bar.
Most of the time when I was drinking at the bar, it was with many people who were essentially "warm bodies."
I had a few friends and a zillion acquaintances. I wasn't really interested in the conversation. It was mostly about 1. other people (who cares?) 2. our job (replaying the what happened) or 3. things that didn't interest me (like movies.)
After about two hours, those conversations became more like dribble (as all drunken convos do) where we would just take turns "speaking at" one another.
For all the times I spent bonding with people, I never really was. I remember getting a lot off my chest, because when you're drunk, you're just a blithering ego.
I don't remember too much of what anyone else said, and my guess is, they don't remember too much of what I said. Nothing profound came out of those times.
When you’re out drinking, nothing enjoyable is happening that requires the drink. And if something enjoyable is happening, the thing that you’re enjoying is not the booze. The thing you’re enjoying is being dulled by the booze, because your entire human experience is being dulled by the booze.
For example: Drinking at the beach- what are you enjoying? The beach.
What is happening when you drink at the beach? You become a dehydrated clam baking in the sun. You grossly have to piss in the polluted ocean once an hour. You dry out passed out on a towel. You end up eating something later like a ravenous rat and don't taste the food you order. You wake up the next day with a headache and a sunburn, and you don't remember how you got home.
What takes away from enjoying the tranquility of the beach? The 6 nutcrackers you bought from some guy who made them in his dirty kitchen.
Annie Grace says that 80% of people who drink wish they drank less.
Andee Scarantino says from her experience, that's true.
People come to me all the time and tell me "I just want to be done," and then somehow, the excuses start coming in.
People want to "defend" their decisions, because the word sobriety holds the same weight in our society as the word God.
Both of the words provoke STRONG reactions that make people DEFEND THEIR POSITION.
Ultimately, all I was doing was wasting my time, but I didn't know that, because I wasn't aware of my subconscious beliefs.
When I was in the midst of changing my own life, I learned about the tremendous power my subconscious mind had over my everyday behaviors.
I also learned that my "problems" were really just symptoms of thought patterns I had the POWER to change at any time.