By Anand V.
Today I stared into the abyss and I did not blink.
I woke up in the knowledge that my life has never been better.
In a home that was safe and felt like a deep, warm hug.
In the knowledge that the person whose love I want more than anything else loves me with all her heart.
In the comfort that my every physical need was being met by the universe.
In the relief that despite all I had done to self-destruct there were people I can turn to who help and support me unconditionally.
In the surety that my birth was not a mistake.
I ate well, I worked efficiently, coffee tasted great. I was not hungry, not tired, not anxious.
And there it was.
Inside me.
Not corporeal enough to be a worm, but it was digging, it’s little sharp teeth scraping away at the surface of my brain. Not a shadow, because it didn’t move when I did, it did not change direction if I did. Not an emotion because my heart did not register it. Not a ghost, because I felt no fear.
But it was definitely inside me.
I could not see it or sense its shape or form — but it was there. It was speaking to me, but there were no words and no language.
I tried to imagine what it was because it didn’t register with any of my conscious senses. But, even in metaphor, I could not give it words or as much as an outline.
It made me something: restless doesn’t completely describe it, but it comes close.
It made me feel like I had to do something, and do it immediately, but it shut down every suggestion I had. It was sharp in the moment, like it had been lying in wait for an opportunity. It had the persistence of a dull ache but armed in urgency.
I know what it was asking me to do.
It did not have to spell it out because I felt it with every fibre.
For the first time I recognised what it was asking me to do without being in its grip. I was able to drive past a booze shop and smile to myself: “Nice try, but not today buddy.” Not in anger or with any sense of achievement, because I knew only too well that any victory today still left me with a new day tomorrow.
I realised that this was not a temptation to resist. This was not something that was outside me. I felt that this was not about my strength. It was about looking in the mirror, into my eyes, and seeing that the darkness was in me.
It was not depressing, or defeating.
It was acknowledgement that I had a had a twin in my own body. In me is a parasite — one that depends on my mind and body for sustenance — but not unlike a child. It was not something to defeat or kill. It will walk with me and I hold its hand till the time comes when it can leave.
It’s not evil, no more than I am good. It is not deviant, it is not a defect, it is not unnatural. It is a part of me, as surely as my fingers, my hair, my eyes, my mind, my voice, my loves, my desires, my ambitions, my disappointments, my shame, my guilt …
What it does, though, is not far from evil. It turns my focus away from the gift of being alive and from the boon of time that I have been granted. What it does is turn me against myself first, and then against those around me who love me the most. What it does is exclude everything else in order to make me feel a kind of loneliness and despair that is completely at odds with my reality.
That feeling is real, but the causes are not.
In that moment of recognition it loses its power over me: for today.
That recognition gives me agency. It gives me the ability to see all the support I have at my fingertips, should I need it. It gives me enough pause to remember that the relief of the first sip is laced with the poison of impending regret. It gives me room to breathe, to enjoy the wind on my fade and the rain on my back.
It gives me the freedom to stay sober, of my free will.
Today I stared into the abyss and I did not blink.
Because I put my arm around my twin and said: I know you must walk with me a while longer, and that’s okay, but I cannot and will not do what you ask. If you still want to stay, be my guest.
But, today, I choose life, not whiskey.
I’ll see you again tomorrow, my old friend as we walk again this path that was chosen for us.