The Big Empty Heart
Vol. 1, Issue 28
I rummaged through my wife's bag on Thursday morning because I was looking for the pain meds prescribed to me after my knee surgery.
I'd been plotting a relapse for close to a month, ever since I found out I needed my MCL/meniscus repaired. During the consultation the knee doc told me about the procedure, the pain, the pain meds, and the physical therapy after. I'd be good as new, better than ever, once I got through the hard parts, he said. I filled out the forms and checked the boxes I needed to and even wrote in clownish all-caps I AM A RECOVERING ADDICT, just so they knew the deal. He prescribed me a handful of 325 mg Norcos, "just in case."
When I fantasize about going out it's usually at this place called the Frolic Room, right off of Hollywood Boulevard. It's one of those bars that opens in the early morning, with a heavy closed door so it's always dark inside. It's one of those You Need Us More Than We Need You establishments that's immune to recessions or trends. Sometimes I'll walk by it on a weekday morning on the way to a meeting and get a tug, even though I know better.
My mind began to drift this past month because my routine was altered. The knee hurt, I wasn't allowed to workout, so my days became less active and more isolated. My morning journal routine began to take longer, my meditations became shorter. My phone usage was up 65%. One day I was on my phone for 13 hours and 3 minutes. I could have flown to Tokyo. Then after I had the surgery I dragged my stitched-up knee around. I felt useless, but was actually okay with the pain. "Just let me know if you need this," my wife said. The little paper bag from the pharmacy was still stapled. She said "need."
The summer of 2015 I got super into pills. I'd carve out some time on the weekend to take a couple bars or half a tombstone and just lay on my bed. The TV would be on, but I'd watch nothing. I'd have two full packs of smokes and three or four cold Welch's grape sodas then I'd just roll around and pretend that I was actually practicing self-care. One day a live bird flew right into the glass on my bedroom window and knocked itself unconscious. I didn't know if this was thing real or not, but I tried to save its life because what if this bird was some sort of sign, or worse, was actually me? I took a picture of its non-moving body and posted it on Instagram. I provided live updates to people, begging anyone with information about how to save this busted bird. I put it in a shoebox and covered it in a sweat sock to keep warm. I splashed it with water and waited for it to just wake up and fly away. It didn't. That night I called over a friend to help me bury this bird in one of the garden boxes on the roof of my apartment. We buried it, but then I guess some super high-velocity winds kicked up later that night and blew it out onto the patio. I went out for a smoke the next afternoon and I saw it laying there all dirty and wet, but I no longer had the energy left to do something about it or even care about it anymore. Poor bird.
When I rummaged through my wife's handbag, she was downstairs with our two very, very young children making them breakfast. Her father was in town to help us out with them. I was just supposed to let my stitches heal and put ice on my leg, don't worry about anything else. I rummaged quickly because all the joyful noises of babies, a wound-up dog, and a new loving family all picking up the slack had let the guilt seep in. I convinced myself I needed those pills, but that was a lie: I just wanted to take the sobriety furlough that was available to me. If this slip turned into something bigger so what? All I'd have to do was show up the next day to a roomful of sympathetic lost faces and raise my hand and say "First day back!" like a chump. Everyone there would be proud of me and clap. It's so great that there is still a place to go where people will clap for you like you won some pathetic award no matter how badly you derail your life again.
The pills weren't there. I snapped out of it. I picked up the phone and made some calls. I even went to my 12:30 commitment meeting on crutches. Safe again.
Thanks to those who picked up:
Jake F.
Aileen G.
Mark L.
Dave M.
Josh S.
Devin F.
Also thanks to Greg G.
Good looking out everyone.
Anyway: I moved up Inverse Pitching a couple weeks because I thought the responses we got for last week's were so wonderfull.
It was this one:
Make a stream of conscious list of healthy, boring things you do now since you stopped getting fucked up.
All of the entries were inspiring and offered good suggestions.
This Is How We Live Now Because We Were Dead Inside
By The Small Bow
A Quiver Full
Now that our heads are clear there is more space to do great things, but also very boring activities. Well, activities we used to consider boring, but that are now somehow fun. Here's a recent Inverse Pitching assignment where we asked readers to tell us how they live now through stream of consciousness. We are all the same, but all different.
A Bath Person
I wake up early. I take public transit, I live a car-less life because I’m starting to think I’ll actually live into the part of the future that will be ravaged by climate change. I rediscovered how fun it is to play Pokemon Go walking to and from the train, even though I’m too old for this shit, even though it’s caused me to step into a pothole more than once. I’m no longer a Party Girl and I thought that would make me sad but there’s an immense relief at staying home, at letting my body heal. I take baths. I can’t believe I’m now a goddamn bath person. I read like I’m trying to rack up AR points for a middle school pizza party. I still eat pizza and junk food, I haven’t gotten into exercise or lost weight like all the look-at-me-now recovery memoirs I’ve read (pizza party), but I do journal and sit there and think, what some people might call meditation but that title seems too lofty for somebody as ADD as me. There’s been a lot of thinking, something I realize I actively avoided before. I try to keep up with friends and listen and check in because all we have is each other, which is kinda beautiful as long as it doesn’t make you too depressed. Why not both! – Stephanie R.
Yes ! To Everything
Of course I pray and do transcendental meditation and go to a million meetings and work the steps over and over. I don’t just eat vegetables; I grow my own vegetables. I go to yoga regularly enough that the instructors know me and compliment me on my practice. I have a practice? I run and run and run, marathons and then half marathons when I calm down a little about it. I do so much service that a sponsee says in a meeting she’s grateful to have a “sponsor who is very service oriented” and I look around because I think she must’ve fired me and been referring to someone else. I say yes to just about everything except ecstatic dance, which my sponsor suggests but seems like a length I’m not willing to go to. Yet. I got divorced even though I got sober because I didn’t want a divorce. I date progressively less inappropriate men. I talk and text to friends who, when I tell them my little stories, ask things like “how do you feel about that?” I do pilates and barre and swim and therapy and take my kids to therapy and talk to my mom about therapy and talk to my brother about his therapy. I go to work. Every day! I do so much it seems absurd, sometimes, but it still seems so much easier than drinking ever was. My favorite thing that I do, though, is laugh. Sometimes I’ll tell a story and laugh so hard I can’t finish it. Sometimes I get the giggles in a meeting and can’t stop no matter how much the leader glares at me. I’d do all this and more to laugh like that so I keep at it. – Hannah S.
Reusable water bottle
I try to wake up earlier in the morning, at approximately 7:30 am it becomes possible to shake the waste-oid feeling. No good to start my day at noon anymore. Each day I stay clean, the agenda becomes more whole, my schedule is busier, I have more sober allies to talk on the phone to. I don’t dread being with people anymore. I used to ache from sitting shoulder to shoulder in a meeting. It doesn’t feel that way now. Now I call people, I ask questions, I ask for help. That thing I don’t want to do is the thing I try the hardest to complete. I signed up for community college. Sometimes when I’m really on my A-game I carry a reusable water bottle with me. Hot yoga, where I bleed myself of all perspiration and negative intent has been the capstone of this period of sobriety. Yoga and iced coffees and religiously listening to my fellows. Talking doesn’t help me much because at this stage my bullshit filter isn’t calibrated for my level of self obsession and denial and insecurity. Sometimes at meetings I’ll say something fluttery and inconsequential. But listening to other people is important to me.
– Addie S.
Magic mushroom walks
I wake up early, I do the dishes, my laundry still goes unfolded but for shorter lengths of time. I have more interests, but I still don’t have enough focus to be good at any one thing – I’ve started playing the violin again (badly), I’ve become obsessed with mushroom hunting and learned words like saprophytic, I take long, quiet walks through the woods and try to connect with things greater than myself. I started my first semi-successful garden. I have the energy to get up in the morning and do projects on our hellacious fixer upper of a house and I’ve gotten kinda buff from it. I stock up on tea – various types for various times of the day— and I started baking to feed my newfound sweet tooth. I eat way too many cookies. I spend a lot of time beating myself up for not doing more with my sober time, and then reminding myself to be kind. I’m still working on this one, but I think I’m a better friend, aunt, sister…my dad died right before I quit so I never got the opportunity to be a better daughter. I did, however, get through his funeral/reception sober, and I even stood up and read a poem and didn’t bomb it. I think I’m a better partner, too, although I put my husband through the ringer the first few months. I gave my dog/soulmate the best last three months of her life before I had to put her down. I pat myself on the back for doing big, hard things, without downing a bottle of wine. I reach out more to loved ones, although, more often than not, I just stare at the phone then walk away because sobriety still hasn’t fixed my social anxiety. I think a lot more about possibilities – I could quit my job if I really wanted to and work at the general store – I could get some goats and chickens and a cow and maybe one of those miniature donkeys and remember to feed them – I could go back to school and I might even be good at it this time. I may not do any of these things, but it all feels possible now. And that’s a subtle but beautiful thing. – Liz S.
I Pray To Death
Every morning after waking I lie on the ground for 15 minutes. I try to relax my body, reteach it how to breathe, how not to clench through everything. Before I stand I pray to death, to replace an old habit of courting it. I ask its advice instead; it whispers something simple back – “slow down” / “go with the flow” / “take everything less seriously” / “look for all the ways the world wants you” – and I spend my day trying to follow it. Before I go to sleep, I report back to death on how it went.
In between, every day, I meditate (Headspace or the unforgiving Soto Zen), seek and record a joyful moment, write a list of achievements (“washed hair” often features), and spend 5 minutes studying Italian. I interchangeably draw from a palette of body therapies – I have done enough to intimidate my many teachers: TRE, sophrology, tai chi, qigong, gong baths, acupuncture, shiatsu, myofascial release, craniosacral, Feldenkrais, every type of yoga, somatic experiencing, fuck-tons of massages. I drown my panic attacks in swimming, martial arts, circuit training, running, long angry walks, gratitude lists, and dancing, dancing, dancing. I read every book I can find on anxiety, trauma, mindfulness, healing. I journal; attend Codependents Anonymous; ignore correspondence from my family; sing, sometimes with an audience; and seek out people who can help me learn how to love me. – Kat A.
Weird, Fidgety Things
I knit, I draw, I cook, I have a little cleaning routine. I take barre classes, I try to take more walks. I’m really lonely at the moment. I can get into anything physical or sensory that seems therapeutic — right now it’s acupuncture, it’s been massage, ASMR videos, saunas… Okay maybe that’s it, but sometimes there’s a sense of trying to throttle my life to squeeze pleasure out of it in other areas. I’ve sort of lost the thread there, at the moment, or I’m trying to find it again. For me the thing that happened after I stopped drinking was how much energy I had. Like I didn’t want to drink anymore, but it suddenly felt like my body was some giant dog, straining at the leash, and I needed to sic myself on things. The biggest thing has been giving my hands something to do — knitting, drawing. Cooking sometimes, cleaning also. Doing weird little fidgety things. It never quite feels like enough. – Edith Z.
Illustration by Edith Zimmerman
