Cigarettes, Redbull, and Knowing When to Leave All That Behind

 It’s perfectly fine to stumble to work at 7AM with nothing fueling you except nicotine and a lukewarm energy drink, but only if your sobriety is hanging on by a fucking thread. I popped a few Vyvanse a couple months ago, thus resetting my sober time, and this little slip towards a dark path was due to a completely unnecessary desire to be stimulated while doing fuck all. If it were up to me, I would spend all my sober days drinking Red Bull, vaping, online shopping, gazing longingly at festival lineups, browsing the aisles of my local library, maybe making resin art, listening to Kim Petras remixes on SoundCloud. But I find myself doing that less and less due to a busy work schedule. That’s what I tell myself, at least. But me and my Goddess both know I work in a group home on weekends. That’s when all the clients are either sleeping or watching TV or giving me attitude, which leaves me with very little to do besides watch hockey on my phone and try not to get roped into a conversation where I can’t tell whether it’s me or the client who isn’t making any sense. After all, we take the same mood stabilizer. My lack of action, my desire to be euphoric from the amphetamines and absurd amounts of caffeine without doing anything in that haze, is due to a personal roadblock preventing me from connecting to the spontaneous, free spirited and creative pathways I’ve followed in the past that lead me to something beyond the self, some presence I feel the need to honor even if I can’t give it a name. This is why I can’t leave my sobriety up to me. I end up slipping into a world in which I can get high off something that still lets me pass a drug test. 

I’ve learned in therapy and through writing my stories that all my self-indulgent hobbies, like painting and photography and making collages and collecting plants that give me a sense of satisfaction when they grow while under my care, are what connect me to the spiritual. There is no Goddess lying inside of a crushed can of Red Bull or a dingy carton of American Spirits. This I know for sure. My creativity, something that is stifled when I’m over stimulated,  lifts me into the realm of adulthood in which I’m responsible for something. I do regular, necessary things like pay bills and clean my house and go to work, but I know from experience that if those tasks are the only thing that’s tethering me to a life I feel properly reflects my age then I am living beyond my means to ascend. I’m spending more time than I have on rather practical responsibilities, and things like online shopping that are not responsibilities at all and are just downright lazy activities, forgetting that I owe it to myself to find my own version of liminal space and dwell there for as long as it takes to find whatever it is that makes me energized enough to continue onto the next level. That energy comes from feeling uncomfortable enough to act. 

I’m in my comfort zone when I’m doing things like incessantly hitting my vape and avoiding people at work and doing absolutely nothing besides watching reality TV on my days off. I’m in my comfort zone when I do all that while properly caffeinated. I must stop this dark path, this road to nowhere I’m driving on in a Volkswagen littered with coffee cups and dead vapes and loose papers, the car of someone who goes nowhere besides to work and back home. 

I have this routine when I’m working too much and not fucking around enough. I fumble around my kitchen trying not to wake up my boyfriend and chug a cup of coffee before forgetting to take my lamictal as I run out the door. I don’t eat breakfast and drink a Red Bull while vaping as I try not to fall asleep in the car. Even my wardrobe suffers when I enter this routine. I don’t wear any jewelry or have my collection of Juicy bags on rotation. I wear baggy tees and sweatpants that are mysteriously stained because it’s the third day in a row I’ve worn them. I’m not hot enough nor have I had enough work done to pull off the whole lazy girl vibe. I sold most of my New York clothes, the ones that I felt let the world know I had arrived. Curious. I guess I was desperate to rid myself of a need to go back to New York, like if I got rid of the evidence I once lived in a place I belonged in I wouldn’t have to think about how mundane my life has become. To me, getting dressed in the morning is a form of worship. It’s a way of saying I’m seeing you seeing me, and I respect myself enough to do the damn thing and look good doing it. I’m about to go off track, but maybe this is the reason I only go to AA when enough time has passed for me to get my chip. People say ridiculous things in meetings like “I’m learning to be good in the good,” which is a complicated and meaningless way of saying I don’t indulge in anything anymore. I just pull on some sweats, pay my taxes and go on my merry way. 

The short version of it is I don’t worship much of anything these days. I don’t believe in anything other than I’ll be working through the weekend. A good girl who’s been spoiled with a few good times she was certain would last forever. A relapse in sobriety, no matter how brief, will continue to teach me how slippery liminal space is, how hard it is to get there and how the discomfort is what keeps me writing and creating a life. I’ve learned to be too good in the good and let the whole lot - the creativity, the unfettered joy, the connection - slip through my fingers. I’ve learned how to live in a way that limits me and then wonder why I feel so trapped. I dwell in the unsettled mind, the white noise. I look at the past and think just because it’s behind me means that I’ve ascended. How can that be true? I wore an airport hoodie to work today. 

Summer is coming up and I gotta start taking more chances. Nicorette quick mist spray and a bacon egg and cheese sandwich before work will do. As will dressing in deliciously comfortable vintage clothes. I’ll top it off by sewing when the days are slowing down at work. My one year chip flashes in the light, and I let myself be reminded why I left all those nasty habits behind.