The Tale of Ol’ Cole: Part 2

Welcome back to my story!  I appreciate you taking your valuable time and attention to read this. I hope to dive a little deeper today.  In this section of the series, I will tell you about the call to change this unfulfilling life I had found myself in, explain some of the threshold guardians I encountered, and introduce you to guides and allies that appeared on my journey.

The Call to Change:

I was in very poor health. I was morbidly obese (300 pounds); I had constant and alarmingly high blood pressure; my sleeping patterns were awful, and I had this consistent hum of anxiety that I referred to as “frayed nerves.” I knew that if I was to have the life I wanted, the life I was meant to have, I would have to quit drinking alcohol, get healthy, explore who I was, and find my meaning in life. Deep down, I had known this for years.  The thought kept crawling to the surface. It used to whisper “transform” I my ear, but it had begun to scream it.

I finally listened to this voice that had been at me all this time. I could feel that I was at the edge, almost to a point of no return. This inner part of me, the part that knows what I am supposed to do, was doing all it could to move me in the direction that I needed to go. At this lowest of points, what it began to say was kind of like that line from The Shawshank Redemption, “Get busy living or get busy dying.” I chose the former and decided I was going to stop drinking for one full year.  I decided for that year I would, no matter what, not drink a drop of alcohol for any reason.  I would take that time to assess my relationship with the substance and see how my life went without it.

July of 2019 I weighed 300 pounds. I was in the worst shape of my life physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

Threshold Guardians:

The problem I had with my unhealthy relationship to alcohol was that I wanted to stop. I really hated myself for not having the willpower to quit. So much of my inner being wanted to quit. But I just couldn’t. That’s because alcohol was doing exactly what it does to anyone who drinks enough of it over a long period of time. No one told me that this highly addictive substance was just doing its job. No one told me that it wasn’t my fault. No one told me that my body was responding exactly how it should under those toxic conditions. I was uneducated and/or blind to all this.

I was surrounded by a society that treated alcohol as this wonderful beverage. We promote it, glorify it, romanticize it, and make it seem normal to consume at any time. Think about mommy wine culture, beers with your soft ball league teammates, any movie or television show. I mean, we even see it as some sort of sick rite of passage for teenagers! Furthermore, if you get hooked on it, then you are a bad person, you should be ashamed, and you have a problem.

There is also a stigma around quitting drinking in this culture that I had to go up against. Alcohol is the only drug in the world you must justify not using.  There is a lot of shame and judgement one gets from others. And there didn’t seem like there were many alternatives other than the handful of traditional models available for me.

I didn’t really resonate with the other more popular ways to quit drinking. No disrespect to those organizations or the countless people they have helped.  I just didn’t associate with all the defining terms like alcoholic, sober, disease, or powerless. It just wasn’t for me.  I was tired of labels, and I was tired of what society told me about alcohol and about quitting alcohol. All the advertising, all the media, all the cultural conditioning be damned, I knew that I had the power within my own mind and soul to achieve those things I desired!

If I didn’t go alcohol free and find meaning in my life, what I saw in my future was a hellish darkness of apathy and self-hate. I knew that if I didn’t get this addictive substance out of my life that I would destroy relationships with loved ones, I would be broke, and I would almost certainly get DUIs and jail time and I would most assuredly die very early.  Not to mention the horrible thought of inadvertently injuring or killing someone else. That is what I saw for my future if I continued this path devoid of purpose.

Guides and Allies:

So, I set the date to stop drinking for January 1, 2020.  Yes, a freakin’ New Year’s resolution. Cliché, I know. But, as the saying goes, “you got to start from where you’re at.”

I was sort of on my own and just kind of doing my thing for the first few months of this alcohol-free experiment. I then came across two people that would shape the course of my journey. It was the beginning of the pandemic and many podcasters, authors, and the like were doing a lot of things like Facebook and Instagram live Q&As. The first person I found doing this was Erick Godsey, writer and host of the podcast, The Myths That Make Us. He spoke with such wisdom and insight that I knew I had found a guide along my path.

One of the topics he talked a lot about was journaling. I had done this before but not in the style he suggested. It made sense to me, and I committed to write every day until I filled up a single subject notebook I had found. As a side note, I still do this amazing and profound practice every day.

The other thing he spoke so passionately about was the power of myths in our lives and their interpretation through a Jungian lens. Godsey sparked my interest in the hero’s journey that was brought to life by Joseph Campbell and how it was a map of transformation that all could follow. I began reading all I could about these stories as well as their relevance and application to our lives.

The other person who came onto my radar at that time was Annie Grace. I had never heard of her before, but scrolling through Instagram one day I came across her book, This Naked Mind. This was March, three months into my alcohol-free journey. I was looking for all the literature I could get my hands on to educate myself about the nuts and bolts of living without booze in my life. So, I bought her book sight unseen and I did not have any buyer’s remorse. She put into words and explained the alcohol-free journey in exactly the way I had been thinking about it but couldn’t articulate. I was sold on her approach, data, and outlook.

From here the story continues, but for now we will take a break. We can have a rest and enjoy the day.  When you decide to continue on, it will be the last leg of the journey. Thank you for reading and being the amazing person that you are. You are truly a powerful and wonderful human whether you currently believe that or not.

*1940s radio announcer voice* Tune in next time for the exciting conclusion of the Tale of Ol’ Cole!