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Application_Install.exe

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Every day, somebody messages me about their recovery. Some are sober. Some are just trying to get their head right. Same thing, honestly. Recovery is recovery. It’s figuring out how to live a life that’s worth living and finding some peace while you do it.

I’m 286 days chemically sober, 29 days off the radar, and 11.033 months single. I got here after severing what needed severing. I’m also getting more emotionally sober every day, and that’s the harder one. The alcohol menu is a credit application now. Diet Coke refills are free. Nothing controls me, and I like it that way.

Below is the pile of stuff I’ve told people along the way. Some of it is about sobriety. Some of it is about recovery. Some of it is about regular life shit.

Its over 8000 words. I am a wordy motherfucker if you haven’t noticed. I couldn’t decide what to leave out, so I left all of it in.

Some of it is gentle. A lot of it has swearing (see above). Take what helps and leave the rest. It’s all written with love and the wish for anyone reading it to suffer less.

That is the application. The rest is the source code.

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Source_Code.txt

The open-source code below is free, for you to analyze, modify, and build your own application with.

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> the menu turned into a credit application: nothing_to_order.txt

The most recent stuff first, straight from exported text conversations I have had with people, verbatim, with the exception of all identifying information being generalized or removed to protect privacy.

Restaurant menus, for starters.

It’s funny how the alcohol menu at restaurants just becomes nothing. It could be a credit application or a book full of advertisements for all I care.

I don’t push sobriety on anyone. Here’s why.

How can you possibly talk about emotions, feelings, drugs, alcohol, etc., when your kids and peers are watching you use and numb your own. You may not be able to change anything going on with those people, but you can definitely model healthy habits. I took a stance of not pushing sobriety with anyone. Let people have their own autonomy and consequences. If they ask about mine, I share. Modeling leads to them making the change. Not me telling them they should, even with all the valid points I might have. It has to be their idea, and they have to actually want it for themselves. Modeling often plants a seed though.

Probably ten dispensaries on one drive.

I drive past probably ten dispensaries when I cross town it seems like. They are hard to not notice. But when I see them I just see the old me fucked up and freaked out the night I quit. And I cannot fathom ever walking into one again. It’s repulsive. And like alcohol, expensive. I still balk at paying $4 for a Diet Coke. But it’s nothing compared to $16 margaritas and a $30+ a day for weed. And now I get free refills. Love my free refills. And freedom from substances controlling me.

I don’t like being caged. Confined. Controlled.

By anything.

And substances were doing that. And now they are gone, and I have escaped the cage they kept me in (aka addiction) you can bet your ass I am not going back into the cage.

And there is a certain special little thing I am sure you have noticed…when you get through something tough without needing chemicals…you realize you can actually get through anything. And that’s when your power is restored.

A curveball hit me. Here’s what a clear head did with it.

When you are sober, you have a clear mind so the hard times, while legitimately hard, are something you can navigate in a much easier way.

I had an event a week ago that I didn’t see coming. Life threw a good ole fashioned curveball. Not anything huge, but it rattled me a little. And if I had been numbed, it would have overwhelmed me and I would have shut down.

I went home, sat with the initial anxiety and named it, and an hour later had a solid plan to handle it. Clear thinking got me through what would have probably sent me to the psych ward before. And literally in an hour. And by the next day, the situation was resolved and I was moving forward with my life like nothing even happened.

This was because of rational thinking. Instead of the amygdala freaking out into fight/flight/freeze/fawn and the rational mind being drunk and passed out in the corner unable to do anything with the system shutdown occurring. A drunk nuclear power plant operator would not be able to make clear, rational, complex, fast decisions when the alarms start sounding.

While this “crisis” is much smaller, the concept is identical. In the past I bet this would have looked immensely different.

People ask what emotional sobriety actually is.

That’s emotional sobriety. When you start to see that your response to things now is actually the best response, that’s when you’re in the sweet spot.

And keep asking the questions of the shadow…did I do the right thing? And if you didn’t, ask yourself why (and be brutally honest), own it immediately, learn your lesson, don’t repeat it, make the amends through an apology and most importantly through demonstrated positive change.

We aren’t always going to be perfect and nail a situation. But we can always respond with a self-aware, reflective ownership, accountability, and growth mindset.

And when you respond that way, you stay in integrity. You remain respected and respectable. And you don’t go down a shame spiral. Those things lead to chemicals. It’s why I call it emotional sobriety. Keep the clean mind clean, not just chemically, but emotionally. A clean conscience is so much better for our emotions than a dirty one.

Then I went to a rave. Sober.

I went on a solo date last night. Just for me. Groomed up. Dressed up. Felt like a million bucks. It was to my first rave since the disaster of a rave on March 1st. I was definitely the only sober person. And I had a blast dancing my ass off for 4.5 hours.

I had person after person come up and tell me how much fun it looked like I was having. How free, wild, and uninhibited my dancing was. I wasn’t doing it for them or to get noticed. I prefer not being noticed, so I danced in the back. I was doing it because it felt good. It’s my high. My dopamine. I was in my zone, my happy place.

And sober. And solo. In solitude. With no fear of judgment or what people thought. No fear period.

People notice the “no fear”. And it used to take A LOT of chemicals to feel no fear. People comment on it because they don’t have it. While they are holding a drink in their hand and a dab pen in the other. Which tells me that even when I was loaded, I still had the fears.

Sobriety allowed me to have the clarity to get to the root of my fears and insecurities. And heal them.

Three sober raves now, two solo. And they are a bazillion times more fun than the intoxicated ones. Oh and the best part? I didn’t have to worry about a DUI. And on my way home drove past a guy on Cornwall with a flashlight in his face doing a field sobriety test. And no hangover and anxiety this morning.

Like what would my night have been like. You know, having the time of my life and then handcuffed, going to jail, license suspended and unable to drive for months, blow and go in my car (really makes dating fun), high insurance, and $20,000 in legal costs.

Sobriety is so much simpler. I just drive home. And the time of my life is there the whole way, is there the next day, and is with my memory forever.

I went to the buff almost 100x in two years. I have hundreds of pictures and remember almost none of it.

I have gone to three raves solo, and can remember everything down to the smell in absolutely 4k HD clarity.

Just ate a healthy zero carb 60g protein breakfast.

Had I been hungover and drinking, I would have eaten something terrible last night and something terrible this morning for sure.

Another benefit.

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> it's medicine, I swear: cannabis_lies.txt

I told myself every lie the cannabis industry told me. Every lie my cannabis friends told me too. It’s medicine. It’s medically necessary. It helps with PTSD and anxiety. No side effects with me. My life was worse without it. I needed it to function. There’s nothing wrong with plant medicine. My brain has cannabinoid receptors for a reason.

Sounds convincing. It wasn’t the real reason. And it’s a fucking addictive intoxicant.

The real thing I was scared of was living life without being able to get high and avoid discomfort. Afraid of having to feel things. I’d quit drinking almost two years earlier and was already feeling plenty. I knew I’d have to feel even more without cannabis.

And I’d tried. I quit for a month a few months before, and it was absolute hell, emotionally and physically. Withdrawals and loud feelings. Anxiety. Headaches. Ears ringing. Restlessness. Insomnia. Loss of appetite. Agitation. Jaw tension. Irritability. Depression.

That’s why I went back. I knew I’d have to do all of it over again. And do it FOREVER.

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> this is the weed talking: last_joint.log

I was loaded with anxiety and fear. A safety boundary had been violated less than a week earlier, and I was afraid to even leave my apartment during daylight hours. So at around 6PM I put on my cold weather rain gear, put my headphones on, grabbed my pack of half-gram joints and a lighter, and took off for a walk.

Cannabis had started acting different on me in the weeks before. I went from smoking 5 grams or more a day to only being able to handle a few half-gram joints. Every time, I felt good at first, and then my heart was racing and the anxiety showed up.

I was just up the street when I pulled out a joint. Let’s not smoke the whole thing tonight. Just half of the half-gram. So I took 5 or 6 good hits as I walked, and tossed it.

It kicked in fast. Unusually hard. And it was the same normal indica I always smoked, nothing high-THC. Within 30 minutes my heart was racing, I was panicky, and my anxiety was through the roof. I got extremely paranoid. Not the “I’m being followed” kind, or aliens, or the government spying on me. The “something very bad is going to happen any second” kind. And I had no clue what the “something very bad” was, so my brain started spiraling through the billions of possibilities.

Somehow I recognized it. This is the weed talking. I said it over and over for the next 4 miles, about 80 minutes, so I wouldn’t lose my mind. Consciously I knew I was safe and fine. My nervous system and amygdala had other thoughts. They told me I was going to die. And in my body, I felt like I was going to die.

Four miles in, I passed the trash cans by the Granary building on the Waterfront. I reached in my pocket and threw away the whole pack and the lighter. A $20 value, lol.

That was the last chemical I had to eliminate to become fully chemically sober. I haven’t had a millimeter of desire to go near it since. Fifteen years of increasingly larger doses, same strain, and 5 or 6 hits flattened me worse than a 2 gram 49% infused blunt ever did. I still don’t know why. My body said no more.

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> my dad called her in: empty_chair.log

The weed wore off somewhere in the next four miles. Then I ended up at Taylor Dock, looking up at the stars, talking to my late mother and father. Empty chair therapy style, except the chair was the sky.

My father first. I asked him for a sign that things were going to start changing for the better. Ego death, hypervigilance, and (I didn’t know it yet) gaslighting were destroying me. I asked what I needed to do. Advice. Anything at all. His energy was beautiful and calming. It felt like he hugged me and held me.

Seconds later, that energy disappeared and my mother walked right in.

Yeah, it’s a little woo woo. Roll your eyes if you want. I think my dad called her in. On purpose. He was divorced from her for a reason, and he knows all her ways. He knows how much she messed with me. I think he sat her down in front of me so I could finally get it out of my head.

So I did. I told her I was done with her shit. The shame she planted in my skull. The feelings of not being good enough. The mind fuckery. The anger. The lies. All of it. Some of it at the top of my lungs.

That was the sign. Her showing up. All at once I could see how much her influence over my self-worth, self-love, beliefs about myself, self-value, and self-esteem was getting in the way of my healing. It was messing with my ability to process the ego death and everything that had just happened.

I never said any of it while she was alive. 1.5 hours of paranoia, a good hour of heavy emotional exchange with my dead parents, and over 12 miles on foot. I was beat.

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> that was the right call: quiet_knowing.dat

When I got home that night, I was also feeling a new calm I hadn’t felt before. My battle with cannabis was over. What I never told my mother was out in the universe for her to receive. My dad figuratively hugged and held me.

And I just knew I was done for good. It wasn’t loud. It was straight up intuition saying “that was the right call.”

Same voice I heard when I chose the severing on September 8th and went off the radar 12 days later. This time it simply said, “thank you for listening.”

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> the day after I threw it away: journal_entry.log

The next day I did what regular people do. Coffee. Laundry. Dishes. No big breakthrough. I wrote it all down in my journal, starting with this.

Today, I am improving my life. I am moving myself forward. I am single. I am free and have full autonomy. I am safe, powerful, and in control of my emotions and actions. I am ethical. I am accountable.

Then the list of what I actually did.

Today, I spent my time walking in the rain. I got coffee on the way. I took a nap. I went to IFS. I did laundry. I vacuumed my apartment. I cleared out things from cabinets. I did the dishes. I cleared out space in the kitchen. I got rid of things that weren’t mine and gifts I didn’t want. I went to dinner with a friend. I ordered a big print. I ordered a table, chairs, and small shelf. I ordered new Chacos. I read my books. I made my bed. I showered. I made myself breakfast. I talked to a friend. I went grocery shopping.

It wasn’t all calm. I walked over 10 miles that day too. Here’s what showed up, and what I did about it.

Challenges that showed up today were my mother’s influence on my thoughts and fears, rehearsing future events and conversations, reflecting on the past instead of writing new script, raining + cold weather, hard time napping, waves of intense anxiety, intrusive thoughts, addictive urges, listening and being curious.

I responded to these challenges by facing my mother and returning fear and anger about her back to her, doing parts work, stopping and redirecting old script and future rehearsals, sitting with emotions and naming feelings, ending walk early, staying sober from addictive urges, sharing my learning with others, sticking to facts about the present moment when my mind veered.

And the one sentence of truth the journal asks for.

My fears are not rooted in reality but are rooted in behaviors of my mother throughout my life.

A few more from that page.

Leaving behind my mother’s influence on my life and patterns, fear, anger towards mom, cannabis, old scripts, rumination of the past and future unknowns, rehearsing events that happened, false safety threats.

One thing I am grateful for: rediscovering my walking hobby and being in good shape to do it.

One thing I respect about myself is I never give up on trying new things when other things don’t work out – cockroach energy.

One way I showed myself care today: I removed triggering items from my home.

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> you're done when you're done: ready.cfg

I never set a quit date. One night I was just done. So when people ask me how to quit, I don’t give them a date. I tell them this.

Here’s the thing. When you are ready to be done with it, you will be done with it. Applies to anything in life. Drugs, alcohol, people, patterns, whatever. So as contrary as it sounds, the more you worry about quitting and force yourself into it, the harder it will be.

Shaming yourself in any way for using whatever will keep you hooked on it. Setting a quit date, same thing.

Release the phrase “I need to quit” and just affirm yourself that “I want to reduce my suffering by removing whatever it is from my life and I am building up my strength and awareness so I can do it for good, and when I am ready, I will.”

One is shaming. One is empowering. Choose empowerment.

And you can always do one day at a time.

Today I am not going to use whatever and if you get through one day, you can try again for another.

And if a day is too long, try 6 hours. Then another 6 hours.

Baby steps.

Then they ask when the right time is. There isn’t one.

One other tidbit of Tukayote brain and I promise to shut up is…there is no good time to quit. There will always be a new reason to not quit or to delay quitting. It’s why I say when you are ready to be done, you will be done. And until then, you won’t. At some point you just have to do it though.

And if you relapse?

You could go back to drinking but I really don’t see that happening. It would be like you returning to anything that has caused you suffering. But if you do…you relapse and you learn where an emotional wound existed. You heal that wound, you get back on the wagon, and you get back to sobriety. There is no shame in relapse. It’s a normal and healthy part of recovery and healing. It’s not a setback. It’s how we learn where our wounds are. And if we don’t know where our wounds are, we can’t heal them.

Yeah, I know I just said one day at a time. Here’s the other thing I say.

Sobriety isn’t one day at a time. It is one decision at a time. And each decision you make to reduce your suffering, which can include not using, is part of the emotional sobriety journey.

One thing I cannot stress enough for people on sobriety journeys is rewarding themselves for milestones. Even if it’s just getting through a tough day.

Drugs and avoidance reduce our suffering in the short term, with long term consequences.

Inner work, chemical sobriety, and emotional sobriety reduce our suffering long term. There are no consequences to this. Ever.

Yes, it’s difficult and uncomfortable. Those aren’t consequences. Those are feelings. Sensations. Indications that you are moving forward into better things. That things are changing.

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> losing everything and getting free: empty_state.dat

People ask me what rock bottom feels like. Here’s what I tell them.

I went to some live music at Trackside, a band called Reposado. One of the songs was called Music is my Savior. It was about him hitting rock bottom and living in his car.

He said “It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.”

I remember the feeling of emptiness well. I was crying so hard I vomited in the Redwoods of California.

The emptiness felt crippling but also strangely whole. In the weeks and months that followed, I realized I was completely free. I had unlimited agency and autonomy. I depended on nobody for anything, and nothing and nobody had any power or control over me. That everything I ever needed was within me.

I have some quotes I have found along the way that explain it better.

“Emptiness which is conceptually liable to be mistaken for sheer nothingness is in fact the reservoir of infinite possibilities.”

Anonymous

“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I built my life.”

Anonymous

“Sometimes it takes being left seemingly with nothing to realize that you are everything. To see that you held the key to your own happiness and self-worth and belonging and wholeness all along.”

Anonymous

“When you feel like you have nothing, you lose the fear of losing anything. This empty space strips away distractions, ego, and false needs, leaving you completely free to rebuild, appreciate small truths, and discover what truly matters.”

Anonymous

When nothing is left to protect, fear loses its grip.

“Without anchors or expectations, you can choose any path.”

“Stripped-down surroundings reveal basic, essential truths.”

“Let go: Stop fighting the state of having nothing.”

“Rebuild slowly: Add back only what has real value.”

“Find peace: Realize that peace comes from within, not from things or people around you.”

Anonymous

The empty space, the liminal darkness of doubt and uncertainty, and the fears of it are the storm. Charge that storm. The life you always dreamed of, and one of so much less suffering is on the other side of it. I promise.

I didn’t believe any of that at first. Nine months after I burned my life to the ground, I wrote this.

Yesterday was 9 months since I completely burned my life to the ground. And the last 224 days of it I have been sober.

I wouldn’t ever do it the same way again, and I am also grateful for the huge fucking mess I made because had I not hit that rock bottom, I wouldn’t be standing on top of the mountain I am today. Gratitude reframes everything.

It was miserable in the beginning and it eventually shifted. Your challenges today aren’t going to last forever. And the mess of your past is paving the way for a future you never imagined possible.

If someone told me 9 months ago that I would be the happiest man I have ever been today, I probably would have punched them in the face.

The hard shit I have been through has prepared me for any hard thing I face down the road. It has sucked ass, and it has also built me a rock solid foundation for emotional and chemical sobriety moving forward.

Woke up early this morning with a mantra repeating in my head. Been a few months since I had one.

8/13/26 5:38am – Even if you mess up the painting, you can always paint over it.

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> I was never the problem: open_wounds.log

People ask me if something’s wrong with them. Here’s what I tell them.

Too many people try to “fix” themselves thinking they’re the problem. I was never the problem. Yes, I did shitty things, but unhealed emotional wounding was the driving factor. If the wounds hadn’t existed, I wouldn’t have done what I did. And all of this destruction was caused by fear others created in me. My sobriety allowed me to finally see my wounds. Without the visibility I had absolutely no way to understand or heal them.

Your sobriety will be painful at times because the wounds won’t be numbed. But they will start healing. And eventually the scars left behind won’t hurt. When we numb, the wounds stay open and often get infected. Bottom line, for people like us, sobriety is necessary.

My old life was spiderwebs of stuff that wasn’t good for me. Sobriety brought a whole lot of that to light.

And no, my VNS didn’t make me do it.

My VNS didn’t make me party and do drugs, even though I started all that when it started helping with my depression. I felt really good. And there were lots of bad things going on in my life that I didn’t want to deal with or feel, because then I wouldn’t feel good anymore. So I drugged and drank it all away. On the surface it looked like VNS led me to drug and alcohol abuse. But it isn’t at all what happened.

People think I will eventually release. And for me numbing makes about as much sense as willingly cutting off my fingers. Once I got the clarity from my sobriety, especially getting completely clean this year with cannabis, I have no desire to ever numb again. Not a single craving. Nothing.

I look around and see everyone numbing and feel sad for them. I am free. And nothing will ever cage me again, especially substances and alcohol.

Here’s what it looks like from the outside.

I have a hard time catching my real big ridiculous smile in a selfie. I know what that smile looks and feels like and I captured it today. It’s how I feel almost all of the time. Fuck, four days ago the universe ran me over emotionally and physically and here I am grinning like it never even happened. Resilience baby. Cockroach energy baby!

Keep going. That’s all I can say. Six months ago this didn’t exist. This is the smile of sobriety and choosing myself. The smile of freedom from patterns and unhealthy people.

There is no going back. Going back makes as much sense as cutting off my fingers.

I’m floating. On top of the world. I know with every ounce of my being that there is absolutely nothing life can hand me that can stop me. Sobriety has taught and shown me that. My life falling apart five months ago has single-handedly been the best and most transformative thing that has ever happened to me. And each day just keeps getting better and better. I keep meeting incredible people.

I made space for this by clearing out the shit in my life. The substances, the shitty people, the toxic patterns I lived in, all of it. Burned my old life completely to the ground. And what is entering the space I made, is hard to explain in words, but it’s the best thing I could have ever dreamed of, and a whole lot more.

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> the herd runs with you: pasture.conf

People ask me who’s running with me. The herd. My daughters. My friends. Peers. Veterans. People in recovery. My therapist. My healer. My chiropractor. My doctor. My psychiatrist. Everyone running with me on my journey. The village, if you will.

Here’s what I tell the rest of the herd.

Be love. Seek Heart, Empowerment, Rising, and Direction and you will find it. Keep your horns forward, charging towards your fears and choosing less suffering. A beautiful sunny pasture is on the other side. I promise.

You are who you choose to be in this moment today and moving forward, not who you were before. Yesterday can sink you, or build you into the best version of yourself. Write the new chapter. New you is in it.

And the buffalo who know this and believe this are still running in your herd with you. Especially me. I’m not running away from it and leaving you to face it alone.

Horns forward. Head down. Keep charging. You are free as a bird from your old self. Hop out of that nest, spread your wings, and fly.

I’m not just saying that. Here’s the secret everybody in the herd knows.

Everyone running in the herd with you wants you to suffer less. We all know the secret. And the secret is that you, our buffalo family member, has to choose to run with us towards less suffering. You have to choose it. And when you do, you’ll find the beautiful things on the other side of the storm. The way out of the storm right now is not a big mystery or secret at all, it’s simply running through the storm. Choosing less suffering in everything you do.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

You suffer less when you choose to suffer less. Your buffalo family can do lots of things for you, but we can’t do that. Only you can. And it’s the missing piece of the puzzle.

Choose less suffering in everything you do. You may not feel like you have many choices right now with things in your life, but choosing to love yourself by choosing less suffering is always something you can choose to do. Nobody can take away that freedom from you.

Charging into the storm isn’t only about drugs. It’s about anything unfamiliar. Here’s what happened when I took a trail I’d never taken.

Saturday I could have followed the trail I always had to Clayton Beach, and gone to the same beach I always did. Had the same experience I always had and knew well. Comfortable and familiar, even though it had my ex’s fingerprints all over it and didn’t feel great.

That day, on a completely random whim, I took a trail I never had before. One of uncertainty. One of doubting it went anywhere worthwhile. I found a new place without anyone else’s fingerprints on it. I found an amazing place to do nude photography work. Shot an amazing set on Monday with a new client (first time for her doing nude work) who has already asked when we can go shoot again. I found rocks that I just had to climb. I found a new hobby. And very well may have just found a completely new community at the gym.

Because I did something different and uncertain.

I did the same thing last year when I walked off the job, walked away from the certainty of a 25 year career, six figure income, and amazing benefits. Walked into a big unknown with an insane pay cut and I’ve had to change all my doctors twice now. Still walking into that unknown. And in it I have eliminated patterns and found healing, eliminated bad relationships and found amazing ones, found sobriety and eliminated poisons, found confidence and left fears behind, found love for myself and let go of the shame, deepened my relationship with you, improved my physical health and virtually eliminated diabetes, now I am reducing my PTSD, and I keep finding new things every day.

Change is inevitable. It’s uncomfortable. We may not want some of it. But we ultimately can’t stop it. Resisting it is avoiding it. Resisting it is running away from the storm instead of into it. Surrendering to change and letting it flow has been the best thing I have learned to do. It means getting very comfortable with walking in the dark liminal spaces and getting comfortable with the uncertainty. It keeps paying off. Even when it isn’t exactly easy or doesn’t go exactly as I want to.

If I was given the choice of the life I had, $10,000 a month of extra money, great benefits, and a stable career, or the life of uncertainty, living off savings, having to change everything in my life, shitty VA healthcare, sobriety, healing, happiness, self-love, joy, and the tight bonds with people in my life now, I would choose this any day.

Never in my past would I have ever chosen it. And one asshole at the Department of Ecology on a random Thursday basically chose it for me. I am so grateful they did.

Keep going. Keep charging. Your past can either destroy you if you choose to let it, or it can lead you to the best version of yourself if you choose to let it. One increases your suffering. One decreases it, long term and for good.

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> not today, turn around: gut_signal.wav

That quiet voice the night I quit was intuition. People ask how I tell it apart from fear. It took me a while to learn.

With that said, one of the biggest parts of my recovery is learning the difference between fear/anxiety and intuition in my body. My healer and therapist have been leading me to this for months. Listening to and strictly following my intuition has been extremely helpful even when it doesn’t match my “thinking” brain. For example my thinking brain loudly says “get a job or you will run out of money” and my intuition gently says “not today”. You can see how this would be challenging to follow my gut when my mind seems to know things so much better.

I trust the process and the universe. I trust that what I have in this exact moment is exactly what I am supposed to have, even if it doesn’t make sense to my “thinking brain”. I trust my instinct.

Sobriety unlocks your ability to hear your intuition. It also makes your fear and anxiety louder. So it’s something that takes time to separate. I’m still figuring it out myself and will probably be figuring it out for the rest of my life. It’s not something with a roadmap and user manual.

Here’s the easiest way I can describe the difference.

The easiest way to describe it is fear/anxiety is very much a thought, something that is loud, wants solved/fixed, is felt physically, chaotic, overwhelming, worst-case, based on past experiences or insecurities, etc….

Intuition is a gentle knowing, a clarity, usually a very clear small message, feels comforting and reassuring, is calm, makes sense, feels actionable, doesn’t require lengthy explanation or deliberation, isn’t urgent, and is focused on alignment and truth.

And here’s the time it turned me around.

One example I had that still stands out for me is one time I packed my backpack and drove to Locust Beach parking lot. Parked my car, was excited to go down to the beach. Got out of my car, and halfway down the trail, a clear and calm message came to me, and it said “not today, turn around”. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t done with huge amounts of thought or explanation. It was gentle and just “knowing”. My thinking fear/anxiety brain jumped in and said “What the fuck? Why can’t I go to the beach? There is nothing wrong. This is stupid….”

I listened to my intuition and went back to my car. I don’t know why it said what it said. It didn’t explain it. It didn’t terrorize me with it. It just gently said “not today, turn around” and I listened to it. I may never know what was ahead on the trail. Or what was ahead of me that day if I had gone with that sequence of events. And that’s the hardest part of intuition work is not knowing why the gut says what it says, and just trusting it to be true.

For folks like us that have ignored our intuition our whole lives and relied extensively on our thinking brain (which has been necessary due to trauma and other events of our past) it can be very hard to stop relying on it. But our thinking brain is our protector parts. They are rooted in situations from our past where their messages protected us. Those messages don’t apply now. And following our intuition almost always makes those parts calm down.

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> my body keeps saying no: sys_halt.log

Sobriety didn’t make everything easy.

A hard part of my sobriety journey is that my nervous system frequently says FUCK NO to lots of things I used to enjoy. It frustrates the hell out of me. Sometimes I just want to go have good clean fun and not have to pay for it.

Once, it said it loud enough that I turned the car around.

My nervous system has been telling me clearly that I need to head home instead of continuing this road trip.

I thought three days in Vegas would help, and each day I found myself pushing through it by not “letting myself and everyone down” by heading home instead of doing the rest of what I initially set out to do.

Each day it has gotten progressively more intense. It’s not trending towards improvement and the exhausting weekend of activities coming up followed by immediately hitting the road for 9 days following, with no rest days, is setting me up for disaster. I don’t want or need that.

After carefully considering everything, another 12 days on the road is just not in my wheelhouse. I’m toast. I sat in 29 Palms earlier today and meditated on it for over an hour. Drove to Beaumont because it’s the turning point, been here for a while meditating on it more.

It’s not a crisis, I’m just listening to myself instead of pushing through any longer (like I used to). I’m frustrated and sad that my body isn’t matching up with my goals. It feels like so many let downs and cancelled plans since I got sober. I used to numb all the signals and now I choose to listen to them even when it breaks my heart. And it means sometimes, even with the best of intentions and confidence, it’s just not realistic or healthy for my system for me to do things I want to do.

My nervous system is my priority, and it’s been yelling since Monday that it’s had enough. The rest of California can happen another time. I have had an amazing trip and no regrets about it. I got to see two of the most important people in my life and see some amazing things. Crossed off three bucket list items. It’s been an unforgettable experience. And now it’s time to head North towards home.

Another part of the reason I headed home early from my road trip is because the amount of time alone hundreds of miles away without in-person human contact became too much. I wasn’t lonely. I loved the solitude. But I couldn’t get a hug or even see a familiar face. Texts and phone calls helped. I saw two friends. My nervous system was on fire, and not just because of the continuous days of triple digit heat.

I need platonic touch more than romantic touch. Because platonic touch isn’t tied to maintaining a romance. Platonic touch is simply human closeness without obligation. It’s coregulation instead of courtship and foreplay.

The world sees me as this pillar of strength and as an invincible indestructible Unkillable cockroach. I am those things at times.

And often I am not. People didn’t see me crying in my car Thursday being frozen in a parking lot 2800 miles from home in the middle of the Mojave Desert. Or crying in the car merging on the freeway Friday morning when a song came on that brought years of pain to the surface.

I’m a human being with a heart that is still broken. A nervous system that is still trying to come out of its shell and feel safe. I’m sitting on top of a mountain of months of loss and continuous emotional exhaustion. I still cry. I still hurt. I still struggle. I still wonder how much more I can take without crumbling apart.

Sometimes I just want to be held and hear another person’s heartbeat without it being something more than that. My nervous system doesn’t want or need romance to regulate itself. It just wants the warmth and touch of a safe human being in its proximity. My desire for this touch is a vulnerability that could take me right back to my old patterns. I am aware of this. I am being emotionally sober with it.

Then came the weird night that proved the point.

Had something weird happen last night. A psychological phenomenon where I felt high. Not mania high. Like marijuana high. Did a bunch of research and what I experienced is a very real thing for people in sobriety who have been in close proximity to people who are intoxicated. It is called a contact high. And pop culture says a contact high is what happens when you get a little secondhand weed smoke. It’s a big myth. You have to have long periods of time in confined spaces with people smoking weed to get high from their secondhand smoke. These people did smoke weed, outside, and I wasn’t in their cloud at any point.

I had no desire to drink or smoke weed last night. And then towards the end of our shenanigans we walked to the “warehouse” which is an underground rave spot I used to go to. We went inside but they wanted $20 and EVERYONE there was strung out on drugs. Like really bad. And it brought up old feelings of my pre-sobriety shit so I parted ways with the group shortly after. They ended up not staying there either.

And about the time I got home I was feeling so euphoric in my body that I was wondering if someone slipped something into my Diet Coke at the Grand.

So anyways, their intoxicated energy essentially runs off on you psychologically. So you get “high” without even doing any drugs or alcohol.

I normally can’t stand people drunk or high anymore but the group I was with last night was nothing but belly laughing fun.

I’m also not who I was before.

I used to be very extroverted when I used drugs and alcohol. Finding out that I am definitely an introvert now.

In the spirit of Independence Day, I just became independent again. I just dumped a girl and I am single again, not that I was really in any kind of committed relationship after only 5 very casual dates. This pier has seen so much of my life unfold. I’m standing here alone enjoying the shit out of my music and dancing in place. Two hundred plus people on the pier and not giving a shit what they think. And I wouldn’t change a thing or have it any different.

Here’s what I say to everyone who depends on someone else to feel okay.

The emotional sobriety journey is hard. But there will be one day you wake up and realize you have complete freedom and power.

You will suddenly realize and feel at the cellular level that nobody and nothing is controlling you or can control you anymore. Each time you make a decision to reduce your suffering, you take away control from something that had control over you.

That freedom terrifies most people. Most people don’t want to be completely independent and completely responsible for themselves. It’s why so many people are in codependent and dysfunctional friendships and relationships.

“I have to have someone who does _______ to feel happy/secure/loved/cared for/etc…”

If you depend on that person for your happiness and they get hit by a bus, uh oh. Now you are fucked.

Anytime we depend on anyone or anything, it is actually controlling us and reducing our freedom. And when we have reduced freedom, we suffer more. And especially suffer when something happens to the thing we depended on.

The opposite of codependency and depending on someone is healthy interdependence. Healthy interdependence is key to emotional sobriety, which is key to chemical sobriety. Anything that increases our suffering increases our chances of falling back into chemical use.

We often try to manage other people’s feelings and problems. They aren’t ours to manage. My sobriety is no different. I have people apologize for drinking in front of me, like they are somehow responsible for me maintaining my sobriety. Nope.

I manage me. If someone’s drinking is endangering my sobriety, I leave. Or do whatever I need to do to maintain sobriety. I don’t put that responsibility on them.

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> all the feelings came back: full_restore.log

People ask what sobriety actually gives you. Short list.

Sobriety is a gift we give ourselves. And it’s a gift we give everyone in our lives.

It’s changed my entire recovery and sobriety experience for the better to have a structure in my own words around how I choose less suffering. And I hold myself to it. That’s the hard part. That’s emotional sobriety.

Then came my 43rd birthday.

My 43rd birthday this year is extra special. It’s my first birthday sober. My first birthday not living in over 20 patterns I have eliminated. My first birthday single. It’s kind of just my first birthday overall. A completely new me.

I can only change what I can see. I am not always aware of everything, but when I do become aware of something…especially something that needs changed…I change it.

And naked people.

I’m on a beach with 10 naked people right now.

Including a platonic woman bestie. We just went swimming.

My life is a daily adventure.

This is what sobriety gives you.

Keep going.

It isn’t all beaches. Here’s the hard part.

As you sit with these moments, which will feel fucking awful, they will release and get better. It’s always a wave. And as you get through each wave, you get stronger and more confident. And eventually you will see that you are stronger than anything life throws at you.

It’s why I tell people my sobriety is permanent. The last 8 months have been the most difficult months of my entire life. By far. And I didn’t drink. Didn’t even reach towards the bottle. And I got clean in the middle of the worst part of the worst. So there is literally nothing…NOTHING…that life can throw at me now that could make me go back to using. If I can survive all of that, I am strong enough to survive anything.

But it doesn’t mean you have to do it alone.

Physical sobriety (not putting the substances in our bodies) is hard. Emotional sobriety though is the hardest part. That’s the place where we have to sit with feelings, remove bad things/people from our lives, and so much more.

Keep charging. Horns forward.

Today is my 100th day of complete sobriety. Not a single regret about it. I have gotten through some of my hardest moments without numbing them. I felt emotions and feelings I have never felt in their raw form. I let my mind, nervous system, and intuition give me the answers instead of asking drugs for enlightenment. I discovered that the answers were always inside me. I have made decisions from this space and my conscience has remained incredibly clear and clean as a result.

I have been able to do peer support work and mentor others without anything interfering or influencing me.

I also experienced some of the best moments and experiences of my life and can remember every single detail of them in their entirety. I am finding more and more love for myself every day, and it’s getting deeper and deeper as I go forward.

I never realized the grip substances had on every part of my life. I’m driving the bus now. My hands are on the wheel. For good.

I’m proud of myself and I am grateful for the community who has supported me because they have shown me my value, worth, and so much love.

And the last thing, from the nugget everybody warns you about.

They say, “when you get sober you get ALL of your feelings back.”

Yeah, you definitely fucking do.

“I am ok, regardless.”

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