Emerging from the pit takes longer than one might imagine
I am starting to realize that you need to climb down deeper and deeper in order to come up and out on the other side. There is no way back out the same way you came in. The pit is unforgiving, even when you are no longer in it, you are in it. It's a different kind of pit, sure. Even when you have passed the point of no return — you are free but you are not free yet. You can see the light yet there's still a lot of work to be done to reach it. The sooner you start the work the better.
It's been 302 days since I took my last and final drink. There is no time bound limit of knowing when you will be free for sure. There is so much that was left unlearned that I am just beginning to learn now. Forced or willing it makes no odds. I need to learn and relearn so many things. Simple stress or just how to be alone. And to be okay with that. Time does help for sure, there is no doubting it. It seems like it's been so long already but at the same time so little. Imagine, if I had been drinking regularly since 18 years of age, and stopped at 40 — there's a lot of time to cover back.
The hardest most challenging part is learning about myself. We think we know ourselves, but alcohol robs us of every opportunity we have to learn. It blackens out every experience of self-knowing of self-learning, over and over and over again. We are…
