It’s a long story, but last October I decided to take a year off from alcohol. There have been a few cheats since then – maybe the “no” in this title should be in quotes – but 99% of this “no” booze chapter has been free and clear.
Because I was a moderate, regular drinker, the NA life has been interesting. Along the way, I’ve learned a few things and, from time to time, will be penning some observations.
This morning, I’d like to recount the tale of a large meltdown that happened yesterday, and an important insight that followed.
One of my kids struggles with math. She doesn’t have any cognitive barriers that we know of, but she gets impatient and very frustrated when she runs into a difficult problem. Last year, she got a little behind, so I decided to work with her over the summer.
It’s been brutal.
Yesterday, we forgot to do math in the morning and ended up sitting down around dinner time to knock it out. She wanted to get it done before she ate (I hadn’t eaten either), so we sat down to what I thought would be 30 minutes or so of work. She got frustrated, then sat in silence and wouldn’t respond to my expert math teaching skills. When I tried to push her, she’d fuss at me, and/or shove the computer away, and/or a few other things that I read as disrespectful.
This is a huge trigger for me. When folks of any age show me the slightest whiff of disrespect, I have a hard time responding like an adult, especially when I’ve spent the entire day with kids and haven’t eaten anything.
Hangriness is just as real for adults as it is for kids.
I’m not sure where I inherited this particular trigger. I’ll tell you that it runs in my family, and that I know few people who can adult well when disrespected. Either way, I didn’t show up well last night.
A meltdown followed.
For me that meant sending the kid to bed early without dinner, grabbing a beer, and heading out to the garage to feel sorry for myself.
There have been a few moments in the past 9 months when it’s been really hard not to drink: when everyone else is partying, when I’ve spent an hour or so in the summer heat working on the Jeep, when I get really bored, and, worst of all, when I’m triggered.
In these moments, life seems hopeless, like it’ll never change. Everything is wrong and I feel like the victim of some cosmic conspiracy. An eternal loser. The only thing that might bring a little hope is a glass of whiskey.
It’s true by the way, when we’re triggered, nothing calms us down and returns us to reality faster than a good dose of alcohol.
I ended up throwing my beer, really hard, at the ground, splattering it all over the garage and myself. Thankfully it was NA beer so I didn’t smell like I’d been drinking all day when I went back into the house.
I offered the kid a second chance and some food, and we started over. Within 30 minutes I was as calm as I would’ve been had I drank, and we spent an hour knocking out a problem that I had to research before I could solve it.
Wanna see it?
“21 is 37% of what number?”
Talk about being bad at math…
Anyway, as I later processed all of this with Elaine, I suddenly realized something about the way I get triggered when someone disrespects me, something that might be true about all triggers.
We don’t heal from them unless we walk through them.
The fear, hopelessness, frustration, and victim-ness that come in our most triggered moments has to be experienced if we have any hope of turning the heat down a little bit. It sucks, but this might be just another area of life where we’ll have to hurt before we heal.
I don’t mean to judge anyone who drinks their way through a trigger, I’ve certainly done it oh so many times. Almost did it last night. But I’m wondering if booze doesn’t insulate us from something that’s fundamental to our healing.
We all have triggers, and we need to find a way to ultimately get rid them. That’s impossible of course, but we can at least head in that direction. Maybe choosing to walk through the hell that comes part and parcel with our deepest triggers is the best way forward.
Sounds fun, yeah? Who doesn’t love a good walk through hell?
Photo by Yosh Ginsu on Unsplash
Good one! I enjoy reading blog posts but this one was particularly enjoyable. Keep up the good work and good luck with your “no booze” pledge! Take care!
Thanx man. The pledge is hanging on by a thread 😀 appreciate the encouragement