Loss

Last night I had my cat euthanized. It didn't come to my attention until tonight that a part of me would like to get drunk.

No, I'm not going to drink, blah blah blah. And yeah, I'm kind of pissed off about that. Haven't felt that urge (much) for a long time now.

Then again, this is the saddest thing that has happened in my life since I got sober. So it doesn't come as a surprise that I'd have a strong and unpleasant reaction.

I know that it's a terrible lie, the illusion that those moments of meager comfort (or at least emotional anesthesia) would do me any good, much less outweigh the inevitable consequences. Knowing that it's a lie helps me not to say fuck it and go get drunk. But it also makes me feel, in a curious way, even worse. To this alcoholic, there used to be no situation, no emotion, that a glass of wine couldn't somehow improve upon.

Now things are different. Grief is grief. No shortcuts. No way out but through.

I will say a couple of things in favor of sobriety, though. [Insert wry smile here.] First, during the weeks that my cat was ailing, I was fully present and able to care for him with my whole heart and my full attention. I enjoyed each day with him. That couldn't possibly have happened during my heavy drinking years.

Second, the above attitude notwithstanding, I am much in favor of genuinely experiencing my emotions. That includes the difficult ones. Alcohol functioned as such an effective (though intermittent) buffer for so long that I lost all sense of how it feels to live with awareness. The past months have helped me start to relearn how to be fully human again. Grief is part of that, and I'm grateful to be able to feel it.

As is pretty much always the case, writing about wanting to drink has made the wanting dissipate. Another thing to be grateful for. As is the way the dog just now refused to give up licking my toes until I stopped crying. Tricky little mongrel, he is.

Phew.