Humility

Several months ago, someone gave me this sage advice: "You don't need to oversell yourself in life, you just need to practice a little humility".

Interesting advice for someone whose basic definition of humility had rarely expanded from the thought that humble meant weak.

This particular advice was referenced to my professional life, but I do believe it carries over into everything personal. As a child, I don't think I would have been able to be humble, as most children are not. I was the youngest of three with divorced parents and subsequently a deceased father. I held close a constant fear that if I did not put myself out there ALL the time (I believe that's the overselling part in the aforementioned advice), I would simply be put back on the shelf to collect large amounts of dust. I garnered attention for being quirky, wild-minded and seriously smart. I acted on impulse in order to capture the largest percentage of an audience. I could command attention, positive or not.

As an adult, this process simply evolved rather than abating completely. I drank to become more emboldened. I became the "best" at everything so I could simply say that was so. And in this process, the word "humility" never passed through my transom. One of the reasons I began a career in advertising was likely to learn the true art of selling everything, including myself.

The reality is, this bravado that I created actually allowed me to keep the packaging sealed well. And the package, in my own perception, was damaged goods trying to be passed off at full sale. I was trying to sell someone that I hadn't quite become comfortable with and thus the bravado could seem at times contrived. Instead of learning about my surroundings and the people in them, I quickly jumped to the benefit of knowing and loving me. I would assume that I could just use my inherent gift for leadership and intellect to skate through the motions and get to the immediate gratification. I simply listened less and talked more. After I stopped drinking, I think this defense mechanism that I had cultivated for years became much more prominent. Now, I had a soapbox of sorts to actually allow my bravado to scream. I took my sobriety and ran to the top of the hill. I blogged, I lectured, I have been writing a book. I infiltrated this into my everyday life with gusto and rarely stopped to think about the core reasons for my decisions.

When I received this advice, I sat for hours. I looked up the definition. I researched humility like crazy. What a concept, I thought. I truly had never thought of adding this definition to my list of characteristics. The more I thought about this, the more I realized how much humility was missing from my life. The soapboxes I had carefully crafted suddenly seemed too big and too high. In my quest to sell everything I believed and conjured, I lost something in translation. I had been talking way too much in my life and not listening. The bravado was no longer empowerment but a hindrance to my ability to really understand who I wanted to be and how I would project that in my life.

I sat longer. I again thought about this advice on many levels. I came up with theories. I stopped writing altogether again, because I couldn't project the honesty I needed. I reassessed where I was...again.

Fast forward to the last months. This advice comes into my head every single day of my life. Being a media director in advertising, I know that to gain the greatest share of voice, advertising needs to be direct and greatly targeted while paying attention to WHERE and HOW people want to consume this message. Meaning, instead of overselling, it should be done with finesse and grace. And you have to believe in WHAT you are selling.

I get it. I get humility. The bravado I walked out of my last job with never entered the new one. The boisterousness in which I have lived the majority of my life has significantly eased. I understand now that I am not damaged by any means, I am a remarkably strong woman as a result of all the events that have transpired. And humility simply embodies this as strength, not weakness.

It's finding the balance between the two that is now the objective. Listening, while understanding who I am and what I want in my life. In believing who I am is worth gold and after some digging, you'll find it. Difficult, yes, but absolutely attainable. Believe me, I'm still ready to turn cartwheels at any point in my life, but I now sit back and wait for someone to ask me to. It's such an immense and incredible concept. And probably one of the biggest life lessons that I am learning.

And for this gift, I am humbled.

The Seven Year Itch

I've hit a crossroad in the last year that likens itself to the seven year itch, as referred in marriage and a Monroe film. It is during this time in a marriage, after seven years, that being unfaithful may become into thought. I can assume (I say mostly assume because my own marriage didn't come close to seven years) that there just comes a time in any committed relationship that you question just about every aspect. And seven years seems like the perfect amount of time. You've gotten to know someone, you know habits and behaviors. Your goals may change and your lives may no longer run parallel. Life just becomes complacent.

My seven year itch, in sobriety, has come in full force over the last year. To be unfaithful to my sobriety is tantalizing...sexy and romantic. I picture myself in Bordeaux having a nice glass with a piece of bread and cheese. I feel cold alcohol on a hot summer day. I've become bored with my every day routine of being sober. I fantasize about my torrid affair while sitting there ignoring my sober self. I've started looking for reasons to stray and dip my toes in the other side. Ignore the blog, the work I do, the book...stop thinking...start living in la la land with my aspirations to be inebriated at any given point. The itch has gotten deep.

Truth is, that itch is a remarkably dangerous place to scratch. The love affair with alcohol would soon turn bitter. The romance? Gone in hours. Bordeaux? Not happening that way. I would leave my sober self, never able to return again. That moment that I took one drink would erase the last seven and a half years of painstaking work. And I would never be there again.

My solution...because I've decided to focus this blog more on the solutions than the problems. Decided to write more about life as it has become instead of what it was. I am present, focused and allowing life to come in.

And I've slapped on some anti-itch stuff...my blog, my work, my passion for this life...iI should be good for another seven years.

The Sober Door © Book Excerpt

I've been writing a book for the last few months, it's a fictional labor of love about a woman who comes to terms with her sobriety. Since I have been getting a lot of e-mails regarding the book and am appreciative of all the support, I've decided to post the unedited first draft version of the preface to "The Sober Door".....stay tuned in the next year, it will be out there.....
Thanks,
Kim

The Sober Door ©

Preface

Locked in. Barricaded from the outside. He spared me. Saved me. Threw me with resounding force. Conflicted. I am being spared. I am being enveloped in blackness. I can hear him. Screaming outside. Ranting, ranting, ranting.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME? ALL OF YOU?”

I know that I am safe for the moment. I know he is hurting everyone outside the door. I am shut in, shut out from him. They are outside. I am safe. I am spared. The noise of the punches. Each slap stings. Screams. Cries. It rings in my ears. I hear my brother screaming. My mother screaming. I am eneveloped in blackness. The vibration of each hit comes through the floor. I cannot see beyond the door in front of me.

“I NOT THE MAN YOU WANT IN YOUR LIFE.”

I know I want him. I want him to open the door. I want him to bring me out, beat me and take me out of this dark place he has sequestered me to. I want to feel the pain. EACH and EVERY lash that is being inflicted.I have been in here for hours, this I know. Cramped and cowering, only wishing that he would love me enough to hit me too. I can smell his breathe, even from inside the tomb I am in. Acid. Fire. Sweetness. His nose, white like Christmas. His eyes wild as he had pushed my thrashing limbs. I was left out of the carnage. .I hear everything but cannot see. I am so desperate not to be forgotten in the massacre.

“YOU ARE ALL F**** NUTS”

For a moment, I hear his hand on the door knob. I think, “he’s going to bring me out.” I am not scared. I am ready to handle his wrath as it is inherently mine. I tremble. For once, I am not forgotten. I will be his daughter. I will wipe his tears away with my hand. He will know that I want him.

And quickly, his hand is gone.

All goes silent. I hear whimpering. It is my own. I know he is gone. Left me here in the closet. Darkness. I am alone. I don’t know where he is going or how long but he won’t be back. He went too far. He left me.

He forgot to leave my present. He forgot to sing, to blow out the candles. He forgot to tell Mom that I only eat chocolate frosting. Today is my sixth birthday. I am locked in the closet.

Playing Cards.

I was thinking the other day about what it is in life that I can and cannot control and I found great similitudes between this notion and playing a game of cards.

In life, we will rarely ever be able to control certain elements that make up our daily existence; where we came from, our overall genetic make-up, etc. These elements are similar, when looking at life through a proverbial card game, to being dealt the hand at the beginning of the game. We don't know what the cards are, but we know that there is an overall algorithm and count to the hand being dealt. Great, little control over this.

We do, however, how extraordinary control over how we play the hand. Sometimes, in sobriety and in life, the cards are inevitably stacked against us. The dealer has the advantage (I can liken this to some larger, non-seen entity) and we are forced to look at the very hand in front of us. The winning and losing is less important as the fact that we have say in the way our lives are led. We choose to take risks or not. We choose to fold the hand or persevere until all options are exhausted.

I've never been a gambler (I still don't know how I missed that addiction), but I do know that we can't blame the dealer, the deal or the cards in front of us. We need to recognize that it's our game to play. Our life to live. And our choice to make the decisions that will lead us to most optimal playing experience.

State of Sobriety

Over the last few weeks, with all the turmoil happening in almost every aspect of daily life, I have begun to ask myself a lot of the questions. What will my retirement look like? Will I continue to have a job next year? Will this end? How much will oil cost to heat the house this winter? It's been daunting to everyone in the global community.

It seems like we are constantly faced with adversity inside and outside the home. And it's been monumentally stressful to think about all of these questions over and over, every minute of the day, while still maintaining some kind of quality of life.

There was a time I would have added sobriety and all its question to the same list. I would have looked at it as a hindrance, another stressful event to ponder over while reading the tumultuous news reports each day. I may have even considered taking all the stress I feel about life in general and justified drinking at this point. And, for some reason, I have found that in all of this inconsistency going on, sobriety is an enormous source of stability in my life.

Think about sobriety as a financial investment. The return on investments, both short term and long term, are extremely high. I invest in my own sanity, solace and well being and I am able to amply produce more. My overhead is extremely low because I no longer require an extra hundred or so dollars a week to sustain my business of getting really inebriated. The insurance may be high, but I can almost guarantee that I will not default so long as I maintain minimum payments. I am continually reassessing my equities within sobriety and there is always positive movement. I don't think there are many other avenues today that guarantee all of these things.

And, in life, if I lost my job, money, house, heat, etc. I would still have the ability to say I am sober. To me, particularly in this state of being, sobriety ranks high on my list of assets that I am proud to continually invest in.

The gift of letting go.

I went out on my porch this evening, it's been a long few weeks and I decided to sit out in the dark air. I've felt a great deal of ambivalence lately. Almost as if I have been waiting for something to happen, movement of sorts. I feel like life has been in a holding pattern, that some things needed to be sorted out.

I turned on the light, and sitting on the stone was a package. It was my birthday a few weeks ago, a time of end of summer celebration, and life has been quiet since then. But, now, in my solitude, was a gift within the brown box, bringing a sense of my own private celebration.

I recognized the envelope. My father's love before he passed away. A woman I admired deeply and have reconnected with after twenty two years. I knew the handwriting, I stared at it over and over. The same handwriting I had seen so many years ago. Notes I had seen her write, loving my father, me so intensely. Handwriting that was slightly flawed, like us. I ran my fingers, tracing the past. And, at that point I knew this gift was much much larger than a 6 x9 container.

My father believed, in some culmination of religious and/or philosophical beliefs, that he was going to be a hawk when he died. I have heard more versions of why, how and when he wanted to be a hawk post-life than I am able to count, including my own biased version. More important was this belief when he was alive. He was adamant about his passage. He wore a gold hawk around his neck. It symbolized his very passion for life and where his place was after. I have pictures. I have vivid memories of this very embodiment of him.

And when I opened the envelope, I knew what was in there. My hand instinctively reached in and fumbled for it. A card came, but I didn't need to open it at all. I knew that wrapped neatly inside white tissue was the sign I've been waiting for. The gift I had been hoping for the better portion of my life.

So, there I sat. Totally unprepared for what came next. I cried. Sitting on my farm with my unwrapped past in my hand. I bawled. Tears pouring down, as they do right now. Total and utter watershed. I missed my life as a child, my father, his loved one, my family. The time before I lost him. The time before we all lost him.

That's just it. We had all lost him. And here, I had suddenly found a piece of him in my hand. And that piece was given to me. She was letting go. And in that, she has given back a piece of me. A piece of my father. The very piece I had been waiting for. Her relationship with her past moves on. My life moves on. I have been giving the most amazing gift. She let go and knew that I needed this piece, this remembrance of passion and love and time where life was strong and good. And I knew it would come. I've waited. And around my neck was the missing piece to my past.

I cannot tell you the love that I feel in my heart right now. Overwhelming and beautiful. Sad and truly awe-inspiring at the same time. I swear, the wind kicked up as I sat there. I cried, but I smiled at the same time. I knew that this day would come. And I thank you so much for giving me the gift of letting go.

Lost My Way

The other day I was writing an e-mail to a friend of mine that has been long removed from my life, a friend that I went to high school with. In the e-mail I wrote, I said: "You know, somewhere between then and now, I lost my way". And that phrase has been stuck in my head ever since.

And it's true. Somewhere between the time I was young and a few years ago, I really did lose my way. I liken it to walking down this long long road that we call life. Throughout my journey, I've had this backpack attached to me with the weight of myself, my emotions, my grief. There have been times when I have stopped along the way and joined others, I married young and tried my hardest to live the picket fence dream with my backpack filling with my junk each step. I walked down big roads; divorce, sobriety, death. I walked along empty barren streets, peering into windows of others lives I wanted so desperately to live in, my backpack aching from the weight. It was like window shopping, seeing all the different lives I could be living. I just kept walking until I really just got lost.

Many times, I asked directions from those who didn't know the way either or others who tried to point me in the right direction but I just didn't know HOW to ask. I faltered from the weight of my own demons. A lot of stumbling, I was desperately looking for a way home or a diversion to just let the backpack fall for awhile. There were some lonely travels along dark paths. I was unclear. Heavy, unfocused.

And while I lost my way, I didn't stop. Every time I fell, I got up. I learned about the journey. I started looking to lighten my load of baggage to help move my life along. I paused briefly and began to examine those things. Trial and error, seeing what matter and what didn't. I dug deep until I finally pulled out the one thing I needed, a shiny compass buried at the bottom of my bulging sack of useless crap.

Today, I'm navigating. Perhaps I will always be a bit of a wanderer. A bit confused, but on my own road, with direction and purpose. I got lost, changed the way I traveled and now I am finding my way back. Walking through life with the shiny compass that I found in my soul. Stopping along the way to remember why I am walking along, the adventure, the love of traveling through. I am not lost, I'm on my way.

So, my next ponderance, my next life question will be, "Where the hell am I going?"

Let go.

Today I am just letting go for the next few hours. That's it. I'm not going to write about it, I'm just going to do it.

A gift for today.

Glamour Magazine article, 2004

Many requests to post the article that ran in Glamour. Please e-mail me if you would like to view a copy.

On my 1,825th Daily Reminder (5 years sober)

For the last few days, I have been thinking about this day. Tomorrow is the fifth year that I have traveled down the sober road. Five years. The words keep playing over and over in my head. "Five years ago, I......." Part of me wants to shout it out and the other part wants to run far away.

But, as I do every year, I resolve to sit down and reflect on where I am in my sobriety. This year, I find that I have become a tad more vocal about my place in sober world and the sober world in general.

One aspect in sober world I have noticed this year is the amount of press and publicity sobriety has gotten. On one hand, any kind of recognition for de-stigmatizing being sober is fabulous. We deserve to be here too.

On the other, I have noticed quite a few nuances in "recovery", thanks to the ever increasing role the media plays:

Spouses cheat, blame addiction.
Inappropriate remarks made, blame addiction.
Intolerable actions, blame addiction.
Accidents, blame addiction.
The world falling apart, blame addiction.

And, it's true that when we are bombed, wasted, drunk, addicted, etc. there is a tendency to engage in questionable behavior, we cannot look to quitting said addiction to automatically solve the problem.

From a personal standpoint, I remember when I first became sober, I had a tendency to blame all of my shortcomings on drinking. My behavior was because I drank too much. My irresponsibility was because I was an addict of alcohol. My bad moods were directly related to my drinking past. I blamed and blamed for much of my early sobriety.

I was so busy blaming all of my bad behaviors on my being drunk for those years, I was denying the underlying problems that were there all along, drinking or not drinking. My attitude became, "now that I'm not drinking, I will....." or "since I stopped drinking, I can...." Even worse, "you should have seen my when I was drinking" has been a common mantra. I spoke of resolution and intent, but found myself stuck once I needed to really act upon my words.

Simply put, there comes a time when being truly in recovery needs to spill over into other aspects of life. There is this point where you simply cannot pin everything on your drunk days of yore. It becomes another method of escaping our own personal truth and responsibility to ourselves. Thinking about this stage, I've named my 5th as the OWN IT year.

The OWN IT stage is not the pink cloud of early sobriety. When we first stop drinking, this becomes a monumental feat in and of itself. As it should. I still wake up at times in my life and cannot believe that I ever made the decision to actually stop.

The OWN IT stage is not glamorous. It's likely one the most difficult in our recovery because the crutch is gone. We now stand on our own two sober legs...no excuses.

The OWN IT stage is so important because, I believe, it paves the way to our future emotional happiness.

The OWN IT stage is where we begin to act on all the promises we have made to ourselves when we decided to become sober. We've accepted the fact that our life was not going the way we wanted, and now we must own all the good and the bad.


This OWN IT stage has really been a doozie in terms of realizing how necessary it is to be emotionally responsible. I feel at times, particularly in the last few months, that being sober is no longer good enough. That really owning my actions and emotions is the key to growth. That accepting myself and who I am will only enhance the choice I made five years ago.

For example:

Now that I am sober, I still struggle to get myself to the point of total financial responsibility. Before, I blamed my inability to balance my checkbook on being a barfly. Today, I have to force myself to really look at my spending habits and the reasons behind them. It's not pretty, but I've denied it for so long that getting to the root of the problem is less stressful than continuing my struggle.

Now that I am sober, I can no longer deny those elements in my life that are harmful to myself and my well being. Before, I accepted blame and believed that I was the cause of many things beyond my control. Now, I find that I have to accept other people for who they are and what they can or cannot provide. This has caused me great sadness to realize and then some kind of emotional release when I realize that I cannot control everyone around me.

Now that I am sober, I understand that not everyone will believe me until my actions defer the belief. Before, I thought I was smarter than everyone. I truly believed that my intentions would suffice over actions. Now, I know that only actions can prove what I've long intended. This was a big one for me this year as I had people still believe I was the same person from years ago. Instead of vying for their approval, I've moved on and refocused on my own approval.

Now that I am sober, I have to take one step further. Before, I was sober and that was a great feat. Now, I realize that if I intend to graduate from the emotional responsibility academy, I have to take all the courses.

Today, as sobriety becomes more and more mainstreamed, I worry that it will become a quick fix. I worry that people will use it as an excuse for inexcusable behavior. I did for a long time in my sobriety. In reality, one can only focus on that euphoric feeling of doing good for ourselves for so long before reality sets back in. A reality that causes many people to go back to their old habits and life.

Becoming sober is the first step. Recovery is the process in which we heal. In which we learn to love ourselves again. Where we own up to our demons and resolve to be the person we've intended to be all along.

And in the last five years, I face this challenge every second of my life. I still battle between the person I was and the person I intend to be. I reach so high and sometimes I falter. I question my decision. I get angry at my past. It has become considerably more difficult this year...because I am suddenly faced with the reality that if I don't act on what I truly believe, my decision is for naught.

Yet, if I had to do it all again, I wouldn't change one aspect of my life. I am blown away that I have followed this path over the last five years. I am humbled by the people I meet and the inspiration I have seen. I am grateful for my life in every form, the good and the bad.

And I realize that denying myself the ability to really live life would be detrimental. I deserve all the wonderful and amazing things that have happened, because I am making them happen. I look at this stage of my recovery as a milestone in my emotional schooling. I am so eager to move on to the next grade level, but have to constantly remind myself to listen and pay attention to those elements that will allow me to fully appreciate the life that I am building.

So, another year, another stage. I have a strange sense of happiness underneath my cloak of questionability. I really am proud of where I am, but I am really excited to keep moving forward.

It's all a path.....and the flowers are just starting to bloom along the way.

The Last Glass.

I started with twenty-four. Twenty-four Waterford wine glasses. It was weeks before my wedding to the man I so arduously loved. Some were gifts from my family. Many were gifts from our friends. The blue boxes with white ribbon poured in like the wine collection I so astutely built. I took each one out of the box, unwrapping their delicate tissue. The chardonnay glasses with their spindled stems- as if ready to be caressed by the sophisticated hand. Waiting for the candlelight to pour through, reflecting romantic evenings. The cabernet glasses with their wide mouths waiting for a supple reward. I could tilt the glass back to meet the succulence in my lips. Finally, my most cherished eight..the Bordeaux glasses. They were the generals in my army. The glasses were heavier in weight yet far more elegant than the rest. I sat waiting for the right vintage to begin my revolution.

I whimpered when I broke the first six. Three months after my nuptials to the man I thought I loved. The expensive vintage collection began to dwindle. In its place came the bottles that I found at a local winery. Not a bottle from Georges Duboeuf, but some fine wine. A large soiree, friends mingling around the fire. Forbidden fruit poured endlessly by the gracious host, who was subsequently in the Garden of Eden herself. Words began to unfold and emotions began to erupt. First went the chardonnays. Thrown with such vigilance. Aimed right at my beloveds head. There went two hundred dollars towards the refrigerator door. Tearfully, I swept up the shards of glass. But, alas there were eighteen more. I still had the reds. In my battle, I had lost a troupe but still had soldiers.

I cried when I broke the next four. In the early light of spring, I reached for a glass. My coordination stifled by my constant imbibing. I poured a bottle of inexpensive cabernet into my tall glass. I no longer took trips to the winery anymore. I had been there far too often; my face was beginning to be recognized by the patrons. I searched for replacements and conjured up my imaginary wineries in Southern France. I could pretend. I could pretend that my wine rack was not empty. I could pretend that I was not alone. I was drinking away the grief that his silence caused. The grace of the Waterford could not still my shaking hands. I dropped them. Four of my best friends dropped in one evening. With such ferocity, I tried to save them. I had my own personal drunken funeral for my glasses. Tossed into the trash compactor.

I sobbed when he took the next eight. Fall had come. He left with the decanter. The wonderful Waterford decanter. With it etchings so meticulously set in the glass. He lovingly wrapped up the reds and left me with six. He continued the romance, the love affair with elegance and sonnets. Only, my glasses were now empty on the shelf. No life seeped into them. No reflection from candles would burn again. Dust began to choke my thirst. And the flames had been extinguished. Candlelight would no longer pour through the same glass. The wine bottles taken to a new place. To begin a new life. Without me.

I panicked when I broke the next five. One more left. I no longer looked at the glasses with a fervent eye. I used them for anything that could numb the pain. Vineyards had stopped producing the fruit of my garden. In its place found the weeds of alcohols existence. I could only bring myself to lift the glass if it contained venom. I had begun to despise the glasses for the life that used to be contained in them. Glamour had ceased to exist. The clanging of glasses was not in toast but in concerted effort to forget celebration. If the glass was not full, I panicked. Pouring into the loneliest, endless black hole. But not even the last of the glasses could sustain the ache. I threw them in angst. Threw them into the floor as if I could demolish my past. As if I could break this state of destruction. Angry rants begot sophisticated conversation. The stems became daggers into my own heart. One final glass remained.

I rejoiced when the last one broke. It stood on the shelf. An icon to my former life. I worshipped the last glass as if it was on a pedestal. Like a far removed screen star. I looked lovingly at the shining reflection every evening. Yet, I hadnt touched it in months. Hadnt caressed its sleek, smooth body. A friend from my old life came. She let it go. It slipped out of her hand. I watched it. I saw its demise. Falling, falling, it shattered into tiny pieces. The stem no longer recognizable. The body marred. Suddenly in one moment, the pieces were gone in the trash. I had scraped them up and thrown them into the past. I looked up. My heart lifted. The war was over. The Waterford was gone. The whites, the reds gone from my life. The wine defeated. Swept up into a pile and discarded into the past. I smiled.

My glass was empty. My life was full.