Nature Made Those Days Brilliant.
Recovering addicts sometimes say, “My worst day clean is still better than my best day high.”
I have been testing that theory for more than 30 years. Every time it gets so bad that I think I can’t take it anymore, I pull out the file in my brain of my very best day high.
That night at the lake was my very best high day.
The summer air felt incredible; the sky was amazing. The guys played music and laughed amongst themselves; I had the whole evening to myself, out in summer’s overwhelming natural beauty.
I watched a spider spin its web – a magical experience that would never be replicated. I wandered through the little neighborhood of tiny houses, all identical yet completely unique. I imagined the families inside, considering the breadth of it all, realizing for maybe the first time that I was one with the world, that humans are just animals, living our lives in unison.
It was like watching a National Geographic special about spiders and people. The way I have always seen the world is from a distance – and this was the ultimate distant exploration.
I don’t remember having any meaningful human interaction. Maybe that’s why I had such a glorious time.
And if I’d quit drinking when I saw the shooting star, I never would have had that day.
It’s no coincidence that all of my “good” non-sober days happened when I was outside appreciating nature. If I walked in the woods, climbed a tree, played on a playground, or went four-wheeling in the snow … that was always a good day.
I was sober for many years before I realized that drugs weren’t the key to making those days wonderful.
Nature made those days brilliant.
Not surprisingly, I turn to nature now when I’m having a really bad day sober. I go for a walk in the woods. I go kayaking or build a snowman or look for rainbows. I watch the birds at the feeders, the deer munching leaves in the yard. Nature is still glorious.
But that beautiful day at the lake – the one with the spider? It could never rival even my worst day sober.
I was so high that night – the way I was every night – that I couldn’t do anything but stare at the spider. I couldn’t learn anything from it, or commit it to memory, or even discover what kind of spider I watched. Like most days, I was a walking zombie.
I couldn’t connect.
Now though, even on my worst days, I am able to feel. I am able to be here, to be present and fully engaged.
Sometimes feeling hurts – it can be agonizingly painful, like being unable to breathe. Still, I know now that feeling pain is better than being dead inside. Drinking and drugs kill all feelings – joy included. I can only feel real happiness when I am completely drug-free.
Drugs didn’t give me the miracle of nature, the spider, the lake, the stars, the summer air. I just happened to be there that day. Drugs only guarantee that I have no control over where I go, what I do, or what comes next.
I can’t choose anything if I’m high. I can only go wherever the drugs take me.
One day – one day, in 15 years of intoxication – I watched a spider spin a web. That was cool. But it’s nowhere near as cool as waking up in the morning and going wherever I want to go.
Now, today – every day – I can choose anything … and today I choose to be present.