About Me
the bottom's up...
From a young age, escape has been a coping mechanism.
Sometimes the escape was not blatantly negative. Reading and writing—my two favorite pastimes for as long as I can remember—are themselves forms of escape, ways to lose yourself in other worlds. Through healthy, though still potentially deadly, means, I've gotten high (parasailing) and low (scuba diving). Sometimes escape was geographical: moving across the States to a city I've never visited, fleeing the country for a year, hopping on a series of three flights to unknown lands on days' notice. Sometimes it was childish denial personified, pulling the covers over my head and going back to sleep. But, for many years, alcohol was a constant companion—no matter what I did or where I went. Until I realized it was not a companion or even a way to escape, but a soul-sucking substance that gave me so many more reasons to want to escape.
When people say words like "recovery," they often add how important "community" is in this process. Maybe this website will magically offer up a new community for me, or maybe no one except I will bother reading it. If the latter, that's okay. I am not trying to be a self-help guru to anyone but myself right now, and perhaps I am only marginally capable of even that as I start this project. I don't have social media accounts; don't seek book deals or "followers." I am only a writer. But writers are nosy about the lives of others, so I love to hear anyone's story, anytime.
If you are reading, thank you. If you are struggling, reach out. If you have it all figured out, I don't believe you, but share what you know anyway.
This still-mysterious "recovery" situation takes as many forms as there are people, and here I can speak for only myself. I hope through this process that I can learn who "myself" actually is.
P.S. Besides being a writer and drunko, I like to take pictures. Any photography on this site is my own.