Whispering Wyrd

I’ll be sixty years old in a few short months, and I can say without hesitation that I’ve learned more about myself in the past year and a half than at any other point in my life.

I’ve learned how to face fear.
How to endure intense physical pain.
How to survive withdrawal, not just medically, but emotionally and spiritually.

I was taking high doses of benzodiazepines daily for over twenty years, and before that, I relied on alcohol. In truth, I spent most of my life in active addiction, beginning as far back as seventh grade. Now, for the first time since childhood, I am free.

But this freedom came at a heavy cost.

Next month will mark one full year free of all substances. This last year has been a strange mixture of pure hell and moments of profound beauty and peace. Getting off alcohol was brutally hard. Getting off benzodiazepines was something else entirely. Worse.

Benzo withdrawal hurt me in ways I never could have imagined. I’m grateful I didn’t know how bad it would be when I started tapering, because if I had, I might never have begun. I didn’t know it would trigger a heart arrhythmia, multifocal PVCs, sometimes in frightening clusters. I didn’t know it would throw my nervous system so far into overdrive that my body became rigid, making it painful and difficult just to walk. I didn’t know it would worsen my type 2 diabetes and make it far harder to control.

There’s a lot I didn’t know.

But there is also a lot I learned.

I learned patience, something I previously had almost none of. I learned how to cherish moments of beauty when they appear, and how to hold them close during the darkest stretches. I learned how to ask for help, something my pride once refused to allow.

I learned that while I was numbed by benzos, I wasn’t truly seeing my own life. I wasn’t able to process my experiences, my beliefs, or even myself. I simply existed. And existing is not the same as living.

Coming out of that chemically induced fog introduced me to myself.

I came to terms with the fact that I never truly believed many of the things I was taught to believe in my youth. I see the world now through an animist and Buddhist lens, and I learned that this is not something to be ashamed of. It’s honesty. I am no longer lying to myself in an effort to fit into a belief system or culture that never truly felt like home.

I learned to cherish my family in a way I always should have, but couldn’t, not fully, while numbed by drugs and alcohol. I learned that life is precious, fragile, and never to be taken for granted. I learned to care for my health with the seriousness it deserves, because it is far too easy to take your good health for granted until it’s gone.

Seven years ago, when I was diagnosed with diabetes, it got my attention, but not deeply enough. I was still buffered by drugs, still insulated from reality. Now, without any chemical “safety net,” I’ve learned how to confront painful memories and difficult truths without drowning them in alcohol or blasting them away with pills.

I’ve learned how to be present, really present, with the people I love.
 I’ve learned how to listen.

And in the simplest, most meaningful sense of the word, I’ve learned how to live.

May we learn, even late in life, that it is never too late to live honestly, to love deeply,
and to meet each day awake, present, and unafraid to feel.

~Buck