We Are the Luckiest

you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

the Gospel of Thomas caught my eye: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you; if you do not bring forth what is within

But I come back. Each new day that I am here without dimming myself by drinking, I have a chance to come back and try again. And I do.

felt such tidal relief. It was as if I’d unlocked some magical hidden secret of the universe. My body practically wept.

I wondered how many things I did every day that I didn’t really, actually want to do. I wondered how long I had been hurtling forward unconsciously, propelled by the fear of what might happen if I stopped.

This was what she meant. The addiction compulsion was otherworldly. And there’s a reason it felt unnatural to deny it. It’s because my brain was functioning as it should

I wonder if this is what so many of us need when we think we need to get our shit together — to let it fall apart instead.

For a few hours every night, I didn’t have to see or feel so sharply the mess.

have one foot in the new, strange land of sobriety and the other firmly, desperately, in my old life. This is what it feels like for all of us, I think, when we have only half-decided to own our thing.

I was still hoping for a third door: another option besides door number one (drinking) and door number two (sobriety). I simply could not fathom that there wasn’t a fucking third door.

them, when the truth is, they’re burying us. They will always bury us, eventually.