Journal Entry- 19APR2014

It’s been 4 weeks since the ceremony described in Here Be Dragons. My shame and fear remain turned well down into the single digits after having been dialed to 11 for so long.

Looking back I have realised many things about my behaviours during this time, one of which is the extent to which I was self-medicating with alcohol. It had been a very long time since I’d gone a day without drinking. My daily intake had risen in the first couple months of 2018 to there I was drinking more than a 6-pack, or half a bottle of whisky depending on my mood, an evening.

I had noticed I was drinking more, of course. When I questioned myself about it I justified and explained with sufficient alacrity that there was no hesitation in picking up the next drink. It became part of my daily routine…somewhere around 1800hrs/6PM I’d open some sort of bottle and would drink until I went to bed. The time I would go to sleep was no longer dictated by how tired my body was but rather from how much the alcohol was affecting me.

I was in a place where I felt I needed to drink to get by. I had tried to go to sleep early one night and my brain, without the throttle limiter of ethyl alcohol, threw stressful thoughts and worry at me so fast it felt like drinking from a fire hose. Some Netflix and Bulleit Rye fixed that quickly enough.

It had become a daily habit and an emotional crutch. So much so that I drank the evenings preceding the ceremony. The leaders ask that we abstain from all intoxicants for at least three days prior to our shared journey. I had intended to honour the request but each night that week I ended up making an impromptu trip to the corner store for a sixer of northwest pale ale.

Yet when I came home from the temple I had no urge at all to drink. I didn’t think about it for days after. At some point mid-week I noticed the odd lack of beer in my refrigerator and laughed when I realised that I had no interest in changing the situation.

I’ve not had a drink in the month that has followed the ceremony. There is even a mild sense of distaste when I consider drinking. I started a new job three weeks ago and on my second Friday afternoon the team adjourned to a bar up the street. I could have had a pint or three paid for by my manager but enjoyed a mint tea instead. I plan on staying away from alcohol for a while.

Am I an alcoholic? The harshest evaluations might say so. Obviously I had no physical addiction; I literally stopped drinking overnight with not the slightest difficulty. I did, however, feel that I needed to drink to get through my evenings and get to sleep. That is, at the very least, an early indication that a potentially addictive relationship with alcohol was beginning.

The obvious question is if the medicines we used in ceremony ‘cured’ me of my need to drink. I believe the answer to be a clear no. There is zero evidence that MDMA or mushrooms can impact a physical addiction. What they can do, however, is affect the underlying psycho-emotional reasons that make us want to drink in the first place.

Before ceremony I was struggling with being unemployed, having been sacked just before Christmas and two weeks after I had moved into a new house. My employer even reached out afterward and attempted, in vain, to use dishonestly and greed to further limit my income.

My stress level was through the roof; I had made plans as to the point at which I would abandon my house and car and everything I couldn’t carry with me and seek out a place of refuge with my family.

It was a dark time and the drinking had kept me from having to deal with it.

The ceremony gave me an outlet for that stress, among other things. As the energy expended itself so did the causes for my drinking.

Now that the crazyfranticworrystress thoughts no longer keep me awake and sap my energy, I no longer need to drink to get through an evening.

I’ve never been very in tune with my body but that’s something that has changed since this ceremony as well. When a thought of drinking passes through my head another quickly follows: you don’t need that shit. It’s not so much a thought as it is a feeling. It rises from the bottom my anterior vagal process and settles in my midsection; a subtle rejection at the physical level.

It’s a simple request by my body to not drink. I think, maybe for the first time ever, I’ll listen to my natural health sense and stick to less toxic beverages for now.