Emerging from Chrysalides: Clearing the Wreckage (Offering 8.2)
Letting go of what no longer serves.
The messiness of early recovery—facing what I’d broken and beginning to rebuild.
(If you’re new to Eclosion: An Artist’s Path to Power and Peace, start at the beginning. Or visit my Memoir Hub for a full table of contents with links.)
Clearing the Wreckage
In my first year of sobriety, I was remade in ways I never could have understood before going through them. Some days, as I came undone inside of my chrysalis, were unbearable. Slowly, day by day, I learned to sit with my own emotions, enabling me to bear more. Sometimes, just making it through the day had to be enough.
Recovery required so many things I didn’t want to do. It required that I take a serious look at my past actions and find where I was wrong. To look at the harms I’d done to others and do what I could to make amends for my actions. This was brutal, soul wrenching work. I approached this process as I so often did with seemingly impossible tasks—just trying to get to the other side of it.
When I was about nine months sober, I parked by the Black River on my way home from work. I was struggling, and nothing I did seemed to lessen the anxiety that clawed at me from behind my heart. I hoped watching the water float by would bring a bit of relief.
Walking under the bridge—a bridge I had jumped off with joy and laughter in another time—I stopped with my toes next to the dark water, feet sinking into the mud, the black water smooth and seemingly bottomless. I noticed an empty vodka bottle, half exposed in the mud. I never really drank vodka; I was more of a whiskey girl, myself. But that bottle drew me in, seeming to grow larger and larger, filling my world. Its open mouth staring at me like an accusation. An invitation.
Mired in self-pity and doubt as I was, I still didn’t want to drink. What I wanted desperately was the sweet relief a drink would bring. I sank to my knees, staring at that bottle. Rigid, unmoving, it stared back. Tempting.
I reached for a smoke, forgetting that I’d quit smoking the month prior. What was I thinking giving up tobacco? I needed something to ease this turmoil.
I had done so much. I had laid out all my fears, all the harms I’d done others. Ripping the words from my throat, I shared the deepest, darkest parts of myself with another human being. And was met with kindness. Understanding. Love. I felt myself opening to the possibility of this new sober life.
Now I was on my knees at the edge of a river, sinking into a bottom deeper than any I’d dug while drinking. I tore my eyes from the bottle and ran for my car, praying I wouldn’t make a detour for the liquor store.
At home, Shon held me, helpless as I battled my demons. I didn’t want to kill myself, but I didn’t want to live either. Not like this. The agony was too much: a thousand fire ants inside, roiling under my skin.
That weekend, trying to escape myself, Shon and I went camping with some sober friends on the shores of Lake Cushman. I talked with a few women about my inner turmoil, hoping for an easy solution. They gave me empathy, compassion, but couldn’t take away my pain.
There was no relief.
No relief until I finally became so desperate that I was willing to do anything. It was only in my desperation that I found the courage to do the impossible—to make amends to those I had harmed.
Shon and I walked along the lake’s edge until we found a comfortable place to sit. I was anything but comfortable as I read him the letter I’d written. Owning the many ways I’d harmed him with my drinking, my lies, my actions. Sharing how much I valued him and how I intended to treat him moving forward—with honesty, love, and patience. With sobriety and communication. As I read, the tears flowed, but in a new way. I began to feel some of the weight I’d been carrying lift. Again he held me, accepting me as he always did.
My amends to Shon was the first of many such conversations where I tried to clean up the messes that I’d made in other people’s lives. Calling someone to ask if we could meet, if they were willing to let me make amends, never got easier. I’d sit with the phone in my lap, my entire body churning with anxiety. Somehow, if only to make the discomfort stop, I found the strength to pick up the phone. My voice shook and wobbled as I shared with old lovers, colleagues, and friends that I was an alcoholic, that I knew I’d done them wrong and wanted to set things right. I was often met with grace and tenderness, but not always. Nonetheless, I kept up this practice, even when I stumbled over my words. And each time I came away a little lighter.
Truly making amends is much more than words—it’s about actions. And so, I began to make different choices—to consciously live differently. If I didn’t, I’d end up having to make amends again, and that was not a process I wanted to repeat.
The day I made amends with Shon I began a daily meditation practice that lasted for years. At first, sitting still for just a few minutes seemed impossible. My mind replayed movies on a loop—fictional arguments and imagined confrontations were a constant source of agitation. In meditation, I practiced again and again letting go of these thoughts; bringing my attention back to my breath. For the first time, I learned to let go of these false narratives. In this stillness, I found a respite.
Little by little I came back to life.
The relief I found from making amends and meditation was immense. Mostly, though, my recovery from alcoholism was in the small wins. Going a full day without craving alcohol or trying to change how I was feeling. Taking a bath and experiencing three different emotions at the same time. Three! Can you imagine?! Realizing my emotions couldn’t kill me; that they would change in their own time, if only I let them. Finding myself dancing around the kitchen in the middle of the day, joyful and happy. Every new sober experience created a psychic change within me. It was like my entire self was being rewired and reworked with what was possible.
Little by little I wove the first threads of trust and experienced moments of peace. My wings, still far too wet to fly, were nonetheless showing their colors.
What needs clearing or repair in your own life? Instead of dropping it in the comments, write it out just for yourself.