Would I ever think my life would be better with a drink? No. Do I feel better since I got sober? Yes. Do I feel even better since my blood sugar levels fell back below about six mmol / litre? Oh god yes. Do I feel randomly depressed, sad, unhappy, lonely and despairing like I used to? No. Do I feel happy, fulfilled, content, at peace, at one with the world around me and otherwise accepting of my fate and place in the world? Are you freaking kidding?
Actually, I don't actually feel anything, much. Aside from irritation at the incompetence, crassness and incivility of the world. This is partly because I have grey hair and less testosterone coursing through my system than I used to. It's also because I mind less about all the stuff I don't have, never did and won't be able to do. That isn't acceptance, it's just numbness.
Once upon a time I had a hole, a cavity, in my soul. Actually it felt like it was inside my torso. Some while ago, it stopped hurting and for a couple of years I thought it might have been filled, or at least that whatever it was that kept it empty had stopped. Then I began to suspect that what I feel can't be happiness, or contentment or anything else all the therapists say the normals feel, because if this is all there is, it's as real as white sliced bread.
That cavity in my soul is still there. It hasn't been filled up, though it isn't getting any larger. It's just been cauterised, so it doesn't bleed any more. It's covered in scar tissue and doesn't feel pain like it used to. It's still there. If it wasn't this song wouldn't make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and fill me with a kind of weird peace...
... and I would be able to sing the third verse "Sober now, I'm cold, alone / I'm just a person on my own / Nothing means a thing to me / No, nothing means at thing to me" with quite so much relaxed force. Those word express exactly how I really feel when I'm not faking it to make it.
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