Alcohol was a magical elixir.  For years only a small amount would cure everything I felt was a problem in my life.  It would instantly alleviate social anxiety.  It would ease both emotional and physical pain in a heart beat.  Loneliness would evaporate before my eyes.  The day in high school when I discovered what a few beers could provide me was a very good day.  I knew I had discovered a panacea that had been hidden from me my whole life.  But as with all things of this sort a little turned into a lot and a lot turned into not enough.  What was once a ray of hope all too soon became an albatross that I was powerless to discard.  Alcohol was the trigger that began my Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS) and it would have to be let go it I had any chance at real recovery.

 

One night, only five years after discovering my personal cure for everything, it turned on me (in fact it had be turning on me since the first day I had found alcohol, I was just completely unaware of it at the time).  After a particularly stressful and sober twelve hours I sat on the front porch of the house I was living in and started drinking.  I started drinking a lot.  In approximately one hour I had ingested the equivalent of an entire half gallon of eighty-proof liquor (See appendix #1).  In a vain attempt to again feel the sense of ease and comfort that drinking once provided I had franticly over shot the mark.  I had caused myself severe alcohol poisoning.  In one hour of desperate drinking I had set in motion a course for my health that would forever alter the way I lived.  For many of us MCS is started by an exposure to severe toxicity.  My exposure was found in the bottom of an empty plastic jug.

 

Any sane person would have quite drinking after that, or not done it in the first place.  Unfortunately I was not completely sane as far as alcohol was concerned.  Secretly, silently, I had years before crossed a line that would be described to me as the UF or ‘You Are F#@ked’ line.  The UF line is a threshold that those of us with the genetic predisposition for alcoholism almost always cross.  The UF line is a point where alcohol is no longer metabolized in a way that allows for safe disposal of all its by-products.  For those of us that have crossed the UF line our bodies begin to break down alcohol slightly differently.  In the body of an alcoholic one of the by-products of metabolizing alcohol is a chemical that feeds back into our system and creates a desire for more drink.  The more we imbibe the more we crave.  The real problem with crossing this line is there is no way to go back.  Once a cucumber has turned into a pickle it can not go back to being a cucumber. I had long before this night already been pickled.

 

Drink would be my companion for another two and a half years before I would have my moment of clarity.  Each person finds their own bottom as far as any addiction goes.  Unlike popular opinion states, each person’s bottom is not something we land on, rather it’s that point where each of us decides to stop digging our own hole.   

 

When I became tired of digging I was surprised to find that I could not stop running to my old friend.  Alcohol had long since stopped giving me what it once had, but I could not stop chasing the hope that it again would.  I had encountered sober people who seamed to live life in a happy manor and who said that they had once drank like I did.  I wanted what they had.  Could it be true that I could be both sober and happy? 

 

For a full week I sat in the same chair with a drink in my hand and thought about the possibility of getting sober.  I knew in my heart that if I kept on this path that I would not live long, but to not drink loomed as a fate worse then any other.  Each day I weighed the options of death or sobriety.  Each day I did not know.  At the end of the week the veil that was in front of my eyes slipped off just enough to give me a glimpse of clarity. I knew that the path I was on offered no hope for improvement.  To be free of alcohol at least offered the possibility of hope that things might get better.  The possibility of hope was enough.  The next day I took my last drink. 

 

My own best thinking had gotten me to the worst point I could have imagined.  I swallowed every last belief that I had any idea how to live my life.  My health was awful.  I did not know how to live with a drink in my hand and I now knew I had no idea how to live life without one.  Any resolve to do it on my own had vanished.  I knew what needed to be done.  I pried myself out of my chair and talked to the people who claimed to not drink.  They seemed to have a few things I did not, a smile on their face and no drink in their hand.   They said that all I had to do was follow the same instructions they had followed and be willing to trust in a higher power of my own choosing.  If I could do that I could learn to live my life both happy and sober.  These were two things I had not been in a long time.

 

The people I spent time with were very action oriented.  They gave me instructions to follow and I did what they said.  I attended book readings and discussions groups.  I cleaned up my past and developed a relationship with the spiritual.  That first year with out a drink was the worst year I have had on this planet.  After that a seaming miracle happened, I started to feel better.  It had been a very long time since things got better instead of worse.  The possibility of hope had been replaced with real hope.  If things could at least for now move in a positive direction then just maybe things could continue in that direction.  I began to dive into this path with gusto, and slowly things continued to improve. 

 

Developing a relationship with a spiritual center seemed to be an effective tool for change.  I could rely on something greater then myself.  My own best ideas did not seem to work; maybe inspiration from another source would.  Even after several years I still found myself skeptical about why it worked but I saw no reason to argue with success.  The more time I spent in this direction the more the world seamed to change around me. 

 

These sober people I had found asked me to not only rely on a higher power but also to take an inventory of my life.  Where had I wronged others, where was I unwilling to forgive, at whom did I hold resentments.  It was like cleaning out the storage room of my mind.  If I got rid of what was not working I could make room for things that would. 

 

Once I had a list of who I had harmed I was sent out to set right the wrongs I had created.  I had to make amends for what I had done.  Taking inventory is good; acting on that inventory is true willingness to do what it takes to recover.  The more I went through this process the better I felt.  I still felt terrible most of the time but slightly less awful is still progress.

 

Because of the constant need to rely on the strength and inspiration of a higher power during this process I was grateful for the insight talked about in the last post.  Only a year before this I would never have been willing to accept the idea of a spiritual center, now I was living this idea on a daily basis.  Baby steps were being made and often with my ego rallying against them but I was trudging forward none the less. 

 

Through the people I have met, the instructions I have followed and the relationship that I now have with my higher power; I have been blessed with the ability to remain sober for a good many years now.  Each day sober is a gift.  Each day sober is a day that I get to live with less toxicity.  Each day sober is a day I have a chance at recovering from MCS.

 

Not everyone with MCS suffers form what we normally think of as an addiction.  I doubt most of us got were we are by intentionally over ingesting a certain chemical.  Almost all of us do however find ourselves addicted to various ways of doing things, ways of viewing the world, or beliefs.  These ideas may have served us in the past, but after MCS our lives have changed.  I had to give up drinking to find a path to recovery from MCS.  Is there something you need to give up?  Is there something you need to discard to make room for what works?  What is that one thing you would be better with out but refuse to let go of?  This may be your ‘addiction’ your ‘point of practice’ on your personal road to recovery.  To get everything you ever wanted you must be at least willing to give up everything you’ve ever gotten. 

 

Just discarding things is not thriving.  Of course, remove from your environment anything that is an MCS trigger.  Disposing of things is a process by with we make room for more.  If I want to buy a new motorcycle the first thing I have to be willing to do is to get rid of the old one.  I had to let go of alcohol to make room for many other wonderful ways of living.  Is there something you need to give up to make room for what is really meant to be in your life?

 

 

Appendix #1 – During this night I never blacked out.   I was walking fine.  For years after I could remember each detail of those few hours between when I started drinking and when I walked upstairs and went to sleep.  I never even got a hangover.  As I would discover over the next several days things were far fromNormal.  The thing that surprised me the most about that night is years later I was reading an article and discovered I had drank approximately twice as much as is needed to kill a man my size.  This information hit deep.  I had survived something that  was medically very unlikely.  This was followed by a renewed resolve to recover from MCS.  If I could survive that level of alcohol poising then I knew I could recover to full health.