On alcohol, loneliness, and acceptance

Several times recently I've found myself drunk. On one of those occasions, very drunk. Never, it should be noted, in the presence of my children. Before the end of my marriage, I drank rarely, always socially, and very, very rarely to excess. When considering my recent experiences, I've found that I set out to seek refuge from loneliness in the alcohol. I had never expected to find myself looking for answers in the bottom of a glass. While it surprises me that at some point I thought that this was an acceptable answer, I probably shouldn't be so surprised.

It's been 4 months now since I stepped away from my marriage, and for a large portion of that time period, I've been alone. These weeks have been the longest periods of solitude that I've experienced in the last 13 years. Granted, I have the love and companionship of my children, and that does go a long way toward making this transition period bearable, but they can only stand to be hugged for so long before they need to wriggle away and expend their youthful energy somewhere else. Funny, how something as simple as a hug from someone that isn't obligated by the bonds of family to give them can be so profoundly missed. I've always been one of those people who puts everything into a hug. My love, my care, my worry, my compassion, all of it flows through the hug, and I try to make them last. These kinds of hugs make some people uncomfortable, but for others the effect is mutually therapeutic. As a physically affectionate person, this has been a hard time for me. I've found that, while the alcohol led to some embarrassing FaceBook posts, and some emotionally charged behavior, it didn't provide the outlet that I had been looking for.

At this point, depending on who you are, and how you feel about the path that I've set myself on, you may be thinking that I have noone to blame for this situation but myself. This is true. I wouldn't dare try to pass the consequences of my decisions off on someone else. You may choose to believe that my suffering is a suitable punishment for what I've done to others. On this, we would agree to disagree. According to the wisdom of the Dalai Lama, pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. In examining my loneliness, and in trying to obtain right understanding, I've found that while acknowledging my pain is healthy, trying to avoid dealing with it through the alcohol only caused suffering. Rather than choose to try to hide from the pain, I've decided to choose to address the source.

While I attribute my pain to loneliness, if I'm being honest with myself, it's really about fear. In stepping away from my marriage, I've stepped away from companionship, intimacy, and affection that I don't know when I'll experience again. When I consider how important these things are to me, I find that they represent validation of my self worth. My fear of being alone is really a fear of being unloved, unlovable. I estimate my value in how much someone else values me. Here, in the heart of this, is a crucial choice to be made. Do I move aimlessly through the rest of my life hoping to find validation in the love of someone else? Or do I choose to find value from within, learning to love the person that I am without requiring the validation of someone else?

I've received praise and kind words of encouragement from friends and loved ones over the past few weeks. One person in particular has gone to great lengths to extend her love and acceptance to me. In the state that I'm still in, I haven't been able to accept that love and devote the attention that I should to returning it to her, or to anyone else in my life. I've always scoffed at the notion that before you can truly love someone else, you have to be able to love yourself. I understand it now, at least a bit better than I did. If I can't recognize and accept my flaws, or the goodness of who I am as a human being, how can I fully understand and accept someone else? If I dwell on what I don't like about who I am, aren't I just training myself to focus on what I don't like about others? Likewise, if I learn to accept and love myself unconditionally, cultivating the joy that comes from that acceptance and love, then I prepare myself to be a vessel for that love, ready to pass it along to others.

There's a great story about a cracked water pot used by Buddhists to emphasize accepting our imperfections. You can google the story to find it in its original form, but the lesson of the story is that while a cracked water pot may not carry as much water to its destination, the water it spills along its journey nourishes flowers on the path. Rather than focus on where I fail, I choose instead to focus on the beauty that the journey of my life sows. In so doing, I hope that I can help others see the beauty that their own journey gives to others.