Gravity, Hope, and Preferred Effects
Some things exist whether we believe in them or not, some require fairy dust.
I believe in gravity. This is not because I have touched it or held it in my hand or been to its house for Thanksgiving dinner. I believe in gravity because I have witnessed its effects. In the third grade my teacher, Mrs. Blevins, held up a cup of water at the front of the class. She asked us all, “What happens if I just let go of this cup?” We all let out eight year old giggles and replied with certainty, “It will fall!” Without hesitation Mrs. Blevins let go of the cup of water and it hit the ground, its contents splashing up onto the front row of desks and delighting the room. “That is called gravity, kids.” So, it was.
Some things, like gravity, exist whether we believe in them or not. I could walk around denying it all day and still remain attached to the Earth and subject to the laws of physics. You can refuse to believe that Diet Coke is superior to Diet Pepsi until the end of time, yet it will remain true. Other theories require our belief before they CAN exist. Some ideas need a bit of metaphorical fairy dust to take flight, a tough pill to swallow for cynics and miserable drunk people. There are experiences that simply cannot become true for us until we lend the favor of possibility. Stay with me here. Before I started seriously considering sobriety, I did not believe in a life that was fun, happy, cool, exciting, sexy, or creative without alcohol and weed. I pitied anyone who announced that they were sober, “poor schmuck,” I’d think to myself. I would immediately paint a picture of their life in my head-bland, unassuming, lonely, and boring as hell. I imagined that these people spent their days looking out the window at all the normal people sipping pinot at happy hour while they were wasting away in isolation, jealous and bitter. Poor schmucks, that’s what they got for taking it too far.
Fast forward to the beginning of the end, or what I presume the rest of the world referred to as, “Fall 2019.’” I was losing control and perspective and although I knew somewhere deep down that sobriety was the best case scenario of an ending to the melodrama that had become my life, I resisted and resisted, convinced my long-held belief was true, “Sober people are miserable.” The irony, however, was obviously that I was miserable. Married to the idea that alcohol was the gatekeeper of life, I left no space in my mind for an alternative argument. I trudged on and on with my commitment to the bullshit lies that a few glasses of wine sparked my creative genius and smoking a certain kind of weed in the morning made me more productive. I would sort of dip my toe into sober waters, accumulate five days, a week maybe, and ultimately cave and have drinks because the truth was that I didn’t want to be sober. How could I possibly want something that I perceived as a downgrade? How could I willingly step into what I considered “less?”
It’s funny, life (and gravity) has a way of bringing us to exactly where we need to be when we need to be there-if we let go. For some reason I woke up one morning, late February, completely certain that I needed to quit drinking, and I felt peace in accepting that certainty. My next thought was this, “If I’m really doing this, I gotta be fucking jazzed about it. I gotta find the proof that this is the upgrade, not the consequence.” So off I went, searching for happy sober people, people who’s lives didn’t end in sobriety, but took flight. I needed to prove that sobriety could deliver my preferred effect. Of course I found them. There were happy sober people just out here living, unafraid of themselves, unchained, and glowing from head to toe. All this time, in my previous half-hearted attempts, I was missing the point. I kept waiting for something magical to click, like maybe I was doing it wrong and eventually I’d just hate being sober a little less, and then a little less, and then not much at all, and then maybe I’d eventually even like it…a little. Missing the point. The point is that I needed to decide that I would find more joy in a life without alcohol before I’d find the proof. I had to sprinkle some magic fairy dust on the situation, lean into hope, into faith, into the great “what if?” What if your life got exponentially better the less you drank? What if everything is bigger, better, and more beautiful in sobriety? If we cannot imagine it to be so it will never be so, my friend. What if the only thing separating us from the life we truly want to live is our own skepticism? What if we are creating the roadblocks to our happiness because we insist on assuming the worst? If this is so, the opposite can be true too.
In his Theory of Relativity, Einstein argues that gravity is an “effect” of an object’s position in space and time rather than a “force.” I’m no physicist, lucky for everyone, but this a wildly exciting perspective! Imagine that we do not have to force gravity (or sobriety) to do it’s thing but simply put ourselves in the way of it. Show up. Believe in gravity (Or don’t. It will keep you tethered either way.) See what happens. Expect goodness. Let go.
Can you at least just commit to deciding for yourself how sobriety will effect your life? Refuse to listen to anyone hellbent on bashing the lifestyle, always complaining, criticizing the way everyone else does or doesn’t stay sober. Here’s my theory. When we make better choices, higher vibrational choices, when we improve ourselves, activate more of ourselves-life just has no choice but to deliver the preferred effect. Believe what you want, do your own research, but take your fear out of the driver’s seat. Don’t let pain and bitterness steer the ship. Allow room for hope, even if it’s faint to begin. Hope threatens misery, it takes back the reins from pain and slows everything down to a more manageable pace, hope takes smoother curves, and hope has the patience to park in tight spots.
I think maybe we get exactly what we expect out of our experiences. I’m making it a habit these days to expect the things I want, the things that open up my heart and beg it to sing, and the things that reinforce the leap of faith I took into sobriety. Jump baby-gravity will take care of the rest.
