It seems such a long-ago time now — June of 1986. Another life, another self, another dream. So much water has passed beneath the bridge. A lifetime of tides, eddies, and unseen depths.
Today marks thirty-nine years of sobriety — thirty-nine years since I first laid down the bottle, not yet knowing what it would mean, or where this path would lead.
For beneath the drink, beneath the numbness, there lay an ocean of sorrow — reams of trauma woven into the marrow of my being. Ancestral wounds. The silent grief of a heart long unheld.
The drink was never the true enemy —only a cloak for the unbearable.
And when the bottle was gone, the real pilgrimage began — the long walk through shadow and fire, through memories unspoken, through pain that seemed it would undo me.
One breath.
One step.
One letting go.
Again and again — returning to the heart.
In the deepest surrender, a Love beyond all measure was waiting. Not apart — but at the very center of all things.
It is this Love that heals. Not by force. Not by striving. But by its very nature — soft, vast, without end.
Now — thirty-nine years on — I bow to the Mystery.
Not a triumph — but a remembrance.
A river that carried me when I could not swim. A silence that held me when all words were lost.
Still it flows.
Still it carries me home.
Nigel Lott teaandzen.org
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