The Depths

Since beginning my journey in AA, working on myself, reaching the tail end of relationships and trying to restart my life and career, there have been a lot of emotions. They are wide ranging from elations to this very specific dark void that feels like it is constantly trying to consume me.

The result of my brain trying to heal from years of alcohol abuse, my emotions have been swinging back and forth like a very hormonal teenager. One moment I will feel inspired, the next moment tears pouring down my face, five minutes later angry, at some other point in the day I will be determined, later, the void descends like a wet blanket. The moments of elation and feeling good and strong and powerful are there, but they are short. The void however, that is not, it is long and consuming.

You know those old style sci-fi effects where there would be someone there and then there would be a sparkly flash or something and some chime and then the person is just… well… gone? The void, the only way to describe it that I have found, feels like that is going to happen. So broad and consuming that I will just… be gone. Just cease to even exist. A sparkly flash, a chime or pop, and then just no longer there. Gone. Swallowed up by the void completely. Daniel was here, but now, not.

My feelings and experiences are the same as the millions of people who have gone through the journeys of life. Alcoholism, addiction, divorce, death, financial destruction, sexual trauma, and countless other things create a darkness that can’t be explained in words. The depths of emotion, pain, suffering, loss, grief, sadness, brokenness, guilt, shame, loneliness, abandonment, dread, your very soul being shredded to nothing. Yeah, you know that bit? Yep, “The Depths”.

My therapist pronounced me at the bottom of emotion the other day. An event happened that felt like a smash straight to my face and gut at the same time. It felt like it set all of my work back. All my work felt like it was reset because it was all done under what felt like false pretenses.

My therapist and others do not see it that way. He sees that I have hit the bottom of the barrel. The bottom of the deep end. I waded in and walked through months of processing and kept walking deeper and deeper into the waters of emotions and have reached the deep end. All the work I did before was not lost or reset, I was merely walking in the shallow end. As deep and dark as it felt, it was the shallows, the beginning.

I woke up this morning with two options. I can choose to sit down in the deep end. Sit and wait for the void to consume me as it threatens and I cease to exist. Waste day after day in the deep end of emotions, wasting my one chance at this life. Or, I can choose to swim towards the surface. Put in the effort and work, move my arms and legs, pull against the water and the grip of the void, eyes open and looking at the light on the surface. When I break the surface I don’t stay floating in the deep end, I can grip the edge, kick my feet and pull myself out of the water and cast aside The Depths and walk away. I’ll drip the remains of The Depths for a very long time before I am completely dry and free.

There will be a path leading from The Depths. But, those who see the path will see the footprints leading away, not towards, The Depths. John 9:3 “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so the works of God might be displayed in him.” I pray that you and I be willing and able to allow ourselves to walk into The Depths of grief and pain, all the way to the deep end, do the work to swim from the bottom, that we be willing to pull and kick our way out, to find the strength to walk away and that God might be displayed in you and I when those around us see our footprints walking from The Depths forever. Healed, changed, reborn and displaying the awesome might of God’s works in us.

And with that, I will take another 24