Epiphany

Epiphany: 

honestly, I'm not sure if it's helpful to talk about how I quit drinking alcohol, it was a personal event of grace, an epiphany, and they don't really transfer to another's experience. I think it might be better to just assure people that those moments happen, that they're entirely possible, and more so, ground work can be laid for their likelihood. Of course there's never a guarantee, sobriety isn't a promise, and grace is always the work of mystery. 

but still...

we can make ourselves ready for its appearance.  

for me, the ground work for my particular epiphany with drinking was meditation, how it softened my ego grip on the identity of a drinker, not even noticeably at first, but just enough for the right moment to floor me with the certainty of a revelation. The epiphany was seeing two paths of my life unfold before me - the one I was on could continue, or, I could simply drop that identity completely, being reborn right now as a non-drinker. So I stepped towards sobriety and in that instant I was no longer someone who cared to drink or be in bars. There was no struggle with this new identity, it wasn't another ego role to play, but more of a change of a cell level, or maybe even quantum, as if every particle was taken from me and examined, held to a discerning light before cleansed or replaced entirely. 

an epiphany changes us at the deepest level of our being. 

and that's the thing about being reborn, the past exists as a faintest memory, but has no sure hold on us any longer. It's like waking from a dream, quite literally so, details from even the most vivid nightmare begin to fade the moment we awaken. I was reborn in an instant, an epiphanous event, a sudden drop of all I had previously known and an invitation to now live through the grace of mystery. 

it wasn't promised to be easy.

only different than my life before. 

and for whatever reason...

I chose mystery. 

~

Peace, Eric