Untamed

The first few months of my sobriety unraveled my identity and offered no replacement. It was like weaving across a rickety bridge, my past discredited, my future pawned to a silent, invisible authority. Yet, from time to time I felt pangs of curiosity about the change unfolding and the mystery of what lay ahead. When I first read the expression that a recovering alcoholic experiencing the shift from self-will to God’s will would feel like “the hole in the doughnut,” I thought that was the corniest phrase I had ever heard. But soon thereafter, it was a precise description of my mental state. I remember walking back and forth in my bedroom one night, trying to reach my sponsor on the telephone so I could make her understand just how it felt to be untethered and unhinged, floating aimlessly. Then I was down on my knees, praying in that classic refrain of the teetering agnostic: “If you are there, what is happening to me, what do you want from me?”