Week 13

Week 13 

Wednesday- Wednesday This week I continue the journey through Vermont. The sweet smell of Christmas constantly hits my nostrils as I trek through the fir trees of the Green Mountain State. The weather has been wonderful, with breezy days and brisk nights, and only a few spells of rain. I miss the hubs extra badly this week for some reason. I think it might be the constant smell of holiday season in the air. 

Whenever I smell those evergreen trees, my mind fills with memories of tree trimming and Yule-time festivities with Wes and the family. I think of him constantly. When I talked to him the other day, during my "gym/tan/laundry" stint in Manchester Center, he and I chatted about his first week back to college. He will be graduating in May and is excited about finally finishing up his Bachelor's degree in computer science. Talking to him about his first few days back, believe it or not, made me miss college. I never thought I'd say it, because I was so adamantly counting down the days at the end, but I actually missed not going to school this Fall. I miss syllabus day, and meeting all of my new professors, and buying all new notepads and stationary for the semester, and filling up my calendar to the brim with appointments and deadlines. Mostly, I miss the excitement and anticipation of learning a new subject. I miss learning. This season will be different for me though. Instead of learning, I will be continuing to engage myself in a bit of "unlearning". Out here in the woods I seem to be unlearning a number of things. I am unlearning impatience with myself. I am unlearning how to have too many things on my plate at once. I am unlearning worry. I am unlearning obsession. I am unlearning compulsivity. It is such a beautiful process. 

After studying countless approaches to understanding the mind and its processes, as a psychology major, I find myself to be a proponent of the behavioral psychology school of thought. It is my belief that everything a person does or doesn't do is a learned behavior. The presence of that behavior is based on the presence or absence of a stimulus reinforcing that behavior, as well as motivation and a few other factors. Simply put, everything you do and think can be unlearned. 

This is especially important to remember when you are engaging in behaviors that are toxic for yourself. You can unlearn them and condition yourself to do something different, just as you did to learn them in the first place. You don't have to walk 2,190M in the woods to do so either. 

When I first got sober, I had to unlearn pretty much everything I knew in life, and relearn the way I lived before drugs and alcohol became my only two endeavors. That was a tall order. How do you unlearn how to drink yourself to death, and relearn to live again? It was such an overwhelming undertaking, but I had to do it, or I was going to jail, or going to die. I remember my first day of not drinking. I called up a friend I knew who had not had a drink in over a year or so. I remember telling her that I had no idea what to do with myself and that I was scared and going bonkers. She asked me where I was and I told her I was walking around in circles in my backyard. "Are they're a lot of trees around?" she asked. "Ya there's a bunch of them" I responded. She answered back with, "Then that means there's a bunch of sticks on the ground that need picking up. Why don't you just grab some up and make a pile. Keep yourself busy for a while." So that's what I did my first day of sobriety. I picked up sticks. I picked up sticks for hours, until the sun went down. I had nothing else to do, and if I did nothing, I was going to lose my mind, and probably drink again. I was so tired by end of that day, I think my eyes were shut before my head hit the pillow. I woke up clear-eyed, without a hangover (for the first time in a long time) and with a whole day of not drinking or drugging under my belt. It was astounding. I couldn't believe I had made it. Before I knew it, a week had gone by and still, no drinks. I realized very quickly that in order to successfully keep sober, I had to stay busy. This worked for me. I couldn't just do mundane busy work like pick up sticks all the time either. I had to find things that I wanted to do, and accomplish them. After all, I had so much time on my hands without wasting it all getting drunk or high.

I started by making a list; a "things I wanted" list. It contained not just material things, but financial, emotional, and psychological things I wanted as well. I started picking one thing on the list at a time and making it my goal to get it. Once I had it, a huge check mark went beside the item. Before I knew it, for the first time in along time, I had some things I wanted in life. I bought a car. I got a promotion at my job. I talked to the IRS and got some unpaid taxes resolved. I found a relationship with my sister again. My husband and I grew sounder in our marriage.

Slowly, I worked my way down that list, and as it got smaller, I found myself with a larger amount of sober days under my belt and a life that was worth living again. Days turned into months, and months turned into one full year. Years have accumulated since then. People ask me all the time how I got sober, or if AA helped me to accomplish this. I tell them AA is a great program, but does not have a monopoly on recovery. Yes, I went to AA, but my buck didn't stop there. I talked to counselors. I talked to therapists. I talked to hundreds of people in recovery and surrounded myself with them. I read books. I did research and slowly but surely, I put the little puzzle pieces together to customize my recovery and create my own solution. I still have so much to figure out, and I don't have all the answers, but it is the constant and fearless searching for truth that I believe will make my recovery life long. 

The AT in Vermont runs along the LT (long trail) for the first 100M in the state and then forks off directly East toward New Hampshire. As I bleed into week 14, I am now about 8M from the NH border. Vermont has been beautiful from start to finish. The mud subsided after the first 50M , thank goodness, and the hikes throughout the state were full of beautiful views of evergreen covered mountains. I climbed the ski slopes of Stratton, Bromley, and Killington Mountain and several hills in between. The most difficult part of the state has definitely been the last 50M of hiking East. The hills have been constant and steep, but this is usually the case when crossing state lines. I am so excited for New Hampshire and the White Mountains. This region holds reputation of being the favorite part of the trail for most thru hikers. I look forward to starting them on Sunday with Mount Moosilauke, a 4,800 ft. climb.