Today I was thinking about circle of life and death, old turning into new, the phoenix rising from the ashes and rebirth. Pretty heavy stuff, but it was all inspired by looking at a picture I took of a field of dandelions that were all dying.

I am sitting on my balcony in a lawn chair, enjoying a bit of a breeze. As I sit here I realise I am quite at peace. I am relaxed. There was a time when I thought I would never enjoy this without a glass of wine.

When I look back on life in deep addiction, certain things become clear. I am talking about the worst of times: the obsessive drinking, not drinking for enjoyment, but drinking just not to feel sick.

It is 11pm and I am awake in my apartment. I live on the 16th floor in a building close to downtown. I overlook a residential neighborhood and quite a few other apartment buildings. It is dark out and I have all my lights on. I have some fairly big windows and the blinds are up.

The geese are freaking out my cats!

I live in a high-rise apartment and we have a goose problem in the city. I have two cats that really consider themselves to be hunters. They sit at the window and watch the birds and bugs flying around, menacingly staring them down. Ready to pounce if only this damn glass pane wasn’t in the way!

I once met a young man who was a gifted musician and poet. He did not play a musical instrument, but rather, he used spoken word to create dynamic, emotionally charged verses about the challenges of street life in our city.

When chronicling a day in the life of an insomniac, it is difficult to know when to start the day. I am choosing 6am. I think that is a reasonable time, when the majority of people are waking up.

We all want to feel as if we belong to something. I believe that anyway.

We belong to a circle of friends, we identify ourselves at our workplace or in our chosen carrier. We belong to parenting groups, book clubs, sports teams, running groups, the yoga community. The list goes on.

Honesty is so complicated. We were told that we should be honest, tell the truth, from when we were small. Pretty simple right?

I talked with a woman today, whose adult son died from addiction. This was many years ago but she spoke as if it were yesterday.

Let’s talk about the games we play while we are drinking. I am not talking about “caps” or “beer pong”. I mean the lies we tell ourselves, the tricks we use and all the planning we put in to drinking and not getting found out.

What the hell am I supposed to do on the down days? They come whether I like it or not.

At 24 years old I knew I drank too much. It was already causing problems in my new marriage. I was hiding drinking, pre gaming before any social occasion and embarrassing myself far too often. Despite this, I didn’t see it as a lifelong problem.

Memories are complicated.

We all have both good and bad memories. As a recovering addict some of these can be quite disturbing. We have made a lot of bad decisions, or desperate decisions that we are not proud of. I know that there are certain things I have done that I can barely think about.

Today I was going through the little book I got from rehab. You know, the one you leave out and people sign it with a nice note and contact info, for once you’re at home. It reminded me of how close I was with some of these people.

Let’s talk about dandelions, Taraxacum Officinale. My favorite flower since I was a small child. The flower that nobody liked. As a kid, I loved seeing them growing in the grass, it was so pretty, the bright yellow on the green lawn. I especially loved it when the grass was full of them. I could not understand why people were always trying to kill them.

The idea of going into rehab was just not an option for me until it was the only option.