About Me — Sobriety Catapulted My Hero’s Journey

I’m committed to our collective ascension

Roaming Free

I immigrated to the United States from India at the age of three, and since my parents were both in graduate school, books were my only companion. I’d play with the words as they lept off the page to escape the chilly hallway outside my dad’s classroom or the musty library at my mom’s school. Isolation was an early feature of my life (making me ripe for later troubles with alcohol).

Soon after, I started writing my own stories and “published” (i.e., laminated and bound) my first book in the third grade, which won a school writing competition. At that moment, I knew I wanted to be a writer.

However, I later betrayed my childhood self and traded her dream for practicality.

Writing became a mere hobby, a means to bolster her crestfallen spirit. For decades, she remained sufficiently placated until she finally demanded my attention.

The Small Sound of Salvation

Last year, I made the glorious decision to get sober again. A necessary condition for lasting sobriety is a connection with a power greater than yourself, a relationship I scorned. I felt that I was pushed into a gutter and expected to ask my assailant for help. In my estimation, the universe had forsaken me as undesirable so I scoffed at reconciliation.

In truth, my rebuff was simply a pretense of pride. I secretly craved the salve only a higher power could supply but was letting victimhood obstruct my grasp.

Then one day, overwhelmed with the raw emotions of early recovery, I surrendered my ego and prayed that the Universe reveal itself. I opened my eyes tentatively, expecting a magnificent white light or glowing orb to envelope me, but nothing extraordinary occurred which only confirmed my distrust.

The next morning I awoke to the familiar stench of discouragement when a small inner voice cleared the air with a simple command, “Go write.”

For the past few years, I focused on completing law school while also managing my alcoholism and mental illnesses, leaving little time for journaling. The thought of writing hadn’t even crossed my mind. I immediately drove to a cozy coffee shop, sat at a wobbly table in the corner, and opened my laptop. I cautiously touched the keyboard and gazed at the empty page, uncertain where to start.

I instantly sensed a pulsating energy coursing through my fingertips and suddenly my thoughts were unleashed with almost supernatural force. My prose seeped with the chaotic musings of early sobriety serving as a powerful release for painful emotions. My prayers had been answered.

I promptly entered a blissful flow state and felt a little girl’s smile beaming from my chest, swaddling me in childlike purity.

On that day, I finally surrendered to my disease and embraced my childhood dream.

The Hero’s Journey

Photo by alan9187 at Pixabay

According to legendary mythologist Joseph Campbell, the most powerful narrative arch is the Hero’s Journey. Campbell believes we are innately drawn to this story form because it satisfies our deep desire for purpose and meaning — We yearn for a life of heroic triumph.

The whole sense of the ubiquitous myth of the hero’s passage is that it shall serve as a general pattern for men and women, wherever they may stand along the scale…The individual has only to discover his own position with reference to the general formula, and let it then assist him past his restricting walls.

I write to reveal the beauty of climbing the restricting wall.

It can be exacting and punishing and there are periods of futility when the only possibility is holding steady. I share my experiences to accompany those moments and chronicle my ascent to ease your climb because the view from higher ground is breathtaking.

Let’s be heroic together!

Thank you for spending your valuable time with me. I am truly grateful for you, my wonderful reader.