Fresh Snow and Alcoholics

We got a coating of fresh snow today. The perfect skiing snow that is so rare in the northeast. It is cold, so the snow is light and airy.

Yesterday I had an interesting chat with an alcoholic. I always find it interesting and enlightening to talk to an alcoholic; provided that they are in recovery. Actively drinking alcoholics can be fun, but are rarely enlightening. But an alcoholic in recovery generally has attained a kind of gritty, tough wisdom that can only come from staring the devil in the eye, and surviving the journey back to the surface.

Our conversation gave me pause, and changed my perspective on the rest of my day yesterday. He said something that was simple on the surface, but is missed by so many of us in our daily quest for success. When he was going through treatment (over 25 years ago), his counselor asked him what he wanted in life. The list was short: love, acceptance, inner peace, and some way to deal with the negative voices in his head. That was it.

We all have negative voices in our head, but what makes an alcoholic different is that those voices drive him to drink until he is near death. Literally. Most alcoholics I know have nearly died at least once. We forget how powerful those voices in our head can be, because for most of us it is just a little background noise that we can deal with one way or another. But they are there, and their influence on our lives is insidious.

Today I skied in fresh, light powder. Today was a powder day in a region where powder days are so rare that I have to re-learn how to ski in the stuff. It was glorious. Glory snow. I was ripping turns and digging my knees into powder and floating through bumps. Telemark skiing has a few simple metaphorical lessons to teach us as well, like the alcoholics do. When you are telemark skiing, you need to remember 3 simple things: trust the fall-line, commit to the turn, and keep your upper body centered and quiet. Well, maybe one more. Avoid trees.

In skiing, like in life, if you don't commit fully to the turn, the skis cannot do their job, you will lose control and crash. But committing to the turn takes courage and faith. The first time that you let go of the fear and let it happen, it is an amazing feeling of accomplishment. Once you learn how to do it well, it is like dancing down a steep hill, hopping from one turn to the next, always on the edge of losing control. The voices are silent when this happens. It is the closest I can come to the true peaceful inner state of nirvana that Buddha seeks.

Then, of course, I get to the bottom and have to get on the lift. The cell phone goes off. It is the ex. I forgot my daughter's snow boots, and she won't be able to go out and play in the snow unless I get them over to her today. The voices start up again. Within seconds I become completely unaware of my beautiful surroundings and the falling snow, and I am awash in guilt, shame, anger, resentment. But fortunately, the top is only a few minutes away, and the fresh powder silences the voices once again, the lactic acid burn in my legs and the rush in my head are all I can feel. Nirvana once again, even if only for a few moments.