Tag: hiking

walk slow. slower.

There is a hilarious video from about 15 years back: “So we went to Banff and we saw a unicorn. I thought unicorn were so-o-o extinct!” I kept recalling it through the years, and for some reason my latest adventure a month ago reminded me of it.

We didn’t see any extinct species in Kananaskis that weekend, but we did climb 9K to reach the top of the mountain… which is something I haven’t done in 6-7 years, and even then, it wasn’t that high and that steep.

Anyway, besides great sights to behold, I’ve also learned a couple of things. Darren who drove us there and navigated the whole thing, he is highly skilled and very experienced climber of many years. He had several good advices for me to keep walking without walking out on the whole thing.

Walk slow, he said. Slower. Slower than that. You’d want to conserve your energy and still have of energy when it’s time to go back.

I must admit, it was hard for me to walk slow. I think I’m doing a better job walking slow in the last several years due to working in the hospital and moving side by side with patients that have mobility issues. Yet even that was too fast, apparently, for climbing Opal mountain.

I kept walking up the steep slope, thinking of that, trying to breathe steadily, make small steps, and that made me think of making steps and completing the Steps in recovery. My first sponsor Ted G. said, if you go low and slow, you will grow.

About half hour before we reached the summit, Darren said I need to count the steps – to one hundred, and then count over again. He said that as you’d get progressively tired by then time, counting steps would take the mind off the strain. Meditation of sorts? Sure. I was by then focusing on rune mantra for about an hour, but counting steps sounds like a good idea, as well. We read and recite the Steps in AA meetings each time. That way we introduce the newcomers to them, but we also re-introduce ourselves to them at the same time. Twelve Steps lessons are that when dealing with life and frustrations and resentments, to look at them not as “these people! oh if I had it my way in life!” but “where is my part in this situation?” Reading the Steps re-introduces us to how to see it and how to walk with that wisdom and how to apply these skills. We move through life taking a good look at how to move accurately and kindly to everyone involved.

I am still learning all this. There are days I want to take shortcuts. Then some other days I see how shortcuts could have screwed things up, and I am grateful for keeping it steady and as long of a walk as was necessary.

the “Total death of worldly care in the mountainous embrace” and “Even mountains have their own set of steps” images are by me.

honesty w/self

IMG_6548-300x200Three months sober, I went hiking in Jasper. Well, honestly, I rented a cabin in Jasper. Hiking was an addition to that. I had a crazy summer with jobs coming and going, relationships up and down, plus there was plenty of stress of not drinking while temptations were everywhere I looked. I needed a break from that insanity before it was time to get back to school. So, I booked a cabin and in August I went for a somewhat controlled environment adventure in the mountains.

Several days in, me and the small group of guests had a hot day hike. On the way back to the cabins one of them offered me to share some beers with him and his wife. First thought that came to my mind was “Crap, I should have stayed at home in the city, in the environment I could certainly control and have a better way to handle temptations.”

The second thought was less fearful, yet much more dangerous: “Hell, no one will know I had a beer or two! Plus, it would just give me a buzz. No big deal!” I knew though that I would obviously know. And I will remember. And I will suffer, because of the guilt that I broke down so easily. Also, I would suffer due to the more than likely serious mental maelstrom that will follow after the fun of intoxication subsided. I could hide even that, from others, but not from myself. I was new in the program and I didn’t know how you come back to AA meetings after a relapse. I didn’t want to find out.

All these thoughts went through my mind with a lightning speed, like in a Stephen King book, where there is an odyssey seems to pass through in the character’s head, and yet in reality only several seconds have gone through. I was about to look up to the fellow hiker and give him my answer when I thought of something else – how will he take my answer? Will he laugh? Will he say I better have some self-control? Will he do something that will make my isolate in my cabin for the rest of the week? I didn’t want to deal with any of that. And yet the good time of sobriety that I have enjoyed so far, no matter how difficult the time was, prompted me to speak my mind. All that thinking took another couple of seconds, I guess, and I finally made up my mind not to waste more of my companion’s time.

“Um… actually… I’m in recovery. So… um…” I tried to speak like nothing in the world could bother me, although I don’t know if it was working, “I am not going to join you… but… umm… have a good time!”

His reaction was not something that I expected.

He produced the biggest smile that a person could without wrecking their face into parts. In an instant his eyes shone brighter than the sun did all day. He shook my hand, saying: “Good for you! Keep it up” or something in that vein. It was quite a while ago, I can’t remember it quite well. Yet what I do remember is that conversation gave me a tremendous boost to keep it up with sobriety.

I was even happier with not taking a beer farther on that day, because the owners served wine with supper, which is something I’ve forgotten about. Refusing a wine at the table was easy. Refusing a beer when it felt like it was begging for you to accept it after a long hike in the sun, that wasn’t as easy. And a couple of beers followed by some wine… shit, it would do me in physically after ninety days of not drinking and then mentally, with all the thoughts I’d have to deal with. So, I was near ecstatic about the fine job that I was doing, keeping it sober.

That episode keeps coming to my mind in the summer. It’s the season I’ve sobered up, it’s the hiking and camping time. It keeps reminding me of the right choices that I’ve made, and how it keeps paying up for the life of sobriety, and because of that, of freedom. Freedom from hurting myself, freedom to be comfortable in my skin, freedom to speak my mind and to ease my mind from thoughts of however others choose to live their lives.

the image was copied from http://www.ecolodge.com/where-you-play/, the website of Rocky Mountains Escape where the above mentioned adventure has taken place. I went back there many times.