Summit Wellness: Flying Without a Net

By Summit FM Contributor Marc Lee Shannon

March 15th, 2015. It’s my first solo all-original singer-songwriter gig—sober.

Location? A downtown bar that used to be the late-night palace of promises to myself to quit my drinking, and here I was on the stage, tuning, pacing, and panicking.

Tonight, I was flying without a net.

The previous November, I finally managed to string together consecutive days, weeks, and months without booze or anything, and I was on a roll. An old friend, a kind and generous matron of the establishment, had promised a Benjamin for a one-hour set, and I needed it—the money, the lift of playing my songs, and the knowledge that it could be done by me stone-cold sober.

I won’t get into the nights of debauchery and the tales of my inebriated escapades, as I have spent many clicks on my Mac telling those stories. How I rarely drank on stage at the end of my time using alcohol; instead, always afterward, a seemingly innocent water bottle filled to the top under the front seat. Only it wasn’t water. Yeah, that was me, and I was the guy frowning when you called for "one more song" at the night’s end. I wanted to get to my car and work on the pre-buzz to get me to the real buzz at home, where the giant bottle was waiting like a lover, peering through the blinds. "Are we there yet?" my brain would plead as I turned into the driveway where I could finally drink my fill, and my spirit could rest until tomorrow.

Years later, I learned that scientific studies consistently show that when we listen to (or play, in my case) music, the brain releases a chemical that gives us a sense of pleasure. Dopamine is the same neurotransmitter that helps us savor the joy of food, the depth of intimacy with a loved one, and the euphoria from alcohol, tobacco, and, in my case, other substances that I was ingesting daily. Because of my consistent use over the years, my brain had developed a habit that would require a long period of abstinence before it could finally reset and recover. Like someone trying to quit smoking, the way to remove the urge was to get treatment and work a program.

That incredible feeling I had as a teenager strapping on a Gibson guitar, plugging in, and playing those first chords had morphed into something completely different over the years. Now, in early recovery, I desperately wanted that sense of satisfaction, that rush, to return. I was determined to get it back, and tonight, without drinking, I was on the high wire.

Thankfully, I had sober support in the house and some good rehearsal under my belt, and I let it loose. In the first song, my voice was pitchy, and I messed up the chords in the verse, but I got through it. Somewhere in the middle of that first solo set, sober, it hit me: that feeling where one plus one equals three for a performing artist, and I was in the zone. Bruce Springsteen described it as something of a magic trick in his Broadway show, where suddenly you "got it."

The audience was with me, nodding and smiling, and my guitar playing and singing were perfectly in sync and in tune. It was like that first gig as a sophomore in the Irish Troubadour Club at St. Vincent-St. Mary’s all those years before. I was back.

In the next few months, I would join my bandmates in Michael Stanley and the Resonators on stage with a different vibe. Resilient and confident, I would experience an almost intuitive sense when playing in that ensemble with those other incredible musicians—the enchanting intoxication of playing sober with the knowledge that you have prepared your mind and spirit to be here, and no artificial inspiration is needed.

Looking back, like many in the recovery fellowship have repeatedly told me, "It just keeps getting better." Just like "the Boss" said…

It is a magic trick.