The Sound of the Grinder – From Chaos to Silence
When I turn on the grinder in the workshop, the diamond bit spins up, and the water begins to spray gently. As I press the edge of the glass against the rotating head, the machine starts a sharp, steady hum. In this moment, the outside world ceases to exist. Grinding demands one hundred percent presence: if my thoughts wander, if I lose focus for even a second, the rough edge of the unpolished glass leaves fine or even sharp cuts on my hand, or I over-grind the material, which I can never replace afterward. You cannot escape reality here. You cannot put on masks or hide behind played-out roles. It is just me, the colored glass, and the sound of the machine.
For years, I needed exactly this all-consuming silence so my own thoughts would finally quiet down. As I wrote earlier, in the first years of my recovery, I pushed everything compulsively: I maxed out 12-hour factory shifts and AA meetings. Even though I was no longer drinking, the pounding, the urge to prove myself, the tension, and the fear of how I would make a living constantly echoed in my head. I compulsively tried to find something that would finally stop this internal rushing. Something that keeps me in the present and prevents me from ruminating on yesterday's mistakes or tomorrow's fears. After all, one of the core principles and foundations of my recovery program is exactly this: trying to stay in the present, and doing only what I need to do today, just for today.
I first managed to silence this pounding in my life as a teenager, in Kővágóörs. I was at a school prep camp. The first day at the local pub, I only drank a deciliter; the next day, a whole bottle. Although originally I wanted to impress the girls with it, I found something much deeper in that drink. When the alcohol hit my bloodstream, life suddenly boiled up inside me, and I felt I was capable of absolutely anything. Most importantly: a kind of silence set in. My inhibitions, my shyness, my insecurity vanished, and I gained a confidence I never had before. Right then and there, I found what I believed was the perfect "medicine" for my life. There was only one problem: I couldn't, and didn't want to, stop. In every hour, every minute, every second, I only wanted this feeling. I always wanted more and more of that good feeling, which ultimately always ended in blacking out and total, lonely isolation. I am not claiming I didn't have relationships—I had a 4-year, a 7-year, and even during my sobriety, another 4-year relationship—the reality is that I was never truly present in them. Physically I might have been there. In my mind and soul, I was completely somewhere else. Today, I am capable of recognizing, admitting, and saying this without any sugarcoating or making excuses: on my part, this was pure abuse. They lived in an abusive relationship with me, and they were abused women by my side.
It was already during my sobriety, in 2021, that I was looking for a cross for my apartment, and I finally bought a glass cross made with the Tiffany technique. As I looked at that object, I felt an inexplicable attraction, and since it turned out the seller also held courses, I signed up without a second thought. When I stood in front of the grinder for the first time at the course and heard its hum, something astonishing happened. Under the sound of the machine, the spray of water drops, and the monotonous rhythm of shaping the glass, the exact same all-consuming, peaceful silence set in my head as I had felt back in Kővágóörs after that very first glass of alcohol. This was no longer a deceitful and fleeting illusion caused by a chemical substance, leaving only destruction, shame, loneliness, and guilt in its wake. This was clean, tangible reality. Psychology might call this "flow": when the physical, monotonous noise—as the Kristall 2000S grinder spins up and the glass touches the diamond head—forces such a level of focus that it literally switches off my racing thoughts. The external noise creates my internal silence.
This silence did not destroy, it built. This is the purest form of healing and creation. When the noise of physical labor—the friction between the glass and the grinder—is able to quiet the inner voices, it is no longer just work, but a refuge. My refuge.
The sound of the grinder remains my most important therapy today. This machine taught me the humility to try to slow down and pay attention to the moment between my hands instead of the compulsive spinning. There is no escape, there is no "maybe tomorrow." There is only the present. And it is exactly from this pure, unembellished presence that my Tiffany glass creations can be born today.
2670 days – one day at a time.
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