It starts to look glamorous

After 4 days of not going to an AA meeting, it starts to look glamorous doesn't it? It does. You know, all the people in the bar/lounge sipping wine and eating appetizers. You might wonder why I went in the bar/lounge if I thought it was going to make me want to drink. Well, duh, I was hungry. And I also didn't know that it would trigger me like that. But just think about it, a glass of wine (ahem, a bottle or two) with dinner, pairing your wine with what you are eating, comparing it to other wines, thinking about wine tasting in Sonoma and your favorite winery there...it all leads to...well, disaster really. No, of course I didn't drink. But I did excuse myself and call my sponsor because I thought about it more seriously than I have in, oh, at least two years. It's been a really long time since I have excused myself from anything to make a phone call because of alcohol. And the reason I did is because the thought wasn't fleeting. It didn't pass through my mind like it usually does, almost unnoticed. I latched on to it. It almost sounded like a decent idea. Just one. Just one glass of wine because no one would know so I could get away with it. She didn't answer but it was enough to just tell on myself because I know that when I talk to her tomorrow she will ask me what happened.

This should not come as a surprise, that I had this thought - but for some reason it did. Never once in my sobriety have I left town and not had the thought, "but no one would know." I have thought it every time, no matter where I went or why I was there, with co-workers or alone. It surprised me because I'm at a spa - it's very peaceful here, very calm, very spiritual. But I should know better. I will probably always think about it when I travel.

I have to remember that when I drink, sometimes, anything is possible. I don't always know what we did, or how we got to where we went, or who drove, or how I got in the house, or in bed, and that I didn't care, about any of us, or what happened to us. I didn't care about anything. And yeah, it's true, I am in love with that feeling of not caring. I love it - the numb feeling. That numb feeling has recently gone from my favorite feeling in the world to my second favorite feeling (my favorite feeling these days is evenness, level - more on that soon). Sometimes, I wake up in my own vomit. That's how glamorous it is.

Okay, I have to try to go to bed really early cause I have to walk across a tightrope at 6:30 a.m. Have I lost my mind? Seems like it.

What he said made me pause

I went to a meeting last night and the speaker said something that stopped me, it stopped the chatter in my head, for more than a few minutes. It seems like frequently you go to a meeting and you hear exactly the thing you need to hear. Like I had been giving some thought to drinking and it seemed like at every meeting for a week, someone was back from a relapse or there was someone brand new, or that guy made that comment about getting sober being the hardest thing he ever did, and it snapped me out of it. Anyway, it works that way a lot where the topic seems to be eerily on point. And sometimes you may not need to hear something specific, but someone will say something that causes a shift, sometimes a major shift, in your perspective for example.

The meeting last night was so great because the speaker had kind of a new take on things. His slant was a little bit different and definitely thought provoking. I get a bit tired of hearing the same thing over and over and I always like it when someone says something that gives me a new way of looking at things, AA, the steps, life, etc. The whole lead was really outstanding, and he said a lot of things that gave me a lot to think about, but he said one thing that really made me pause and think about certain aspects of my life. He said, "you will never find security in anything that can be taken from you." I've never felt like I've had the kind of security he was talking about last night and it made me pause because - things that can be taken from you - those are the only places I've ever looked for it. And it scared me for a second too because it made me realize that what I've been searching for in terms of security - it may not exist. And if I really think about it - what are those things that can't be taken from me where I may find what he was talking about? I can only think of 1 thing and I already have it.

In need of a reality check about how I got here

I'll post about the dress. I will. Just not yet. I started writing it, but I haven't finished it yet. It's complicated and there is much to say.

First I need to check in. That's what a lot of people say at meetings when they share "off topic" - they say they need to check in, about what's going on with them at the moment. I'm checking in here because well, I didn't go to meeting and I need to check in. I need to say something, out loud (this counts as out loud, right?). I've been thinking about drinking. WHOA. Okay, wait a minute. Back up. I'm not going to, I don't even want to necessarily, I've just been thinking about it. I've been thinking about it more than I should be, more than I'm comfortable with, more than is normal for me. I never think about it anymore. It's not even kind of appealing. But it's been on my mind. And the thing is, I always hear the same story when people relapse. They say, I don't really know how it happened, before I knew it I was drinking. You hear it over and over again - someone will say I was sober for 12 years and then I had a drink in my hand. And of course it's a choice, but, that's just the way I imagine it happening - like it happens on accident.

Here's the thing - I came into AA with a high bottom, if you want to call it that. I never lost anything, nothing really terrible happened. My life was really well in tact. It's very easy for me to hear the differences when I listen to other peoples' stories and say, but I never did that or that, and I was never that bad, and that never happened to me. And then your mind starts going down that track and it can get way from you. I didn't drink that much - I really didn't. The next thing you know, you think it doesn't really apply to you. Well I didn't go to a meeting for 9 days, I felt pretty good, and then you know, I just started to wonder if I really have this problem. I mean really, do I really? Did I just stop prematurely because I got scared of turning into my mother? Or do I really qualify?

What I have to remember is this - when I found myself sitting in an AA meeting for the first time, I hated myself and I didn't want to live anymore - and it had nothing to do with alcohol - at last not directly. And that's the problem that I found the solution to in AA - the hating myself and wanting to die problem. The alcohol was but a symptom of the problem as we say. The problem was me. I found the solution to that - to my self esteem, to my self-hatred, to my fear, to my anxiety, to my racing mind, to my discomfort in my own skin, to my obsessive thinking, to my "all or nothing" thinking, to my fear of other people, to my insecurity, to my fear of abandonment, and so much more. That's what I found the solution to in AA - I stopped drinking and I worked the program and I didn't hate myself and I didn't want to die any more and all of those things and so much more changed.

And yes it's true that I do relate to what people in the program say. I relate to why they drank and all of the feelings involved. Alcohol did for me what it did for all of the people in the program. And yeah, at some point I did cross that line where once I started drinking I couldn't stop myself anymore. Because I have countless stories of drinking more than I wanted to and doing things that I didn't want to do. And yeah, like any of us in the program would say, I love that feeling that you get when you drink - I loved it. But drinking aside, the way I felt when I came into the program - I don't ever want to feel that way again. Ever. And that's what I give up if I go drink - I give up all of those things that I've found the solution to. Not to mention everything that goes along with the actual drinking. Because the truth is, if I decided to drink, I don't know what would happen.

I think sometimes I still feel ashamed when it comes to admitting to being an alcoholic. It's not something I should feel ashamed about, but it is. And my head gets away from me because I would rather be normal. And every once in a while I just think it sounds like a good idea - not to obliterate myself, but you know, more like wouldn't it be nice to have a glass of wine with dinner? It doesn't help that the situation with my sponsor hasn't been working out. I called my first sponsor in Michigan yesterday and I'm going to do some step work with her for a while even though we have to do it over the phone. I think it will work out well and I feel better about working with her at this point.

You know what snapped me out of it? What snapped me out of my head trying to convince me that I'm actually normal and don't have this problem? I was sitting at a meeting and this guy said - getting sober was the most difficult thing I've ever done. I thought yeah, me too. YEAH, ME TOO. And the crazy thing is - when I showed up in AA, I didn't think I was an alcoholic - I was sure that I wasn't. I just hated myself and my life and everyone else and I wanted to die, but no, not an alcoholic, definitely not. But, for someone who didn't have a problem with alcohol, it was fucking hard to stop drinking. Seriously. And yeah, not drinking now is easy, but in October of 2005 when I came into AA, just not drinking when I every part of me wanted to, was the fucking hardest thing I've ever done. It snapped me out of it - because if not drinking was the hardest thing I've ever done, I obviously belong in this program. I wish I could get over the shame I associate with it.

And what am I saying anyway - you know - it's just my head getting away from me. Because I love AA. I do. I told you, I wanted to die - and it saved my life. And while I might feel ashamed to admit to being an alcoholic - everything I have in my life and everything I love about my life is all because of AA. So no, I don't really want to drink. I just need to get my head in check. That's all I have thanks, I'll keep coming back (as I would say at the end of sharing at at a meeting).

That was helpful. I feel better already.

A less desirable candidate

A psychiatrist that I saw a few times called me that once - a less desirable candidate. She said, "Of course the pool of men who are going to be willing to date you is significantly reduced because you had breast cancer. There are going to be men who consider you a less desirable candidate and will eliminate you as an option based on that fact alone." I said, "Oh, I had been hoping for something a little better than someone who was just willing to date me. I was hoping for someone who wanted to." It's a good thing I wasn't seeing her to deal with any emotional issues (I saw her a few times while trying to decide whether to take medication) - she did more damage in one minute than I care to go into. I have thought about it nearly every day since and thought about what it means.

But my point isn't how rude it was, or insensitive, or maybe poorly phrased, or even just plain unnecessary - but is she right?

The longer I spend alone, the less interested I become in bothering to find someone to be with. The longer I spend alone, the more I just see myself spending the rest of my life that way. There are things that I think I missed about being in a relationship and I don't miss those things anymore. I've just grown not to miss them. And because I have these things about me that make me a "less desirable candidate," I don't even want to go down the road of having to tell someone what those things are so that I can be eliminated (as she so eloquently put it). I'd rather just not.

People ask me a lot about dating in versus out of the program - and I don't know which is better for me. There are obvious advantages to dating in the program - the person gets you in a way that a non-program person can't. Of course there are non-program people who respect your sobriety or who respect recovery, but even though they respect it, they don't get it in the way we do. There are advantages to having an unspoken understanding about it. You also have the obvious advantage of not having to tell the person you are trying to date that you are sober. That's something I haven't figured out - when to tell, what to say...I just don't know. But I have enough fear around having to tell a non-program guy why I don't drink - that I don't even bother trying to meet any non-program guys. And then there are disadvantages to dating in the program that I won't go into.

This is on my mind because this guy at work said he has someone to introduce me to. Great. He said, "why don't we get a couple of people together and go for a drink so it isn't totally uncomfortable and set up? " I of course said, "great, sure!" I said that knowing it would only happen if I pushed him to get it set up, and knowing also that I won't bother to. Because what is the only thing thirty-something people go do when they want to meet up, or hang out, or introduce people to people? Go for a few cocktails. So I would have to go - and who am I going to bring except sober people - and sit there while they drink and be totally uncomfortable about the fact that I'm not drinking, which yes would be obvious since the point would be to go for drinks. Part of me thinks it might be nice to meet this person - BUT - I (a) don't want the meeting to be uncomfortable, and (b) don't want to deal with having to bring up the not drinking. Yes, I know, you don't have to bring it up right away, but eventually you do have to bring it up, and I wouldn't be able to wait very long. I would feel like I was pretending to be something that I'm not (or pretending not to be something that I am) if it wasn't out there in the open.

Besides the fear of telling someone that I'm sober (and being automatically eliminated because of it) - having to tell someone I had breast cancer is something I also have a lot of fear about. I have had this conversation with friends - about when the right time to tell someone is. They always say - you don't have to tell them - you can wait as long as you want. I kind of disagree. What if this woman is right - and men won't date me because of it - I would rather know than become even a tiny bit invested and then be rejected down the road for it. Never mind the fact that the first time I take my shirt off I would have to explain. It's not that my body has been disfigured because of it - but there is a 1 1/2 inch scar on my right breast and a 2 inch scar under my right arm, two tiny blue dots from the radiation, and my skin is slightly discolored in one spot from the radiation still.

I just don't know what the right time is to tell someone - but I feel like it matters. It matters because I could get it again and die, or it would be this whole ordeal that would have to be dealt with - and I could understand why someone just wouldn't want to sign up for it. And yes, it's true, a lot of people get breast cancer - but I can also so understand why someone would reject me because of it. Some of my friends have said that you can wait for months and months before you tell someone. I'm just not sure about that. Yeah I want it to be something that's in the past, but it's a huge thing, I don't feel like I should keep it a secret. I would never reject a guy on the basis that he had cancer - but I would also want to know (and not several months into it) - rather than just have it mentioned later as an after thought.

And yes, or course, I know that the guy who rejects me because I had breast cancer or because I'm sober is not the guy I want to be with. I know that. But that doesn't make it easier to tell someone and be eliminated for it. Knowing there are assholes out there and that I don't want to be with those people doesn't make me feel better about myself, it doesn't make me feel desirable, it doesn't make me think that she was wrong, it doesn't make me want to try. I'd rather just be alone and not bother trying, than have to tell any guy those two things and be eliminated because of it. I'd rather just be alone than go through how that would make me feel.

28 posts behind and really late to work, and sad news

That is what traveling for work coupled with monthly parking will do to you. I am 28 posts behind in my blog reading, thanks to being at a client for a couple of days, and I got here at 10...well, I needed to sleep cause my flight was late and I needed to exercise this morning. Anyway, whatever productivity at work I thought I regained by loading everyone into google reader, I have apparently lost as a result of the parking thing. Ah well. Keeping up on reading and writing blog posts is like a full time job. How do people do this? Especially when you have a life - in real life - which I don't, and I still can't keep up. I haven't been able to post either. Let's just say it is due to technical difficulties. I did post a rant about being stuck on a plane last night - but have since taken it down. I just needed to vent. Anyway, I believe I have resolved the technical difficultly, but we will see.

On a sad note - a friend from the program back at home passed away last night. In the almost two years that I've been sober (woohoo - only 1 week until my anniversary) - about 15 people have died back at home in the program - mostly overdose and suicide. I knew almost all of them. This is just the sad reality. Maybe this number is higher than average - but a lot of people die from alcoholism. Even if you end up taking your own life, it is alcoholism that kills you. This one wasn't either suicide or overdose, but is just as sad and unexpected. I am grateful to be alive and grateful to be sober and tremendously grateful to Alcoholics Anonymous. I really believe that if it weren't for this program, I might have, at some point, been unable to keep going. I really want to go to a meeting. I wish I could be there - at home - with the people I got sober with all of whom know the guy who died last night. I sat at tables with him every day for all those months in the very beginning before I moved. He never could get it - he kept going back out and coming back in and going back out and coming back in. But at least he never gave up.

Hey everyone, my name is ***

I have to speak at a meeting tonight - an AA meeting. I say a meeting, and I think everyone knows what I'm talking about. I speak at meetings - I mean I comment, or I share as we say - though probably not often enough (according to my sponsor). Tonight I am the speaker - the one who has to sit there in front of everyone and talk for 20 -30 minutes and then everyone's comments relate to your "lead" as we call it. Speaking in front of people is my absolute least favorite thing to do, ever. I would rather take the bus to work than speak in front of people (and some of you know how adverse I am to bus taking). Seriously, I don't like it. In college, if a class included "presentation" in the course description, I didn't take it. So one wonders how I got through law school then? Well, I hated that part of it - especially the randomness. And you might think I choose the wrong profession, not liking to speak in front of people, but fortunately, I never have to. I get to sit in my office over here in the Northeast corner of the building and communicate with the partner I work for via instant message (he sits in the office next door). Okay - we don't always do this - but there are days when my job can feel pretty isolating. I like it.

When people ask me to speak at meetings - I can't for the life of me figure out why. It's for one of two reasons - it's because they know my story so they know that the odds of me being sober right now are about 0% - and that makes for a good story I suppose, or - it's because they have seen me around but never heard me say a word and suddenly feel compelled to hear what I have to say. I think this is the case tonight - this person has never heard me say anything. I always have this self-doubt - this moment of - well my story is boring, I can't possibly have anything to say that will help anyone. It comes in waves too - I won't get asked for a while, and then suddenly I'll get asked to do this a bunch times within a few week period. Anyway - it makes me nervous and I don't know why. What could be an easier story to tell than the story of your life - the story you are more intimately familiar with than any other story. Sometimes it's a topic that you are supposed to talk about, sometimes a step. This time it is just my story - what it used to be like, what happened, and what it's like now. Why don't I just say no? Because, anyone would tell you that you should always say yes when asked to speak at a meeting if you are able to do it.

I have to remember that it's not about me. I'm just there to carry the message. It's just there are times that I sit in meetings and I listen to people speak/give leads, and I think, you are such a liar or what you are saying is so fucked up, or you are an idiot even - whatever - I judge people. I worry that people are sitting there listening to me thinking - will you shut up already. So I pray before I have to do this - I pray to say the thing that one person needs to hear. Because that is what I love about an AA meeting - you might say something that saves another person's life today, or they might save yours.

I can do this right? What is my deal? Every part of me wants to feign illness. I think the last time I had to be the speaker at a meeting, was when I spoke at a meeting in my home town back in March - that really might have been the last time. I had to stand on a stage, at a microphone, and tell my story to a few hundred people, for an hour, and it was recorded. How embarrassing is that? I have a copy of it and it's available for download on the website for that meeting. People could be downloading and listening to this embarrassing piece of material. (I've actually listened to it - and it wasn't that bad). If I can do that - surely I can sit in front of 50 people and talk for 25 minutes. The most amazing thing happened that night when I spoke at that meeting - I got up there on the stage and right before I opened my mouth to say "hey everyone, my name is *** and I'm an alcoholic, this amazing feeling of calm and peacefulness came over me, and I wasn't even nervous. Me, in front of hundreds of people, not nervous - it was amazing.

The title of this post - we always introduce ourselves before we say anything in a meeting - hi my name is ***, this has become automatic. So automatic that it scares me sometimes. So automatic that I have to pay careful attention when I am in reality that I don't introduce myself wrong. Especially on a day like today when the only thing on my mind is AA. Probably 75% (maybe more) of the times that I say my name - the very next thing that rolls off the tongue is - and I'm an alcoholic. Can you imagine if I accidentally did that in the wrong kind of meeting - a work meeting? Eeek.

To tell or not to tell

That's always the question I guess - to tell the truth or not tell the truth - to be who you are or to pretend to be something else - or to pretend not to be something - like an alcoholic for example. How do you pretend not to be that, when it's you and so much of the way you are is colored by the "ism" of it. I struggle with this - being myself. With not feeling like I have to pretend to be different things in different situations. Because in some ways I do have to pretend. My work life and my AA life feel very distinct - so much so that I feel like two different people. At least two different people - maybe more - because there is also my non-work and non-AA life which involves people that I don't work with and who are not in the program - and with these people, some of whom don't know I'm sober - I am someone else completely. I have been trying to figure out how to integrate these versions of myself into something authentic and real.

First I should say that I don't believe that telling the truth is always the best thing to do. I'm not advocating for all out lying - but I think there are truths that shouldn't be told.

Anyway, this little dilemma over truth telling and being myself surrounds my father. We have never been close. I don't really know how to describe my relationship with my dad - it just is, because it's supposed to be, but there isn't a lot of substance to it and there never has been. We aren't close, but we aren't not close - it just is the way it's been. I wonder sometimes how to change it. I would not describe it as an honest relationship - he doesn't really know much about me and I don't really feel like it's that easy to be me around him. I just don't find him easy to talk to, or deal with, or interact with. I think the first time we had a conversation about anything real I was maybe 24. My dad was there the whole time we were growing up - watching - participating - yet he seems to have missed the degree to which our lives were completely and utter dysfunctional.

My dad appears to be living under this illusion that my brother and I are happy, functional, well adjusted people, and I think the illusion makes him feel okay about what happened in our house when we were growing up. He is somehow absolved of it. I'm not saying that my brother and I aren't these things that my dad believes us to be - I'm just saying - there is definitely some illusion to the way my dad sees things. For me anyway - he believes these things because I have a successful career - I must be okay, right? And my dad cannot even seem to comprehend that I could possibly feel unhappy or depressed, even given everything I've been through. I've mentioned this recently to him - feeling unhappy - and his response is something just less than shocked.

Every once in a while I feel the urge to shatter my dad's illusion - I feel like saying - do you know just how fucked up I have been, how many bad relationships I've had, what I've let men do to me, how depressed I've been, how much I hate myself? Do you even have any idea how completely horrible growing up in that house was? I would never say those things to him - but sometimes I want to, because it feels like he got off easy. I know I have talked some about my mother, but she is not the only one who has failed to take responsibility.

Out of a feeling of needing to protect my father's feelings and the illusion that he is living under, and out of a fear of his reaction, I have never told my dad that I'm sober. For two years I have wondered whether to tell him that I don't drink and why and that I've been going to AA meetings for the past two years. The years go by and he knows me less and less - and I've been hiding this huge, incredibly huge part of myself from him. I'm worried he will be devastated. I mean, I wouldn't have a clue about what that's like to have your child tell you something like that. Maybe it's no big deal - I mean these days, recovery is perceived differently than it used to be - but my dad is from a different generation. Not only that but he doesn't understand - he may grasp on some level that it can be genetic - so he may be able to fathom it because I have an alcoholic mother (who is not sober) and grandmother (who died of the disease), but I can tell, based on conversations we've had, that he definitely doesn't get it.

I am worried about a couple of things - mostly that he will be angry and that his opinion of me will change. But at the same - I can't keep living this kind of half truth with him. I'm not being honest about who I am with him and it's getting to me after all these years. Our relationship has always been based on half truths - pretending and hiding and covering things up - a legacy of my childhood (maybe if you don't talk about it isn't true, but definitely, don't let the neighbors find out). That's what my life has always been about on some level. I am finding that I can't do it anymore - and not just with him. I'm going to tell him when I go home on the 13th for my anniversary. I really thought that I would never tell him, but I am going to. It isn't to shatter his illusion or hurt him or upset him. It's so that I can be me around him, finally. I just hope he isn't devastated by who that person is.

We all tell the same story

That's why it works - because the details are different but the story is the same. Your story is my story is everyone else's story. You show up, and over and over again, you hear your own story. Some of us lost everything, some of us lost nothing, but the story is the same. I've been feeling a little anti-AA lately. Not that I would ever stop going or anything, it's just some times I get sick of it. I get sick of the meetings I go to, the people who show up to those meetings, the quality of sobriety there, the gossip, the lying, the bullshit, the drama the chaos. Sometimes I just want to be around women with a lot of sobriety - I mean a lot of sobriety, not a couple of years, but 10, 20 years. I want to be around quality sobriety - not a bunch of people who don't have what I want.

I always feel on the outside here - like I've never been connected the way I should be or the way I was where I'm from. Sometimes I try to reach out more than others, and then I withdraw again. So I was talking to this woman after the meeting on Saturday night, because she said she got sober somewhere else and then moved here. And she was talking about being in the middle of AA, versus being on the edge. I always feel slightly closer to the edge than the middle, but close enough to the middle not to fall off. Anyway, she invited me to this Big Book study that someone has at their house on Friday nights. It's a women's meeting and they are about to start over from the beginning of the book. I used to go to one of those when I first got sober. Of course, every part of me doesn't want to go. But I'm going to - cause there is a lot of sobriety there and I want to see if it's quality.

When I get irritated with the program like this, I change up my meetings. I start seeking whatever it is that I'm looking for - strong women, good, quality, long term sobriety. I went to this meeting this morning that I go to sometimes - there is this woman there that I wanted to see. I like her because she got sober when she was 28 (which is when I got sober), and she is still sober 30 years later. The meeting was great though - the lead outstanding. It was this guy who's 54, used to be in the military, cut off half of his hand in a printing press accident when he was drunk, got sober 22 years ago. My story isn't his story, but it is. He was talking about the pain, the unbearable pain of living, the reason why we drank, the way we try to escape ourselves, because when you drink, you can become anyone. He said the very thing that I said yesterday, that it was all so painful that he used to wish he could just be someone else. The good news is, 22 years later, he doesn't wish for that anymore.

I've spent my whole life wishing

That I were prettier, smarter, funnier, more confident, more successful, more outgoing, shorter, thinner, that my hair was thicker, my torso longer, my legs shorter, my feet smaller, that I did better in school than I did, that I could sing, that I had some kind of talent, that I had never stopped playing the piano, that I had different parents, a different extended family, a different child hood, a different life, different memories, that I wasn't negative and pessimistic, that I didn't have anxiety, that I was married by a certain age, that I had had children by a certain age, that I had children at all, that I had a fairy tale wedding, that I had had something other than a completely dysfunctional relationship with every man I've ever dated, that I wasn't afraid to dance in public, that I wasn't so afraid of what you think of me, that some guy would want to be with me, that I hadn't been so afraid to be alone that I was willing to do anything to keep you, that I didn't hate myself, that I had self respect, that I wasn't afraid to tell the truth, that I hadn't made half the choices that I made, or dated any of the people I had dated, that I could take things back, that I could have been a better friend, a better person, and less selfish, that I hadn't tried so hard to make people like me that I lost myself, that I wasn't afraid to be myself, that I hadn't had breast cancer, that I didn't feel like I was always about to be found out or like the rug was about to be pulled out from under me, that I wasn't afraid to cry in front of people or admit that something is painful, that just once, my mother had shown up for me, that she wasn't an alcoholic, that I could tell my father the truth about being in AA, that I could stop pretending to be things that I'm not, and quit pretending not to be things that I am, that I could just be. All I ever really wanted, was to just be someone else.

Grace

I went to my favorite meeting last night - it's my home group. It's a candlelight meeting. We have a reading, a silent meditation, a lead and then comments. There is just something about this particular meeting - there is a peacefulness to it - maybe it's the candlelight. There is a calm when you walk in the room, an intensity, an intimacy. Last night we were talking about grace. The grace of God - what it looks like and how easy it is to miss it, or to convince yourself that you deserve the bad things that happen and don't deserve the good things. How to open yourself up to it, or receive it, or tune into it.

My understanding of it has changed in the time I've been in AA. I have heard it defined all sorts of ways - that grace is an unexpected and undeserved reprieve for which you owe nothing in return. It is a gift. It is as huge as the fact that I am sitting here writing this, and as small as not having to sit in an airport bar with the head of my group while traveling back from a client meeting last Friday. It is as monumental as the ability to surrender, and as insignificant as having patience while waiting in the slow line at the grocery store. It is everything. It is all around you, if you know what to look for.

I have these days sometimes, like lately - these past few days, where my level of peace and serenity is so much higher than what I consider to be my best days, my average days. It's like being on some other plane of spirituality or something. It's hard to describe. There are just days like this - when I have faith, for no other reason except that I just have faith, and it's powerful, it's stronger than normal and it's pretty strong to begin with. There are days when I just believe that it will be okay - that it is okay and that it's right and that belief is based on nothing other than a feeling of connectedness. It's just a feeling.

On days like today, when I feel such serenity, such peace, I know it is because I have achieved real acceptance - real surrender, however fleeting that may be. And it is fleeing. On the days that I accept everything as it is, just exactly as it is, and I believe that it will be okay, no matter what that means, I am able to see the grace all around me.

And to practice these principles

To practice these principles in all our affairs - step 12. This is what has been on my mind lately - not so much the part of the step about carrying the message - but the part about practicing these principles in all of our affairs. I think people always think of service work when they think of step 12 - but that's only one half of it and it isn't even really the point. Service work is the easy part. It is easy to carry the message but it is difficult to live it. Over and over again I encounter people who do just that - they can talk the talk, but it's all just talk.

It is one thing to be sober in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous - but that isn't reality, or even a close approximation really. It is this safe little cocoon but it isn't reality. It is one thing to show up in the rooms and tell the truth and to have accountability to the people around you - it is something completely different to be an honest person and to take responsibility - for your choices, your past, for the way that you treat and have treated people, and so on. Being accountable to the people outside of the rooms is different. Being sober in the rooms of alcoholics anonymous isn't the same as living your life on a sober basis, by the AA principles. If you never get there, you've missed the point completely and I don't think it takes being on step 12 to practice the principles in all of our affairs.

What the hell is the point of any of this if when you walk out of the room - you don't tell the truth and you don't take responsibility. What about acceptance, faith, willingness, courage, humility, forgiveness, perseverance, patience - all principles of the program - do they translate into the rest of your life, have you, or haven't you really changed? "I had to face the ever-present knowledge that my every action, word and thought, was within or outside, the principles of the program. I could no longer hide behind self-rationalization."

Self-rationalization. One of my favorite things to say when I first got sober was, "yeah, but...." Everything - was a yeah, but - yeah, but I...., yeah, but he...., yeah, but it's not...., yeah, but I don't want..., yeah, but he said.... They told me that the only thing that comes after a "yeah, but" is a lie, a rationalization or a justification. I mention it only because a lot of things have suddenly become clear to me and this speaks to so many things about not sober behavior. The moments of clarity that I do have - when I have them - are sudden. It comes all at once in a burst of realization and you know things will never be the same. You will be unable to ever excuse yourself again - that's the hardest part - that you have no excuse and you know it.

This is how it works

I've been thinking a lot lately about how AA works - mainly because I have been working with two sponsees who are in really early recovery - and in trying to impart the message to them, I spend a lot of time thinking about this. How does it work? Not why, but just how. I've been feeling really good lately, better than I have in a long time actually. It can only be because I am working with these two women and have been working the program even more diligently than normal, and in so doing, I feel my life and myself changing, rather rapidly. I have experienced these times in my program where I stagnate for a while, and then something pushes me back into action and things change quickly and then I stagnate again. I think I am just entering a period of rapid growth, brought on by the pain of living the same and the desperation of wanting the relief that I know is possible. I really don't know why it works, but it does work.

One thing I learned from my sponsor is that I shouldn't tell a sponsee to do something if I am not also going to do it. This means that I've been going to more meetings than I normally do, being more honest, praying more sincerely and more often, reading the literature more...I do the things I tell them to do - they may not do them, but I do them. I can tell them how to stay sober - and when I do - that almost guarantees that I stay sober. They may not stay sober - but I will. That's how it works when you carry the message. In some ways, it is a selfish thing - you have to give it away to keep as they always say. Not only that, but I've had to change some behavior - I can't very well tell a sponsee to stop doing X, while I go do Y, when Y is just as harmful to me as X is to her. So - I stopped doing Y, just like that. It's no wonder I feel better. You have to do something different to get a different result.

I find it frustrating sometimes though - trying to convince someone that it works - how to articulate it, how to make them believe you, how to get them to try anyway. All I can do is be an example of the fact that it works. I mean - the odds of me staying sober through moving to another state, changing jobs, surviving breast cancer and marrying and divorcing my boyfriend in my first 15 months of sobriety - the odds of me getting sober and staying sober through that - were 0%. I am a walking miracle by all accounts and I have nothing but humility about that. I had nothing to do with it. It was the miracle of the program and the miracle of how it works.

The thing about how it works is that the Big Book gives us very specific instructions. I used to sit in meetings and listen to the reading of "How it Works" and hear the words but not hear them. It probably took hundreds and hundreds of readings of these paragraphs before the words meant anything to me. Today, I love to hear how it works at the beginning of a meeting. I like to close my eyes and listen to the words as someone reads them. I like to really hear them - process them, think about what they mean. There are things contained in how it works that I remind myself of on a daily basis - the things that are the key to this program that were lost on me in really early sobriety. I've written about some of them below, though I haven't included the entire thing - just a few key things that I wanted to point out to someone.

This is how it works from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 58-60 . "Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path." It doesn't say - you might succeed or sometimes it works. It says, "Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path." It says thoroughly - that means completely, not partially.

"Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault. They seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest." Rigorous honesty - the half truth is not enough. You have to be brutally honest. You have to tell the truth.

"If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it - then you are ready to take certain steps." Willing to go to any length - that means willing to go to any length. That means I must be willing to work this program thoroughly - completely - not partially. I must literally be willing to do absolutely anything that is required. - as if my life depends on it - because it does. Anything short of "willing to go to any length" will not be enough.

"We thought we could find an easier softer way. But we could not." This is the easier softer way, trust me.

"Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely." I have to let go of my old ideas - that means my thinking and my behaviors - and try it another way. You have to do something different to get a different result. I have to let go completely, not partially. Anything short of completely will not be enough. The result is nil until you let go absolutely. That means you do what you don't want to do, even when you don't want to do it. You do it anyway. You do it just because. You have to surrender to it.

"Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point." This is the most important part. Half of the effort does not get you half of the reward. Half measures get you nothing. Half measures will get you drunk and if you don't stay sober you can't change. And if you don't change, you won't stay sober. I have to let go absolutely and surrender, I have to work this program thoroughly and completely and with the willingness to do absolutely anything necessary to save my own life. I have to tell the truth while doing it.

"We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection." It is progress, not perfection. I don't have permission to beat myself up for not doing this perfectly.

"Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas: (a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives; (b) that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism; (c) that God could and would if He were sought." This last paragraph - it says the same thing that it does at the beginning. It doesn't say, God might help you. It says "God could and would." Here's the catch though - it says "if He were sought." You have to seek Him (or Her). It also doesn't say that if you seek God, you might be relieved of the desire to drink. What it actually says is that if you seek God, God will relieve your alcohol-ISM.

Who here is fooled?

I am not an optimistic person. I'm just not. Not at all really. I consider it a character defect, and I work on it. I am mentioning this because this post that I am about to write - it could be a totally different post - it just depends on my perspective. This post could be about what a great and wonderful life I have and how I owe it all to AA. It could be hopeful and happy - but my natural state isn't either of these things and I tend to come at things, I guess I would say, from a darker angle, from the down side - it is all in my approach. Tomorrow I may write that post about how great and wonderful my life is and how I wouldn't trade it in for another life. Sometimes I actually do feel that way. But this is not that post. This isn't the direction from which I am looking at the moment. It could just be the time of year. The fall makes me sad. I got sober in the fall two years ago, the holidays are never happy and it is just a time of reflection for me.

I have had some hesitation to post about just anything and everything lately. I have a sponsee reading this blog - which is fine of course, but I have such hope for her that I don't want to ruin it with my lack of optimism. Sometimes I feel like I am supposed to be this great example of how to work the AA program. Sometimes I am that. Sometimes I fall short of that. Other times, I just fail at that completely. Sometimes I don't try all that hard. I am supposed to be happy, joyous and free - those are the things that we are supposed to want and get from AA. Happy, joyous and free. At the moment I feel like a bad example of those things and I don't want to discourage her. But this blog is the one and only place in my life that I don't censor myself, so I can't start now just for her sake.

Sometimes I worry that we in AA have all fooled ourselves and each other, and that she will find out that we are all just a bunch of fakers and then she will pretend right along with us, maybe, hopefully. Sometimes I think we have actually fooled ourselves to such a degree that we do really believe anything is possible. When in fact, what I feel like telling her, is that this is still just life, and it is difficult and sad and disappointing. I worry sometimes that this amazing life that we tell each other is possible - it is just fiction - it is something we have imagined up for ourselves and we talk all about it like it is happening all around us, because we all need something to hang on to or to look forward to - without which this really would be intolerable wouldn't it? What I should probably remind her of - is that those things - the happy, joyous and free part of life - those things are a choice. That really is the answer to all of this - it lies in what you choose for yourself and this is all about learning how to choose differently.

I do feel those things sometimes, happy, I have even posted about what those times feel like - but my default is laced with negativity and for me to live in a state of serenity, contentment, happiness and hope - requires a very deliberate effort. It is no secret that my mood fluctuates rapidly and that I might wake up tomorrow feeling completely the opposite. It is probably silly really to even post right now, while I feel this way, because I know that it is fleeting. I have learned to pay little attention to my moment to moment feelings because I know they change. But I do think sometimes that even in those moments of optimism and hopefulness, and happiness - what underlies those things is still the same because I am still me.

I have been trying for a while to figure out why I'm unhappy. Is it chemical - should I try taking something again even though it didn't work? Would I just be fooling myself? What is this thing that we all talk about in AA that I have posted about before - a more amazing life than anything you ever could imagine? What is that? A life beyond your wildest dreams. What is that? People always talk about getting these things. I think I have figured it out, and this is going to sound horribly negative probably, but again, tomorrow I might write a different post about the exact same thing. What you get is just a life, no more amazing than the next one, or maybe you get to keep the one you had, and maybe it seems amazing and beyond your wildest dreams, but that is only because you have learned to adjust your expectations - or rather, you have been forced to. Maybe you have let go of your expectations completely. Suddenly what looked intolerable, seems more amazing than anything you could have hoped for. But what underlies it is really the same and it is still disappointing.

My life - it isn't what I expected. Sure, it is amazing, if I look at it independently of those expectations. If you expected nothing, how could you be disappointed? You wouldn't be. This is about changing yourself to meet conditions, that's all. This is about acceptance. You can be happy under any circumstances, you just have to accept it whatever it is. Is my life better than it was 2 years ago when I came into AA? Yes, infinitely. Is it very much the same as it was 2 years ago. Yes. I live in a different city and I have a different job and make a lot more money, but my life is the same. It looks different, drastically in some ways, because I have done just what AA tells you to do - change yourself and your expectations to meet conditions over which you have no control. I think I fool myself sometimes into believing that I have really let go of the things I thought I wanted out of life, but I haven't. I have glimpses of what it is like to feel happy with a life that does not include those things - that does not include finding a man or having children - but I am not actually okay with that. So the happiness is only fleeting and it feels fake to me. It feels contrived.

People have never been able to understand why I would be unhappy with the life that I have - because I have a great job and good career and I'm financially successful - those are the things that other people focus on because those are the things you can easily see. That is only a matter of someone comparing their insides to my outsides though. Trust me - my insides don't match my outsides. It isn't that I am unhappy necessarily. Of course I am grateful, tremendously. I guess I do have AA to thank for the happiness that I do have because it is AA that has enabled me to shift my perspective at all. I am not unhappy with what my life is, I am not disappointed when I think about it. I am not ungrateful. But I am unhappy with what it isn't, and I am definitely disappointed.

It still looks the same

So I have been taking this trip down memory lane - and it is, well, it is acutely painful. I keep reading these old emails - we are talking hundreds of emails - daily emails recounting every detail of the journey. I can't stop reading them. It is fascinating. It is just fascinating to feel what I feel at the moment, which is raw, and to read this story of my life. And it reads very much like a story. The honesty strikes me because I am not all that honest of a person, or I wasn't - but I am in the privacy of these emails. I am incredibly honest. I always find the truth there.

Anyway, when I read this below, I thought - some things never change. Some things, like the fear, the loneliness, abandonment, the self-hatred - mostly the fear, running, from yourself. I stayed sober for 35 days initially, and the last time I drank was December 13, 2005. What I included below is what I wrote to my friend just hours before I walked into the hotel bar. I feel it all, right now, with the same intensity. These are the things I still write about - the things that I am afraid of, the things I seek relief from.

December 13, 2005

“I think my panic about this is mostly over going out tonight. Plus I haven't seen this guy in 2.5 years - and we dated twice, so that will be weird. It's incredibly powerful fear. The thought that I am going to drink coupled with the feeling that I can't stop myself - it literally scares the absolute shit out of me. It is terrifying in a way that I can't even explain. I hope that I get it this time and I stop making plans like this. It is this kind of fear that finally got me to get powerlessness in the way that I think is actually required in order to give into to this program.

That night before Thanksgiving when I thought - I'm going to drink and I don't want to, and if I can't drink and I can't stop myself, I would rather die - I had new found appreciation for this. Until that night I was not sure. I mean, I believed I had a problem, but I didn't understand. Yet I still can't seem to get the choice part. Of course I'm choosing to drink tonight. I've set myself up to do it and to be able to blame it on the circumstances. And that's just a completely alcoholic way of doing it though isn't it? It's too easy, cause I can blame it on someone or something else. The thing is, I don't want to drink tonight. I've never not wanted to drink so bad in my entire life.

I'm scared I think. I have been for days. It's why this past weekend was so hard. I usually don't identify fear like this. I hate admitting this kind of thing. I hate admitting to being afraid. But I'm afraid to let go of this. I liked that numb feeling more than I realized. I'm afraid to live without it. I mean, I know I've been managing so far, but I've also been stuffing a lot of my feelings from the past. And I am afraid to feel any of them. I'm terrified of it. I just remember that when I was feeling some of it, it was so bad that I thought it could kill me. I'm afraid to even try. I'm afraid of being alone when it happens. I scare myself when I'm alone.

I'm afraid that I'll never feel okay about myself as long as no one else wants me. I'm afraid I'm always going to feel bad about myself in that way. That whole, what's wrong with me? What's so horrible about me? I'm afraid of not being me and afraid of being me at the same time. Of never being able to connect with anyone. I'm afraid that my attachments will always be what they are, which is non-existent and that I will always be running so that I don't get left. Always running, always leaving, always detaching. Because leaving is not like being left. There is something different about it.

I have a surface kind of closeness with a lot of people. At a glance I have really close friends but I am not intertwined with them. There is a serious disconnect between me and other people. My friend Andy – the friend who told me 3 weeks ago that he didn't care about me and wasn't going to be my friend anymore - guess how much I cared? Not at all. I was angry for a day because he made that decision not really understanding my circumstances - and then once the anger dissipated, I had no reaction. I literally didn't care and this was a person I had known for 8 years - we were really pretty "close." It is like I said - literally as if he was never in my life at all. Like he slipped out unnoticed and there isn't anything left behind. I have everything and everyone neatly compartmentalized - safe in their own box. Now I just need to stuff you into yours and I'm good.”

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

Coming to terms

I like anniversaries of things. They are milestones - markers in time against which I judge both progress and failure. In a couple of days, it will be the anniversary of the second to last time I ever drank. That was October 5, 2005. It probably seems insignificant, or like something I wouldn't want to remember - however, it is actually critical that I never forget what this night was like. The second to last time I ever drank matters to me greatly, as does the last night I ever drank. The second to last night, was the night that landed me in AA. The last night I ever drank, is the night that kept me there.

As I mentioned, I have been talking to someone new - or I guess I should say - someone who is just trying to figure it all out. It is fascinating actually to be on this side of it because I remember, and very vividly, what it was like to come into AA. A friend from ACOA who was sober 12-stepped me. It took a few weeks - almost a month. A month of conversations that took place mostly on email - me trying to figure it out, much like this friend is, and him just guiding me through the process as I tried to identify and come to terms with what was and wasn't true about me.

The fascinating thing about this process - of me coming into AA, of realizing the truth about myself, of admitting to it - is that I have a written record. I've saved every recovery related email that I exchanged with this person. From the very first email in which I questioned my behavior - right up until, well, today. Between all of the emails and this blog that I have been writing for a year now, I have the story of my recovery. Nearly every last detail of everything I thought or felt or did in this process called recovery is recorded. It is vivid, it is descriptive, it is incredibly honest, it is painful, depressing, sad, heartbreaking, hopeful, inspiring, and amazing all at the same time. I am incredibly grateful that I have this journal/story-like version of my sobriety and my recovery. I feel lucky to have that.

Every once in a while I pull those emails out and read them - around now, around my sobriety date, around my birthday. What was I doing, what did it feel like, what did I think about it? Have I changed? She and I have been talking about what it's like to come to terms with the truth about yourself - to see your past behavior in a different light, in a more honest light (which is what you see as the denial lifts away - you see the truth), and what it is like to admit that truth about yourself. What it is like to say I am an alcoholic, what it is like to admit it, to accept it, to surrender to it. So what I'm posting below is really for the benefit of my friend who is trying to figure it all out. This is just a very tiny excerpt of hundreds of emails.

October 25, 2005
"I started reading the big book from the beginning - I'm on page 38, I have 126 to go until the stories start - and I've already found things that pertain to me. I'M FREAKING OUT NOW. I don't want to read this book anymore. I can't breathe. I feel like I am going to have a panic attack. How many times have I said - once I start, I can't stop and I don't know why? And how many times have I said I drink more than I want to all the time? When I say that - why don't you - say - HELLO HELLO HELLO. "Potential problem" here.

Okay breathe. I don't think I have a problem like other people have a problem, BUT, I think I might have the potential for a problem, if not a teeny weeny very small sized problem that I really wasn't aware of until I decided to stop. Cause I can't stop thinking about it and I just want to go do it, for some unknown reason, shit, I don't know. I can't even explain it to you. But it's like I just have to do it - I am honestly surprised that I have made it 3 weeks and that just sounds really bad. I don't think "normal" people feel this way or would have this much trouble. I personally would prefer to rely on the opinions of others? Do you think I have a problem? Do I sound like I have a problem? I think I might have a tiny sized problem. Although - I have to say, I am managing it rather well."

He wrote me back and later that day I responded:

"Okay, I would say, objectively, the person you are talking about has a problem, perhaps not a huge one, but a problem nonetheless. But I don't see how this could have happened. I HAVE BEEN SOOOOOOOO CAREFUL AND SO OVERLY AWARE. This is making me feel sick. I DON'T WANT TO HAVE THIS PROBLEM. I HATE MY MOTHER AND HER MOTHER. I HATE THIS RECOVERY SHIT. I WAS BETTER OFF BEFORE WHEN I WAS LIVING IN OBLIVION. Okay, I don't mean any of that - I mean about recovery or before. Cause I am way better off now than I was even a month ago - cause a month ago - I was too blind to even realize that I might be headed in a bad direction.

I told my brother this evening before the meeting that I was freaking out about this after I started reading that damn book. His jaw dropped, initially, and then he said duh - quit drinking. DUH - QUIT DRINKING. DUH. Because I'd been lying to him you know about my recent activities, until tonight. I told him I was having a problem stopping and that it was not easy. And he was just standing there looking at me as if to say - are you a fucking idiot? Get it together. NOW.

Why is this so hard? Can I say - okay maybe I shouldn't drink, but not actually admit to having a problem? Cause the thing is, I would feel bad admitting that. Or can I say - I only have a wee sized problem - so not really a problem.

Wow am I hung up on this, aren't I? To be totally serious for a second. This is what I think - I think that I have a serious predisposition to having this problem and even though I have not had anything really bad happen I am headed in a bad direction and to the extent that I am having difficulty with this, with stopping, with controlling myself and wanting to drink for totally wrong reasons - then I do have a problem, though a mild one at this point. However not severe it might be, I want to stop before I can't stop. Seriously, I want to stop. I have sworn my entire life that I would not go down this road and I would never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever let this happen to me or hurt anyone in the way that my mother hurt us. I have promised myself that so many times. I have to stop while I can. I can't let this happen. I have to tell you, this is really scaring me - the way I feel, the way I feel such a lack of control, I'm really really scared."

The truth is, I laugh when I read these emails today - I laugh because it is so obvious to me that I am totally an alcoholic and that the things that I was doing and thinking at the time were so completely alcoholic. At the time though - I thought I could outsmart this disease. I thought that I had no so much knowledge and self-awareness that it simply could not be the truth about me. Because if it were, I had been completely blind. Admitting it was not easy. Even now sometimes, admitting it is not easy. I feel ashamed sometimes about it. There are times even now when I don't want this to be the truth about me, in a desperate kind of way, I don't want it to be the truth - but it is. It is the truth about me.

"But the actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge." Big Book, page 39.

As it slips between my fingers

Can you even imagine - throwing it away? What that would be like - to throw away two years of hard (and I do mean hard, and did I mention extraordinarily painful) earned sobriety? It is hard for me to believe that there could be a thing I couldn't get through sober - or that I wouldn't want to get through sober. After all, I managed to move t0 another state, change jobs (and it's a stressful job), get married, live in a dysfunctional relationship, while surviving breast cancer, and then get divorced - all in my first year of sobriety. So can you imagine throwing it away and starting over - and for what? A night, a drink, two, three, one night of obliteration? That is assuming the next day you walk back into an AA meeting - which seems less and less likely the longer I stay sober. I drank once after coming into AA - on day 35. I have a hell of a lot more to lose now than I did on day 35.

I'm still reeling from last night. I just see how easily it can slip between your fingers. I can understand how someone can show up and say they drank after 15 years and they don't know what happened. Of course it is possible to pinpoint exactly what led to it - but I understand what they are saying when they say that. When I imagine that happening to me - it feels just like that - like an accident almost. Like I would just order something as if it were no big deal. I know that it is a choice of course and everything AA that I do is meant to ensure that in that moment, like last night - I am able to make a right choice. But damn, how easily it would have been to just make the wrong one. It literally terrifies me. It terrifies me, because sometimes in those moments - the voice in my head - it isn't loud enough. The cunning, baffling and powerful part of this disease - as it refers to it in "How It Works," tells me in those moments that maybe it wouldn't be that bad to start over. Sometimes it's just a matter of which voice is louder in my head and honestly, last night, the voice telling me to be careful where my head was going - sounded more like a whisper.

You know what happened I think - I went into last night - thinking I've got this together. I can do this. This is easy - the staying sober part is easy, living is hard, but just not drinking is easy. No it isn't. Not all the time. I've been talking to someone new a lot - which is the best thing to keep you sober - I've been praying, reading - I do the things I need to do, or so I think. And then a night like last night, is well, it is humbling I guess. Maybe I have been lacking in humility lately. I honestly have to say that if it weren't for the woman I've been talking to this past week or so - and particularly the conversation we had yesterday via chat before I went out - I literally don't know if I would have stayed sober. I just can't say that I feel confident about that. It very well might be that this almost stranger who is very quickly becoming a good friend I hope, saved my sobriety last night. This is the program in action. This is how it works. You can't do this alone - as people always say - it is a "we program." We stay sober, I get drunk. Is it a coincidence that a friend put me in touch this woman who was looking for someone to talk to about ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) on the day my mother called me to ask for money? I doubt it. I do think people show up in our lives reasons. I owe my life to so many people who have kept me sober over the past almost two years. My gratitude, it is overflowing.

Intersecting

Sometimes it feels like my worlds collide - like the different versions of myself can't exist in a room at the same time. I usually feel a degree of compartmentalization in my life. The work me, the sober me - they are not the same people. They don't do they same things or operate with the same degree of confidence. They exist in wholly different worlds and every once in a while these different versions of me intersect, momentarily. What happens when I have to be the lawyer me in a social situation, while sober? It can only be described as uncomfortable and awkward. In this particular situation, when my worlds intersect, I have neither the comfort of being a sober person at an AA meeting, nor the comfort of being in my office and great at my job. I have the discomfort of being me, and a not so confident me, and I am overly aware of just how uncomfortable it feels because I don't have alcohol to take the edge off.

Very rarely do I put myself in situations that trigger this level of discomfort. I just don't like to feel that uncomfortable. I stick to what I know - AA meetings and my job. My social life consists of mostly AA these days. I like it that way actually. It feels safe. Though I do think I need to venture outside of AA and back into reality here soon. I fail every time to fully appreciate in advance just how draining social situations that involve alcohol are on me. I go into it thinking - I haven't seen these people in a while - I've been sober long enough, surely I can handle a dinner without getting all fucked up in my head. Surely I can watch people drink all night and be unaffected. Surely I can enjoy dinner and not think about alcohol literally every single second of the entire dinner. Wrong. It's just not so. I think I probably spent at least 3/4 of today thinking about alcohol and how I wasn't going to drink any. You might think - well if you knew you weren't going to drink any, why did you spend 3/4 of the day thinking about it?

I went out to dinner tonight with some people I used to work with at a firm I worked at when I was in law school. I guess I would characterize these people as more my friends than colleagues, though I haven't seen them in a few years. They are people that I drank with, definitely, but I wouldn't say I drank a ton with them. They were more my friends than they were people I drank with. Yet I do associate them with alcohol in some ways - because they are friends from my previous life. There was drinking, like I expected. There was commentary, though light commentary on why I wasn't drinking, like I expected. There was a lot of talk about alcohol, like I expected.

I would be lying if I said I didn't think about it - well obviously, since I said above that I thought about it all day. I thought about what it would be like - what it would feel like to have that wave of ease come over me. I thought about how stressed I feel generally lately and what that relief would be like. I thought about what it would feel like to feel more comfortable in the situation, to feel more like myself or like I could be myself. That feeling of being uncomfortable in your own skin. I thought about it right down to what I would order, Frangelico, red wine, a mojito? All three? I even had the thought - but no one would know. No one would find out. I would even say that went so far as to contemplate ordering something. And though this thought was fleeting, I still thought it. That feeling that you get, when you drink - that is without a doubt my favorite feeling in the world.

There is a reason I stay out of these situations. It is next to impossible to endure one without my mind going there. My instinct, when I am uncomfortable, is to look for relief. Whenever I do have one of these experiences - it really scares me actually. By the time I get home - I usually feel like I've been run over by a truck. I just don't feel right for days. It just reminds me that this gift that I have - it is fragile. I realize how easily I could go there - just in a split second I might make the wrong choice. Now granted it's a lot easier to make the right choice after being in the program for two years, however, this is meaningless really when it comes to the power of this disease. And why would I ever even consider it at this point? Simply because I am an alcoholic. It's what I think about - how to get some artificial relief from myself.

Unfortunately - I tend to beat myself up for days after these situations. Thinking - I can't believe you thought about that. I can't believe you entertained it like that, fantasized about it, when you know better than to let your head go there...what if you had done it - what if you couldn't have stopped yourself? Have you lost your mind? Sometimes, though not always, when I am in these situations, I feel like I am playing with fire. I feel like my life is at stake when I am in these situations, and you know what, it is. It's a life and death choice that I make every day.

Sometimes I think that I am less an alcoholic than other people - my life doesn't look like my mother's for example. All it takes is one dinner like this to remind me that I am not immune. The point anyway though - is that I didn't drink. I might have thought about it, entertained the idea, fantasized about what I would order, imagined what it would feel like, but I didn't do it.

What trying to forget about it looks like

I threw on some clothes and a hat and went to Target. I went there to buy water, a toothbrush and soap. I didn't need anything. I wandered the entire store. Thirty-two dollars later, I cried in the parking lot. I drove home. I thought about what I would wear later and whether I would buy a new pair of jeans.

The real test of whether I care is how much effort I put into what I look like. You know - they say - you have to look nice everywhere you go to have any hope of finding anyone. I think Target is an exception. Any guy pushing a cart around Target has to be there with his significant other. But that's what people say - you shouldn't go to the grocery store in your pajamas. I always put way too much effort into what I look like when I go to weekend meetings. Weekdays I look okay because I look nice for work. But the test of whether I care or not, would be if I went to the meeting tonight wearing what I wore to Target. Then I would know that I didn't care. But instead I am contemplating a new outfit.

I like to be out and about in the early morning in Chicago - no cars on the road, no people. It's nice to feel like you are the only one out in a city of millions. I can see why people get up really early and go down the street for coffee. It is peaceful in the city early in the morning on a weekend. I like to walk over to State Street from my house. But today I think I'll just drive over there and park at my office. It is peaceful though, before the people come out.

I have to say, that I used to think a toothbrush was just a toothbrush - I've never been into the fancy ones. But today, I bought a kind of snazzy one (due to the limited supply available this morning) - and I have to admit, brushing my teeth with it was like a whole new experience. Seriously - kind of wild actually.

So I have this thing for trying anti-wrinkle products - to reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles and to improve skins elasticity blah blah marketing blah. I am a total sucker for this because I am terrified of getting old. Why? Because I think that the older I get/look, the less likely I am to find someone. Do you notice a theme here? This should be the - I have no self-esteem and therefore date only assholes, can't seem to break myself of the pattern which makes me like myself less and by the way I am obsessed with worry over never finding a guy who wants me - blog. But that would just be depressing. Anyway - I am trying 3 right now. I know - I should try them one by one for say 4-6 weeks at time. I should be an official product tester. People laugh at me if I tell them that I try all these different products - they always say - but you don't have any fines lines or wrinkles. Aha - precisely - what if these products are working? I use these products on the same theory that many people believe in God. Just on the off chance that it turns out in the end that there happens to be a God, well, you will be better off if you believed in it. I can't stop using these products now - they might be effective. Stopping would be like the following, well sort of - I got an email from the hospital that I went through cancer treatment at - asking me if I wanted to participate in a study. It says - soy may help to prevent breast cancer/breast cancer recurrence. Are you willing to abstain from soy products for 6 months? Hell no. I'm going to eat it just in case.

I don't like to drive by the Greyhound station at night. Sometimes I forget and accidentally go that way on my way home from Target - when I spend a weekend night there wandering the isles.

Diet Coke with lime is good, but I can't drink the vanilla kind. I used to drink vanilla vodka with Diet Coke. Gag. There are certain things, flavors, that I will never be able to stomach again.

I have been getting some strange and interesting hits on my blog lately. I like to look at the statcounter and see what kinds of searches land people here. Thanks to my recent posts, apparently if you search "negative manipulative mother" you find me. And if you search things relating to dating in sobriety you find me too. God help you if you are newly sober and thinking about dating and you find this blog. God help you if you have been sober a while and are thinking about dating - especially if you are thinking about dating a guy in the program. In my experience, which has not been good - they are pretty much effed up. Now I suppose the same could be said about the women. I of course like to think that I am not all that effed up on the scale of effedupness.

Do you think honesty comes in degrees? Or is it all or nothing? Can I say I am 90% honest with my sponsor - or does that mean I am not honest at all? Is that like saying you are not 100% sober - in other words, it doesn't count? I may have to have a fessing up session with my sponsor here shortly. The sins of omission are eating away at my serenity. What serenity?

I think it may actually be the case that the more money you make, the less it seems like enough.

Have I been thinking about my mother or have I been able to forget about it? Only every other thought - in between every other weird thing that has gone through my head in the past half hour. I fluctuate between feeling okay about it and feeling bad about it. I haven't heard from her in a couple of days - and I may never again - I've thought about that possibility. And it's okay if I never hear from her again. But the fall makes me sad - that's for my next post...

Standing my ground, while she whittles away at me

I told my mother no. She started crying, begging, pleading, begging. She did a little explaining - but I couldn't really make sense of it - only that she had lied - clearly - about some things she told me yesterday. I let the conversation go on far too long - something I am guilty of doing with her. I never quite seem to back out of a conversation with her before damage is done. Our conversations always head in the direction of recovery - me pleading with her - why don't you get it? Why don't you get help? Why don't you get sober? Why don't you go to a meeting? Why, why, why don't you get it? Why don't you see reality? WHY DO YOU NOT GET IT? WHY DO YOU FUCKING NOT GET IT? You fucking have a choice in this - why don't you get that? You are the cause of the misery that is your life - not me, not dad, not your mother - you. WHY DON'T YOU GET IT? I feel like I am banging my head against a wall.

I want her to get it. I need her to get it. What I want for me - is for her to accept responsibility. What I want for her is another chance. I want her to know that she doesn't have to be miserable. I want her to know what it's like to be happy. I need her to get it.

I probably said things today that I shouldn't have. Things that were harsh, but true - but probably didn't need to be said. I told her that if I gave her the money, it would mean the end of our relationship. I told her that I was done participating - that I was making a better choice for myself and choosing to no longer participate. It was very clear that if I would give her the money - she would rather have that than any hope of salvaging something between us. My mother would choose the money. Interestingly, she hasn't called my brother.

The were multiple phone calls. Multiple calls to my sponsor. My sponsor is really adamant that I stand my ground. If it weren't for her, I would have given in already. The only concession my sponsor offered was to tell her I would pay the bill directly to the creditor, provided she checked into a treatment program. She said no.

She said she guessed she always thought that you should help the people you care about. One time I confronted her about how she helps other people but has never helped my brother or I. Her response was - my friends tell me that I am such a caring, loving and giving person. I don't know why I'm not that way with my children. I don't know either.

She called me again, and left me a drunken voice mail - the content of which was how her demise has nothing to do with her being an alcoholic. Denial might be the most powerful thing I've witnessed - next to this disease of alcoholism.

I think she may literally lose everything she has. Why do I feel like the horrible kid she always told me I was? What makes me the most upset is that she believes that. She believes that I am a bad person - that I treated her poorly and inappropriately. She used to always say - I can't believe how horribly my children have treated me their entire lives. She probably believes that I am the most horrible person she has ever known. Why does that still affect me? Why isn't it enough that I don't believe that about myself? Does it make a difference how much money it is - does that affect how horrible of a person I am? If it were $500 - would it make me horrible - more horrible than if it were $5,000? She asked me for $2,000. It makes me feel worse that I can easily afford to give it to her, I just don't want to.

If anything, I feel more sad for her than I do angry.

The last straw

I'll start this story with gratitude for the fact that I am sober and that the misery that I am about to write about is not my misery - that the story I am about to tell, by the grace of God, will never be my story. It is my mother's story and her present descent into alcoholic misery and death, and I am powerless to stop it.

I have posted only a little about her and about my childhood. She is an alcoholic. She has been drinking since I was 2. She has never gotten help, never been to an AA meeting, never been sober. She is an angry, mean, bitter, resentful, negative, manipulative, lying alcoholic. I am not judging her, it is just a fact. I was the same person right before I came into AA. In fact, that is how I landed in AA when I did - I realized that I had become the very thing I had tried so hard not to be, which was like my mother.

She has basically treated me terribly my entire life. We have always had a horrible relationship. Today I am able to engage with her, but that's because I limit my interactions and pay attention to my part of the relationship as AA tells me to do. What I remember of my childhood is this - she drank, what seemed like every day. She passed out, what seemed like every day, by 5:30. My parents hated each other. They fought, they yelled, they screamed, they manipulated each other and pulled us into the middle of it. My mother lied about drinking while hiding alcohol in the bottom of two liter pop bottles in the basement. She lied and lied and denied all of it. She called me names and yelled at me. She used to tell me that I was the most selfish and ungrateful person she had ever known in her entire life (I was about 10). She used to tell me that no one ever did anything for me because they wanted to - they only did things for me because they had to or I forced them to. She used to tell me all the time that I was manipulative. She used to tell me all the time that she hated me and that I treated her terribly.

My parents didn't tell me that they loved me. They didn't hug me. They didn't play games with me or do anything with me really. I played alone in my room or out in the yard with my imaginary family - trying my best to avoid her. I had one friend - all my life, until I was 18 - I had one real friend. They were not emotionally supportive, they did not love us unconditionally - there was always a condition attached. My mother used to get drunk and fall down the stairs a lot, or fall in other places of the house and my brother and I had to take responsibility for her. I was afraid of both of them. That is what I remember of my childhood. My mother has never apologized. She has never taken responsibility for any of it or owned up to anything except for being an alcoholic (and though she admits it, she does not take responsibility for it). She has only ever blamed my father for her misery and her alcoholism - believing that someone else is to blame for all of it. Indirectly she has blamed my brother and I. If not for the whole of her life's misery - for bits and pieces of it. Somehow I was to blame, because when she used to say I hate you, I would say, I hate you too. To this day she still tells me that she never cared whether she had children.

When I was 11 I told my 5th grade teacher that something was wrong at my house - I didn't quite understand what and I don't remember exactly what I told her, but shortly after my teacher and my parents came to me and wanted to know why I was lying. I never asked for help again. I just waited, in my bedroom, for the years to pass by so that I could get out of there.

My mother had a horrible childhood herself. She grew up with an alcoholic mother who treated her surprisingly like my mother treated me. Does that give her an excuse? No more than it gives me one. Frequently as an adult she has told me the following: "I know I was a terrible mother, but that's your problem now."

All my life, my mother seemed to be a functional alcoholic. I never really saw her as having material consequences. The only consequence seemed to be that she alienated and destroyed her relationship with her children. My parents did get divorced 7 years ago - so I guess she lost her marriage - but it wasn't something that she wanted anyway. She always managed to keep a job and friends, never wrecked a car, never got a DUI even though she used to drive drunk with us in the car all the time when we were kids - she managed to keep up appearances and really, to this day, we don't know who knew what when, though my dad's family now claims to have known she was an alcoholic. No one, even my father, really tried to help us. When I was a kid, I would pray that she would get into an accident but not hurt anyone, so that she might be forced to get some help.

When do we get sober? When we hit a bottom. Mine was purely emotional. I hated myself and I wanted to die and I was so unhappy that I didn't think I could continue to live my life. My mother hasn't hit her bottom I guess, though I expect it is about to hit her. I talked to her once though about what I call my bottom - the pain and the misery that I experienced before and when I came into the program. She called me one day crying, telling me how horrible she felt and how miserable and sad and depressed she was. It was perhaps the only time in my life that I have ever talked to her from a place of "sameness" - when I said - believe me when I tell you, that I understand, like only we can, the misery you are going through. That was the day I told her that I was sober and that AA changed my life. That was a year and a half ago. I have talked to her about recovery to no avail. We talk very infrequently these days.

Her financial situation has been bad since my parents divorce. It could have been decent - she screwed my dad for everything he had and then threw it away in a business that was doomed to fail. She has asked me for money many times - sometimes I have given it to her, sometimes I haven't - but I, or someone else, has bailed her out repeatedly. She owes me money right now in fact. My mother would argue that you help family no matter what. Except that this never applied to her helping my brother and I - she never has, not once with anything - particularly during our adult lives. She didn't even offer me one bit of help when I had breast cancer or even offer to come see me.

My mother called me today and asked me for money. And in the best display of emotional black mail she could muster - told me that I have a choice not to give it to her and that she will love me anyway if I don't - and by the way, she also says - that she has recently come to realize that I never got the attention that I should have. It's too little too late, and notice the distinct lack of an apology for any of her behavior. My mother's financial situation is not good - but we don't know how bad it is. I think she is on quite a steep downhill that ends in her losing everything she has. It isn't the bottom I had hoped for her. My mother would say that the circumstances of her life are not due to her alcoholism. She does not get it and I am afraid the denial is impenetrable.

If I give her the money, am I enabling her? Am I prolonging the misery before she hits bottom? Am I contributing to her failure? Am I obligated to help her?

Would I rather deal with the blinding rage that I will feel if I give it to her? Or the guilty way that I will feel as her life crumbles around her and she blames me for it?

Which feels less bad? Does that matter? Because either way, I think I want this to be the end of my relationship with my mother. Is that wrong? Am I the horrible person that she always told me I was because I don't want to help her and I don't want anything to do with her?

I don't know what to do.

My mother is dying a miserable and alcoholic death.

I think of her pain and misery and it makes me more grateful than I can even tell you for my sobriety. Thank God I got to AA when I did and that my bottom was what it was. This is a miserable, painful, horrible disease to die from.

"There but for the grace of God go I."