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.
Showing posts with label Step 1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Step 1. Show all posts
Monday, February 18, 2008
Monday, October 01, 2007
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
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
Sunday, September 30, 2007
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 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.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, September 28, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
The great obsession of every abnormal drinker
I thought about drinking a couple of days ago (I may post later about why, etc.), hence I have selected a few things from the Big Book that I was reading just now on Step 1, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. Today, even more so than most days, I am incredibly grateful to still be sober. If ever I question whether or not I might actually be an alcoholic (which is where my head has been the past few days), all I have to do is read the Big Book. I related to these words the first time I read them. There was great fear involved in this initial read of the Big Book, but now there is comfort - because I am reminded every time I pick up this book, that there is a solution.
"The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.
We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.
We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals - usually brief - were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization....Over any considerable period we get worse, never better." Page 30
"Despite all we can say, many who are real alcoholics are not going to believe they are in that class. By every form of self-deception and experimentation, they will try to prove themselves exceptions to the rule, therefore nonalcoholic." Page 31
"Most of us have believed that if we remained sober for a long stretch, we could thereafter drink normally...We have seen the truth demonstrated again and again: "Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic." Commencing to drink after a period of sobriety, we are in a short time as bad as ever. If we are planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol." Page 33
"To be gravely affected, one does not necessarily have to drink a long time nor take the quantities some of us have. This is particularly true of women. Potential female alcoholics often turn into the real thing and are gone beyond recall in a few years. Certain drinkers, who would be greatly insulted if called alcoholics, are astonished at their inability to stop." Page 33
There was a tremendous urge to cease forever. Yet we found it impossible. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it - this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or the wish." Page 34
And finally, "If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic." Page 44
Most days, I feel like staying sober is the easy part - life is the hard part. Drinking hasn't crossed my mind since last October probably. Then every once and a while I am humbly reminded about this part of the disease. I found myself beating myself up for thinking about it, for obsessing over it. I found myself questioning myself these past few days - am I really an alcoholic, am I really sure? I remember when I first came into the program and my friend who brought me there finally pointed out that only alcoholics sit around questioning whether they might be alcoholics. My sponsor says I don't need to figure out why I have been thinking this way. The answer is simple. It is because I am an alcoholic. I should just be grateful that on most days, I live free of the desire and the compulsion and I should consider it a miracle that these moments are few and far between for me.
"The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.
We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.
We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals - usually brief - were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization....Over any considerable period we get worse, never better." Page 30
"Despite all we can say, many who are real alcoholics are not going to believe they are in that class. By every form of self-deception and experimentation, they will try to prove themselves exceptions to the rule, therefore nonalcoholic." Page 31
"Most of us have believed that if we remained sober for a long stretch, we could thereafter drink normally...We have seen the truth demonstrated again and again: "Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic." Commencing to drink after a period of sobriety, we are in a short time as bad as ever. If we are planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol." Page 33
"To be gravely affected, one does not necessarily have to drink a long time nor take the quantities some of us have. This is particularly true of women. Potential female alcoholics often turn into the real thing and are gone beyond recall in a few years. Certain drinkers, who would be greatly insulted if called alcoholics, are astonished at their inability to stop." Page 33
There was a tremendous urge to cease forever. Yet we found it impossible. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it - this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or the wish." Page 34
And finally, "If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic." Page 44
Most days, I feel like staying sober is the easy part - life is the hard part. Drinking hasn't crossed my mind since last October probably. Then every once and a while I am humbly reminded about this part of the disease. I found myself beating myself up for thinking about it, for obsessing over it. I found myself questioning myself these past few days - am I really an alcoholic, am I really sure? I remember when I first came into the program and my friend who brought me there finally pointed out that only alcoholics sit around questioning whether they might be alcoholics. My sponsor says I don't need to figure out why I have been thinking this way. The answer is simple. It is because I am an alcoholic. I should just be grateful that on most days, I live free of the desire and the compulsion and I should consider it a miracle that these moments are few and far between for me.
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