Promoted to the front page from the user blogs. I want to thank my friend Jasmine for her contributions. You can find her previous postings here at Jasmine’s blog.
This site has been an integral part of my recovery process. I discovered it eight days ago during my last night of drunkenness. A solo bender. A bottoming out. A month of straight almost nightly drinking–something I somehow thought I deserved (the escape) and spruced up with pseudo-spiritual intentions, candles burning and constant painting and collage-making. But really I was feeding a disease I had known I had for a long time. I knew it and had every reason to know it, but I rationalized that I began drinking late and didn’t drink daily and didn’t ever really crave it. But when I drank it was to get drunk and I never knew how to limit myself like other people. I have even wound up in the hospital for alcohol-related injuries but still thought I had the right to drink, like everyone else.
The past eight days have been easier to get through than I would have imagined. I have a lot on my side–an understanding of naturopathic healing and a love of healthy cooking for instance. I also have more free time than usual.
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I discovered some things that I didn’t know might happen during recovery. Extreme fatigue during the first few days is one of them. On day three I ate supper and decided to lay down with a book before going out to the two parties I had been invited to. Instead at around eight pm I fell asleep and did not wake up until around five. I don’t think I have gone to sleep so early since childhood.
I have also discovered that I had something of a reputation: it seems like every time I turn around people are offering me booze. I am something of a loner and I have even noticed friends trying to lure me out of my shell with allusions to a drink ahead. This has made me feel sad.
I have also learned that I can dance the night away sober, and the joy and relief of sobriety around three am when people become really drunk around me, start spilling their drinks and acting foolish, and no longer being one of them.
There are still many demons on my path that I have yet to confront but I am trying to look them in the eyes instead of putting on the stout beer or wine or whiskey blindfolds. I am a strong person but I am still terrified by so many things, including the carnage of my own past actions and whether or not I am brave enough to go on, day after day.
I am not yet free of my addictions but I have taken alcohol out of my equation and am building slowly the strength required to do the damage-repair work ahead. I don’t yet know how I will deal with explaining my sobriety to others and have already found myself telling little white lies about why I am drinking tea and juice and steadfastly refusing the many rather aggressive offers of a stiff drink. I don’t want the stigma or the judgment. I have met AA members before and as open-minded as I am, I found myself wondering what horrible things they must have done to inspire them to stop drinking altogether. I admired them but I did have thoughts of them being a bit “weak”, because they couldn’t control themselves like some people can.
That’s it for now. Keep up the good work everyone. Thanks for sharing your stories and thanks for being so supportive to me in mine.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Stangely, after writing this blog entry earlier, today has turned out to be by far the hardest day yet. I want a drink SO bad to momentarily escape the problems that are becoing more and more clear, the same ones that led me down a bad road of escapism to start with. I’m gonna get through this night sober but it is going to be and IS very, very hard. Not sure if commenting on your own blog is a faux-pas…I just think it is so odd how immediately after writing this this morning I have been fighting the urge all day. This sucks!
by offering up a Dune analogy (goes well with the above pic) for this post. When Lady J and her son escape into the desert they meet up with a group of outcasts (Fremen), thought by rich and royal to be nothing more than weak minded vagabonds. It soon becomes apparent to Lady J though that the Fremen are highly disciplined and extremely able; they have to be to survive the harsh environment.
Those that disregard the Fremen are eventually conquered by the desert dwellers, by the free men made strong by a dry world that the soft fleshed/minded population thought was uninhabitable.
What am I getting at?
It took a long miserable walk through the desert, then I had to learn how to live like people who I had always ASSUMED were miserable and unhappy, but the journey was worth it. I used to eat the worm and dream of a better life; I now ride it and make it happen.
I can identify with so many things that you wrote. The good news is that I’ve been sober 1 year and nearly two months now. The secret is, no matter how bad it feels, don’t take that first drink! The days add up, and the feelings of needing a drink go away. Every now and then when I wish that I could have a beer, I remember how awful it felt the next day or days after, drinking to recover from the night before….
Also, if your friends can’t accept your new life, then they need to be let go.
Congratulations on finally facing your addiction! It took me a long time too.
Thanks both of you for the encouragement. Today is day twelve (I think I underestimated in my blog by a day) and the urges have been getting increasingly difficult to cope with so I can definitely use all the encouragement that I can get! I thought it would get easier each day but the opposite is true for me. I think tomorrow I will drop a bit of cash and buy an array of organic or otherwise tasty beverages to help myself. I miss how that first tall cold stout takes the edge of, and how less and less painful life feels with each consecutive beer or whatever.
Congratulations on your fourteen months of inspiring self-discipline.
I am trying to stay focused on the positive: no mild to severe hang-overs, money and time saved, liver happier, slowly working on myself…it is happening slowly though, and I really wish I had, oh say three months of sitting on the beach under the sun and swimming in the ocean. I want to experience my recovery without the stress of daily life.
As far as my friends they would be supportive of anything I did to be a happier person, its just in my head at this point, the stigma thing, but I’ll find answers soon. Being around drinking people is a time I crave less–ie my cravings are strongest when I’m completely alone, so I’m trying to be more social these days.
Anyhow, nice being here with you all and thanks for your interesting entries and replies–they strengthen and inspire.
Oh boy, I so empathize with you. I have found it hardest not to drink when I’m alone, too. That doesn’t mean the times when I’ve been out in social settings haven’t been hard, though.
Like you, I have struggled with what seems to me a constant barrage of drinking-oriented scenarios in everyday life – and how to avoid them without getting teased, cajoled and sometimes even harrassed. I’ve found it odd and disturbing how many people pester me to drink, making me feel it’s completely abnormal to abstain.
I’m only 4 months sober (exactly, as of today – I just realized!) and it’s gradually gotten easier. My close friends all know I’m in AA now, and my acquaintances have just stopped pushing drinks on me, mostly. I guess they think that for whatever reason I’ve suddenly become somewhat of a party pooper, but that’s their problem, not mine. This took me a while to realize, and accept.
I’m feeling pretty serene these days, and I promise you that it will come to you, too. For now, it sounds like you’re doing the right thing – drinking whatever nice substitutes you can find is a smart idea. And if you can get a faux cocktail in your hand before the alcohol-pushers come along, they may be tricked into thinking you’re boozing right along with them, and spare you the cajoling.
I’ve been an insomniac since I was 12, and 30 years later, I’m finally finding it easier to sleep. Sounds like you’re getting some good sleep in, too. Enjoy it. It’s such a good thing for you.
Thus concludes the sharing of my experience, limited though it is, in recovery. Here’s wishing you all the best. Keep it up. You’ll make it.
take care,
C.