Day Nine: Full of Judgement

I just burst into tears after reading the first comments at the bottom of a sobriety blog.  More on this blog later, I love it, but I have to address the crying.  The first comment read,

"I am going to read each of the months as I am going through them. Thank you for organizing them this way. It's a great help!!"  

I've said the same thing to myself about a year ago when I tried to quit, (then quickly changed my mind to "cut down" only after a few days), yet again convinced that I really don't have a drinking problem...I just needed to reset closer to moderation.  After reading this comment I thought to myself: pathetic! So earnest and pathetic.  I am so pathetic, "these" people are so pathetic.  Just get it together...(me and all of you)...why can't I?  Then a sleuth of thoughts came rushing in at me. Let me see if I can recapture some of them to make sense of it.  Thank God for this online “diary” where I can spew to strangers...if anyone chooses to click on my pathetically titled blog alluding to hydration.  Self-hate, I have a lot of it right now.  And judgement.  I have a lot of that too.

#1-I am not these pathetic people (I am feeling so judgmental).  I have not gotten to the point of losing jobs, family, friends or health because of my drinking.  I have never had an intervention and the amounts I drink are so little compared to others' stories when they try to stop drinking.  Then I think "at least I'm not that bad, see I really am on the edge of being a moderate drinker, I don't need to quit."  Then I think maybe they are the ones judging me and my stupid blog and attempt to quit drinking, "you think you have a problem? Go home little girl with your 5 drinks and a hangover, this recovery thing is for the big boys."  Delete blog and go have a drink.

#2-These are my thoughts after 8 days of not drinking.  What the fuck?  I'm crying about my pathetic future already in the morning of day 8?  In the blog post, Mrs. D is in month two of recovery and she mentions a book where the author warns that the 9th month of recovery is where many people relapse.  9 months?  That’s 8 months and 3 weeks away from me.  By 9 months this should be cake, a story to tell. I thought the hard part was now, the first month.  I don’t know if I am up to the challenge, seriously I really don’t know. But it makes me feel gross to read any self-help stuff besides Mrs. D, too cultish, too pitiful, obsessive, too far away from my story to relate.

#3-I’m scared.  This is hard, I don’t know how to do this, who am I in all of this?  Before last week, people in recovery made me uncomfortable because they were so intense: counting days, talking about "the journey," telling horror stories of what they were like before they stopped-a real downer to be around.  Actually made me want a drink just to celebrate that their stories weren't mine.  But now (fucking 8 days in) I’m starting to get it a little more...how hard it is and the tools and tricks necessary to keep doing it.  That makes me want to cry again-I don’t want to be that person that is so self-absorbed in counting days, bleak, and telling cautionary tales a year from now to some other schmuck because I’m fun, I’m adventurous, I’m well-rounded!  How can I stop drinking and not turn into that bitter haggard man chain-smoking cigarettes with a Sprite or coffee in a styrofoam cup?

Okay, writing some of this has helped get the emotion out.  This is the place where I can be the weak, desperate, dark, confused lady with a problem.  In my real-time life, I’m still just taking the day off of drinking...everyday until I’m not.