Day Sixty-Two: And Then I Said, "...I don't drink."

It rolled off my tongue, it was the first time I've made that claim: I don't drink.  I was waiting for the school bus and a colleague was asking me if I was going to the all staff social event this Thursday. (I have no plans to go because it is at a bar and far away from where I live and probably none of my friends are going.)  She was promoting that I go, talking about the 20% off of drinks and good food, its for St. Patrick's Day...and in part of my excuses of why i wasn't going was that I don't drink.  She still pestered me a bit saying I should go, but I too self-consumed in my declaration to really listen much any more to her.  I don't drink.

My first fear is that immediately or later she would say to me, "You don't drink?  That's not what I heard..." and then tell me some gossip she has heard about my recent past.  Or that someone else in a few days would come up to me and say they heard from her that I don't drink and then accuse me of lying.  Then I would have to explain myself and expose that I'm not drinking because I have a problem.  

The work life and social life is all mixed up here, and I fear that somehow my new sobriety will be used against me professionally.  Instead of being brave and strong and taking control of this thing, I fear I will be seen as weak, immoral, and untrustworthy.  I know when I think of "recovery" I think eminent relapse.  Fishbowl living is rough on my psyche sometimes.

But again, I probably am stressing over nothing-no one cares about my drinking habits as much as I do.  And honestly, if they do, I shouldn't care what they think, right?  And with more sober time under my belt I will better be able to talk about it as history compared to what I'm going through right now.  As in, "Oh yeah, I stopped drinking 2 years ago...nah, I don't miss it."