My first time reaching 1 month sober I was so excited. It was monumental. This time around I’m not excited, I’m not bored with it, I just have one month. Relief? The month went by so quickly, maybe that I don’t feel I really earned it. It was too easy? Was it easy? Yeah, it was easier than the last “first month” because I wasn’t as steeped into the bottle this time around, I was faking normal drinking. And this time around, I got a shiny red coin to prove my month.
I’ve almost completed my drunkalogue. It is not book worthy! The lows are not the lows that are the hallmarks of a woman spinning out of control for years. It’s a thousand of little cuts into my integrity, self-worth, relationships and health. I’m not trying to compete I know, but sometimes I still wonder, maybe I’m not an alcoholic after all. Even writing that, eek! But indeed my life had become unmanageable, I could control how much I drank. I often blacked out. A couple of revelations came out of writing this narrative of my drinking history.
I’m still going to meetings, mostly I like them, but I continue to bristle at some parts of it. Especially when people seem to discredit those who stopped drinking without AA by calling them a “dry drunk”. I did a lot of work on myself last time around without the formalized steps and that counts, dammit. But I like the community and support and it can’t hurt my sobriety, right? I also can bare to introduce myself every time I speak to the 3 other people there, and follow my name with “I’m an alcoholic” I can’t buy into it as of yet, but I’ll keep going back until something better comes along, or summer starts and all the group chairs go to other countries for 6 weeks.
1 Comment
MartyB
5/28/2018 11:12:48 pm
I’ve been going to meetings for 3 years; and some parts made me bristle too. I took to heart the line in the book “take what you need and leave the rest” and the last two paragraphs on page 164 “Our book is meant to be suggestive only ...”. I wasn’t aware of all the online help then and quite frankly needed more intensive help by then. You are right about doing work on yourself being valuable vs. some hardliners calling sobriety without AA ‘white knuckling it’... One size doesn’t fit all. Congratulations on one month!
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AuthorI used to drink with the best of them, but I don't anymore. My life is so much better for it. Archives
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