Day Thirty-Nine

the thing about blogging about my life is that when i miss a few days it's hard to know where to start. there are lots of things i want to share. i guess i do know where i need to start. the repercussions of not going to sara's wedding really threw me for a loop. basically, i've been feeling like the whole situation is very urgent, and katie strongly feels that i shouldnt do ANYTHING when i feel urgency. that even though i am uncomfortable, i have to sit through it. there's more, too. that it's sara's first week married and i shouldnt make it about me. and also, that i said i was sorry, and shouldn't keep apologizing, just to get the reaction i want. that i'm a people pleaser, and that's something i need to work on. it's still uncomfortable but it is starting to feel less urgent. i started composing an email to her in my head earlier when i felt really calm but now i'm not at that point.

i'm feeling a bit all over the place. there is a sober party tonight that a ton of people i like are going to but, i dont know. it feels weird to me. overwhelming. uncomfortable. i'm not feeling great anyway. i'm really tired and have a cold, and i just feel really gross and fat and not like someone who should be seen by people.

eh, i had so much to say. now i'm tired.

Day Thirty-Three

so, wow. life has been... very up and down. kind of hard to handle. had a couple of pretty terrible days, and then an unexpectedly okay evening thursday night, and then an okay day on friday, with its own ups and downs at work... but what totally threw me was the impending wedding i had planned on going to this weekend, and the realization that there was very little chance of my attending without drinking. so i felt awful but i called and i canceled. i just dont think i had a choice, that if i want to keep moving forward. and the bride was... unhappy. she was fine on the phone, and then i called a sober friend who was so excited for me and called it an "act of love toward myself," and that made me feel amazing, because that's the kind of thing i want to do, need to do. i want to love myself. had a wonderful dinner with stephanie and then met jesse for her birthday at a soho meeting and then went out with a bunch of people for more food and THEN six of us went to washington square at midnight to play charades, and it was the most fun i've had in so, so long. it was wildly fun and safe and i loved it.

then this morning i went to a 10:15 meeting. a 10 am i got a funny feeling so went outside to check my phone (there isn't any service in the room) and there was a text from sara. i was so nervous that i didnt check it at first. i knew it could go one of two ways. well, it did. she wanted to let me know that we could talk about it after the wedding, but that she was annoyed that i didnt let her know earlier. i said i was sorry, and that i hadnt considered not going because i really wanted to be there, but that i wasnt be honest with myself when i thought i could do it without drinking, and that it wasnt a safe situation for me. that i was so sorry and knew that i was totally in the wrong. and she said that she'd "been reeaally understanding about the bachelorette party and bridal shower" (which she had been--she let me know it was okay if i didnt come, because one isnt my scene and one was pretty far) and that she was annoyed that i waited all the way until friday to cancel.

i mean, she's right. i really had been planning on going, though, until i was out this week with aa people at a restaurant with a bar in it and THAT was too much for me. there will be a time when i can go all these places and it wont make a difference--i know, ive been there--but that time isnt now, and i keep forgetting just how far backwards ive moved.

so that totally sucks. i hate that she's mad, i hate that this is taking up any space in her head the weekend she is getting married, i hate that i'm not going to get to see them get married. i hate that i didnt realize this earlier.

but this is what happened and this is where i'm at. yeah, would have been fucking a million times better to realize earlier, but i cant go back and change it. and all i can do is try to do the right thing now. and i know the right thing is not going. i mean... honestly, if i went, and i got drunk, i might very well embarrass myself and ruin part of the wedding. and even if that didnt happen, well, i'd be the one who would have to live and deal with what ive done. i cant go back to day one again. it was too hard to get here.

Day Thirty-One

hard few days. lots of uncomfortableness and pain. had lots and lots of trouble just, um, being in life. i feel a lot better now. it got worse before it got better and my therapist made me talk about some really uncomfortable things at group and when i left i thought i was going to collapse. but i had made plans to go out to eat with my friend matthew from group, and it was wonderful. we didnt end up getting food. we walked to central park and swung on the swings and then laid on the grass for a while and listened to music and talked and it helped, so much.

Day Thirty

you know, i havent really discussed alcoholism. not the ways that it touches every aspect of my life. how much more there is than not drinking, because drinking is only a symptom. to say i'm compulsive, that i have an addictive personality, is surely true, but it also strips away too much of the truth to be completely honest. i drink, i purge, i overeat, everything--to stop feeling. to disconnect from life. to find peace. to feel whole, or try to forget that i dont, as often and for as long as i can.

i'm never going to change. i've tried this before and i'm right back where i started. what's the point?

Day Twenty-Six

today was pretty rad! and what strikes me as important is noting the fact that it would NOT have been rad if i had gone out and gotten drunk last night. i may have had fun--or i may have made an asshole out of myself in front of my new coworkers--but either way, today would have been shit. guilt and shame and disappointment up to wazoo. but instead, it was a beautiful day and i got to enjoy it.

it started with a meeting. i love the saturday morning meeting here. it's always on the third step, and in my experience, they always get a regular, someone i know but not necessarily someone whose story i know, and it is fantastic and inspiring and helpful. that's what it was like today. then i went out with four girls for brunch, and then i took tommy to the dog park, and then i took tommy home and went to prospect park and read for a while, and then i met up with two of the girls from lunch and one other girl and we went to prospect park for a free concert. i had no idea who the bands were but it was a beautiful night, a perfect night to sit outside in the park, and i had a blast. fuck yes!

Day Twenty-Five

hey! day twenty-five here. yesterday i went to a meeting during lunch, and kind of loved getting away from the office and getting some aa action in the middle of the day, so i went again today. it was a meeting on the promises, which is a list of specific things that the big book promises us, if we work the program. it was on the sixth promise: "We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows." Immediately my ears perked up. This particular promise seems to be the theme of my week, particularly in a conversation i had with someone in group therapy and in a conversation i had with my sponsor. i have issues with... negative thoughts, bad self esteem, putting myself down. and my sponsor tells me that this is rooted in selfishness. that if i'm the biggest piece of shit in the universe--i'm still the center of the universe. the speaker at today's meeting was a federal judge, and full of honesty and hope, and said several remarkable things, but what had the biggest effect on me is the idea that, as an alcoholic, drinking and using drugs to destroy myself is pretty much the most self-centered thing i could do.

holy crap, right? or--maybe not. maybe if you don't know much about alcoholism, or if you've been effected by alcoholism and it just hasn't been your own, this isn't such a revolutionary idea. but let me tell you--it is to me. and yet, at the same time, it is so obviously true.

i've actually been thinking a lot about that lately. the difference between alcoholics and non-alcoholics. because lately, i've been getting SO MUCH out of aa meetings. out of listening and sharing with other alcoholics. i hear my thoughts in their words, i hear my feelings expressed in ways i was never able to do myself. that, by the way, has been mind blowing. just the other night i heard a woman share about something and i was like... holy crap. THAT is how i feel. that is how i have felt since i've been like five or six. and it's always existed in my body and mind as a little lump that i've pushed away and ignored... and she just verbalized it, and now i understand it. and that is such a miracle. because how can i possible deal with things if i cant even admit that they're there?

but anyway, it's SO remarkable and SO crazy when i hear people say things that i can relate to such an unbelievable degree that i found myself thinking that maybe this is just the way people are, you know? but i realized today that that isn't so. it's been educational, this time around, to realize just how much the average person doesnt know about alcoholism. it's so ingrained in me at this point--both because that is who i AM, but also because of all the time i have spent reading about it and going to aa in the past--that i forget that other people dont have that background, or experience. but that's not bad or anything, of course. it just makes me realize all the more that i'm in the right place, and that the ways i can relate to these people really IS remarkable, and, that, no. not everyone feels these ways.

today was challenging because i was supposed to go for drinks after work with coworkers. i backed out earlier today. last night i suddenly realized that going was not a possibility for me. not if i wanted to stay sober. so i canceled, and people kind of made me feel bad. they were very nice about it and were just teasing me but some of the things they said really got to me, because i really DID want to go, so bad. but i didnt want to go and stay sober; i wanted to go and drink. so i canceled and came home. and i'm so, so glad i did. i also had an amazing conversation with katie about it... in which she reminded me that periods of growth usually do come out of being uncomfortable, and that being sober isnt just about not drinking. that it's about learning to be okay with who i am, and to be okay with being uncomfortable, and to becoming a better person because of it.

it's just such a positive spin. i want to grow. so i have to be uncomfortable. and that's okay.

Day Twenty-Four

big fucking sigh of relief over here. after two weeks of agonizing over how to get through it, it suddenly really sunk in that i DONT have to go to drinks night tomorrow night with my dream. i finally dont have a constant obsession over alcohol, but i just dont feel like a bar is a safe place for me right now. so i'm going to un-rsvp tomorrow.