Saturday, July 26, 2008

It's been a long time since I have been to my blog. I was sorta stuck, trying to think of what to write, and so on and on. Gee, perhaps my perfectionism might have been creeping in.
I have been reading One Sober Alcoholic for and Higher Powered blogs for months now and have it automatically feeding to my blackberry.

I will be celebrating 2 years of continuous sobriety next Saturday. I have been very blessed by the program of AA, and my relationship with my higher power.
Thursday I am to speak at a Women's meeting and Saturday at a local club. The last time I spoke was over a year ago, and wow, a lot has changed since then. Then I knew what I wanted to talk about, I "had" something to say. I was so eager to say everything. Today is different. I have no idea, and I know my HP will simply put the words to me.

I started my messed up thinking when I was very young. I can remember going to preschool feeling like I would never fit in and cried and cried and cried when my mother left me there. I didnt think i looked right, I thought i smelled, the kids made fun of me and I just wanted out! I had learned even from a very young age, to lie, cheat, steal, and do anything to NOT be in the present moment. Growing up it was too painful so I lived inside my head. By the time I started drinking, I was 14 years old hanging out with a group a uppperclassmen and drinking nearly every weekend I could. I loved alcohol, I loved what it did for me and I especially loved to party. I thought I was being a normal teenager, and it never dawned on me that I was going down a very long road of insanity at the time. What I did know is that I was someone else when I was drinking and I loved that.

Flash forward year and years of drunks, and what I thought was normal behavior. - Having a Crohns disease and manipulating every doctor I could and not even knowing it wasn't a good thing... Doctor had me on steroids, remicaid, pain killers, other meds and I would push it to the very limit ever single time. I'd ask, can I have one drink on New Years, translation, can I drink as much as I want to... and yes, I did. I had that one and another one and another one. I won't go into my manipulation of drugs but will mention - my fierce fear of flying and I job which required me to fly and thus I had ample supply to any anti-anxiety medication I needed only to be used as a further tool to help me drink into complete oblivion. I used whatever I could to get out of me. The entire time, thinking I was not an alcoholic - I wasn't on the floor drunk every night. I wasn't in the gutter, I wasn't drunk at work and every other self delusional think I could think of. I was going through a divorce, had a 4 year old daughter, began dating women, starting using anything I could to NOT be that suburban house wife which I was. I even owned a business - ah yes the true mark of success in my mind. I was a train wreck... and only getting worse.

I was killing myself. 10 years of that 10 years of the disease sneaking up on me, out to kill me and destroy every single thing in my path.

I met a sober member of Alcohlic's playing softball. She was and is still amazing. We began to date and I was to the point in my drinking where I knew I had to hide it as much as I could. Needless to say the relationship quickly ended and I continued on my way to rip out any part of my being which required me to be in the present day.
I joined Alanon because I couldn't believe how selfish this Alcoholic was and besides my father and brother both have alcoholic tendencies ( I'll let them decide if they are an alcoholic or not. ) So I used this as my excuse. I was NEVER going to go to AA, 1 because I didn't drink THAT bad and 2- I had a good job, a beautiful daughter etc etc etc.

I was dying, inside, outside, emotionally, physically. My last drunk was while I was supposed to be at an Alanon training to take Alanon into the jails of the county I live in. I wasn't there, I didn't show, instead, I started my 5 day binge in downtown Chicago with my friend the Sober member of AA. It was finally out in the open, I finally just stopped hiding it from her and she saw it first hand... I would disappear for 8-10 hours to come back to the hotel room to only find her sleeping peacefully and me dying to keep on drinking. Until the next day- I was still drunk from the night before and I went out again.

I went through detox myself at my phone, I was too good for that rehab stuff. She checked on my and finally after a few days we sat down and talked about my drinking, my thinking and my life. I had been to the doctor, everything was shutting down. It had to stop. I had to admit it to myself exactly what I was. An Alcoholic...... for the first time in my life... I could finally admit it. I couldn't say the words, but I felt it in the very core of my being I was powerless over this thing. Absolutely Powerless. and my life was completely unmanageable.


Recovery post.... coming soon.