Slipping

I'm not doing so well in my sobriety right now. No, I am not drinking, but I am getting mentally prepared to drink and every day it seems more of a possibility. This past saturday, I was ona road trip with my two kids and my husband. Four hours of complaining and bitching and moaning and yelling and mind fucks. It is enough to make anyone drink. Plus it was saturday, a reasonable day to drink. But I didn't drink. My instinct was to reach for a drink. I wanted to feel relaxed, but I guess since I'm in recovery, there was a lot in my head, between me and that first drink. If I could have gotten past that first drink, I would have been able to have a couple of drinks. But I couldn't. And that I guess is the program of AA, my HP and a little bit of me mixed in there.

It was really weird. Because picking up that first wasn't a possiblity, just too much AA in my head. But then I really didn't know where to go from there. What do people do who don't drink to unwind. What do I do now with all the unpleasant emotions of the day that are still there? I actually just sat there in a chair, just sitting there thinking, what do I do now? What do normal people do now? What do recovery alkies do?

And then I started thinking. Well this summer will be different. Because I want to sit on the deck at the beach house and watch the sun go down while enjoying a nice could glass of white wine. I was thinking, you know, I'll just have one or two glasses. Like normal people do, why does it have to be all or nothing? Now I know that this is not a good way for an alky to think. But I was really convincing myself. By the end of the summer, I will have my shit together and the visigoths in my head will be defeated and it will be nice. But a part of me was thinking, well when do I stop? Maybe four drinks? Maybe three? Not good. Eventually, I just went to bed. I figured once I put my pajamas on, and got in bed, I would be safe. I just remembered now, right at the end of my drinking, I actually did go to a bar in my pajamas to get some packaged goods to take home. You should have seen the young kids outside smoking ciggies when I walked up. Ha, ha.

I told my friend, a normie, that I was getting bored with sobriety. That it's been thirty days already, enough, I don't know what to do with myself. But I wasn't going to drink because I felt that I was in the same place, in my head, as I was 30 days ago. And she agreed, damn her! What a good friend, she said that must mean that I need to stay sober if I'm thinking I'm done alreadly with sobriety.

I went to a BB meeting yesterday, my favorite one. And I was going to bring up my issues. But, first thing, this woman shares that she is living in a recovery house, but she is about to get kicked out because she is an insulin dependent diabetic and her needles are causing problems and she doesn't dose correctly and has ended up in ICU twice in past two weeks. She can't find another place to go, she has $115 dollars and she wants to go out and use, she's planning on doing it that night. Jeez, and I'm going to follow that with, I don't know what the hell to do with myself? I have a house and a husband and two kids and I'm going to complain?

After she shares, this other woman shares that she is glad that she's sober because her alcoholism led to her sex addiction, and that she resents the tyranny of the Egyptians over the Jews, but why does she have to read about it at Passover, what about the people in Darfur? I'm sitting there thinking, jeez, this woman is supposed to turn her homelessness over to God and you're complaining that some relatives made you read some traditional passages for Passover? I don't know, I wasn't getting anything out of the meeting. And, I'm really tired of this woman always bringing up the fact that she's a sex addict. And I know I'm not supposed to be thinking like that in a meeting, and I usually don't.

Last night, my husband was watching some baseball games and I said, I want to have a beer of two while we watch the game, this sobriety stuff is getting really old. I was trying to decide what do drink, red or white wine or beer. And that problem getting past the first drink was still there, but barely. I could actually imagine drinking it this time. But my husband said, but you cant have a beer or two remember? That's why you have a problem with alcohol. Well, I just let that go, normally I would have given him a lashing for trying to tell me what to do. Yea, I know, typical alky behavior. So I went to bed.

So I decided, okay not tonight. But maybe tomorrow. And if not tomorrow, then one of these days. Then I realized what people meant when they said a relapse happens way before you take that first drink. I prayed, but I still was in a bad place in my head. I realized last night that if I didn't do something, I was going to be drinking in the next couple of days, and I wasn't really that worried about it. I thought, ah it'll be okay. I can handle it. I went online, read some blogs and then read the questions they have on the AA website, you know to see if you have a problem with alcohol, and of course I answered yes to almost all of them.

So I called this woman in the program. Just to ask her, what the hell do I do now? Pray, check, Read, check. I'm really new to this, but I know that there must be more to AA than this. Anyway, I got all nervous calling her, hands shaking, and she wasn't there. I left her a message, but my hands are still shaking. I know, it's either reach out to someone for some direction and advice or drink. And there is a voice in a tiny little corner somewhere in my head that is saying, call her, don't drink, hold on. And the rest of my head, the overwhelming majority is saying, eff this AA stuff, you can drink, and be fine, your are not going to get kicked out of a recovery house, no one will know and a bunch of other nonsense.

The handshaking nervousness is sort of a nice thing, because otherwise all I want to do is put my head down and go to sleep. I'm getting a little tired of that.

So that's where I am, and hopefully I can look back on this post and know that I got through it.