Hi all. I have 10 days now and one weekend under my belt. I mention the weekend because I was a binge drinker, and weekends were pretty much a black hole of drinking. Weekdays weren't an issue at all...(unless of course there was a drinking dinner, or happy hour...at which point, Wednesday night looked a whole lot like Friday at 5...). Point is, adding alcohol to my brain was like, forget about it...
As I've been extremely focused on really looking at, to the best of my current ability, the connection between my alcohol consumption, subsequent bad behavior, hang overs and self-recrimination and loathing to the other problem areas of my life, something interesting occurred to me that I wanted to share, as it may help someone else...
For at least the last 10 years, I had admitted to myself that I "probably" had a problem. For at least the last 7 years, I had read a number of books on alcohol addiction desperately trying to answer the question, "Am I an alcoholic or not?" I took all the 'tests', only to fail them all, of course, and then rationalize them away by saying to myself that by those standards, EVERYONE is an alcoholic. I mean, please? "Have you ever regretted your drinking?" Sure! Who hasn't right?
My point is, I got so wrapped up in trying to diagnose myself (or not) with the word, "Alcoholic", and kind of went down an intellectual rat hole trying to answer the question, that I absolutely could not see the forest for the trees. I was focusing on the wrong question. The questions I should've been serioiusly asking myself include: "How is my drinking affecting my relationships? How is it affecting my self-esteem? How is it affecting what I profess to be my priorities? Is it ultimately hurting me, physically and mentally? Is my tolerance much greater than it once was? Is drinking truly 'fun' anymore? Or is it just an hour or two of slamming drinks, and then black out? And if so, how "fun" could that possibly be? Oh, and finally...What the hell am I doing?"
Those would've been the questions, that had I looked at, might've given me pause. But instead, the tiny part of my brain that knew something was very off, that was trying to tell me something, was cunningly squelched by the need to drink, and my mind did all these mental gymnastics over the definition of the word 'alcoholic' - which, clearly we see is all over the place anyway! That was never the point. Doing so allowed me to keep drinking for 7 more years, that I wish I could look back on sober.
I wish I could say that 7-10 years ago, I put the bottle down - but in spite of all the trouble it caused me roughly every 5 days, EVERY 5 DAYS, then another 3 to recover, I kept drinking. I can't beat myself up over it now, but I just feel like making this honest attempt at sobriety has opened my mind up to clearer thinking about the whole thing. It's like my brain has said, "Oh, party's over then? Right...I guess no need to keep the blinders on." And all of these mini-realizations are starting to come up, and I'm sitting here going,
Peace to all.