Hello all, thanks for following my uncertain and meandering journey. Especially thanks to Robby and fini for all the empathy and understanding. I want to put a few things down that I've learned from you all, but especially you two, in the hopes that I can consolidate my own understanding and break it down for myself more than anything else!!
I have quit drinking for a host of reasons, I could spend the next two hours outlining these but I don't think anyone who finds themselves on SR needs any reminding about them. I have agonised for a few years now about my boozing and the negative side effects it has on my life and my entire existence. Worst of all I find myself, at age 36, completely unaware who the real me is. Well, that's a lie, for over ten years the real me has been a drunk - and getting worse.
In my arrogance I believed that I had to understand the logic or otherwise of addiction (I reckoned I'm smarter than most, I'd succeed where millions have failed....), why I drank so much, why I couldn't moderate, why I wasn't an alcoholic just an alcohol abuser - all the usual procrastination and delaying tactics disguised as the essential truths I had to figure out in order to quit. Then I would think that maybe when I understood all that I wouldn't even need to quit permanently, just get a grip on the frequency/amounts etc etc. ALL LIES I HAVE BEEN TELLING MYSELF. Now I see that I am a drunk. The only way to not be a drunk is not to drink.
I've been having a problematic relationship with AVRT, although I think that is because I have been misunderstanding it from the start. I had been thinking of it as a formula I could apply and all would be well. So then when I got frustrated because I wasn't understanding the Big Plan or whatever I got diverted with meanings of words and sidetracked by doubts about what I was doing. Robby I think you've got an amazing approach to it - I'm really inspired by your advice to use it as a tool rather than a ten commandment type-thing. I'm trying to do the same now too.
So here I am again, but this time with a more peaceful approach. There is nothing I hate more in life than not understanding something. However I have had to admit that I do not understand the addiction I have, why I like drinking so much, what it is about my past or personality that has brought me to this point. Maybe this is a kind of admission of powerlessness, and if that's a bit of AA speak then so be it. I will maybe never understand it, on the other hand maybe when I'm sober for some time I will discover more. I do know that previously when I analysed and analysed and nothing changed I stayed miserable and lived half a life. So I have quit again.
I don't know what the future holds. Thanks.