Hi guys. I know I'm not the only one for whom being left alone for a period of time is hugely triggering. For a long time now, whenever my husband has to go away on a trip, I 'know' I will be drinking a lot for most of the time that he's gone. I used to look forward to his occasional trips, because I could get as trashed as I wanted for as long as I wanted without anyone seeing me. It was a warped kind of freedom.
I don't look forward to it anymore. But the habit of drinking when he's gone is really ingrained now, and I don't know how I'd pass the time without it. Any advice?
Just a few things I've noticed:
- I have lived alone before, for three years in my early twenties, and was perfectly fine and content (this was before I developed a drinking problem).
- But now I'm frightened of being left alone for a week, which is pathetic.
- It's doubly pathetic when I think that I was an only child, and used to love my own company and make my own fun.
- When I'm left alone, I drink for a number of reasons:
- To make the time pass faster
- To mask my anxiety about my husband dying in a plane crash (or something) while he's away
- Because being alone triggers bad thoughts about myself, bad memories, and bad feelings, and I can't stand it. When my husband is here I'm distracted from all that and rarely dwell on things, but alone I crumble
- Habit
- Boredom
In the last few years, I've only managed one of his trips sober; it was only a three day trip and I lived in a city at the time, so there were distractions.
I don't have any friends where we live, and I'm quite socially isolated because we live in a sleepy part of the countryside with poor transport links. So throwing myself into activities, or going to the gym every night, aren't options: there's nothing like that here. Every day is the same if you don't have a car. No one speaks to each other much.
Anyway, I'm rambling now. My question is simple: to people who once used periods of alone time as excuses to binge drink, and had problems dealing with being alone, what do you do now when that situation presents itself? (AA meetings aren't an option for me, so any other suggestions would be great).
My husband is going away for a week on 6 July, and he'll be travelling a lot and taking various planes and trains between Scotland, Ireland, Belgium and France in that time, which just makes me more anxious because of this stupid fear I have of him dying. (Yes I know that's irrational. I've always been a bit like that with modes of transport. I also worry about him getting stabbed... I'll stop talking now
).