DragonInTheSky

Now that I have been sober for a few days, something is becoming painfully clear to me. I realize that over the years, alcohol and drugs were a filler for me. A filler in the sense that when I felt empty, alone, sad, angry, frustrated or hurt, I used alcohol to try and fill myself up. The picture I get in my mind when I think about this, is my body being an open empty vessel, and me pouring booze and sometimes pills into my mouth to try and fill my heart with what I know I don't have much of - self love and self fulfillment.

When the subject of self love comes up, I don't really know what to say or how to feel. In all honesty, I don't have much of it. Yet, I am capable of loving others, loving nature and animals... I am filled with compassion. I just can't seem to love myself much. I respect myself in the sense that I stand up for my beliefs, and I never let anyone take advantage of me, but do I love myself? I just don't know. I feel the most respect for myself when I am doing what I love. Like playing music, or volunteering, but I am so incredibly sensitive, that if anything goes wrong in my life, part of me never lets it go.

This sensitivity has held me back in my life because it causes me to feel intense fear of rejection and failure. So, instead of going out and giving things a go, I choose to stay home because I am so very afraid of not being accepted. This personality trait could go hand in hand with being an artist, but I know plenty of successful artists and musicians, so I can't really use this as an excuse.

So, what do I do? Now that I don't have alcohol to fill this internal void, how do I fill it? Do I do step work? Go on walks? Read? Somehow none of these things are very enticing to me at the moment. I realize I have a whole hell of a lot of work to do, but how do i do it? Where do I begin?