Aellyce

Thanks everyone for the kind responses and for trusting me. But...

Okay... so here is the content of my unconscious mind (I was really not aware of this during the past few weeks) dissected and turned inside out.

I was told by a good friend on here privately that recovering alcoholics coming up on their first anniversary sometimes get into crazy emotional turbulence around this time. And that it’s common we don’t deal with this properly, and it often leads to relapses. I want to avoid falling into this at all cost, so here, I’m dealing with it and sharing it with you.

I’ve had many crazy thoughts and feelings recently, I think this has also been prevalent in my most recent threads. I’ve also had quite a lot of real life stresses during the past few months. One is my father’s condition that I wrote about on here extensively before, and I will discuss now some others.

I reacted to some posts yesterday in ways that, investigating more closely, reflected much more my own feelings than an “unbiased”, purely helpful comment to the OP. About relapses, or potential relapses. I have not felt this way about the relapse or craving posts for a long time now, and it’s better to honestly take a look at what might be driving my recent fearful reactions. I did not have this sort of relapse fear for a good while now until these past couple weeks -- I guess I'm suddenly scared of my own unconscious impulses and thoughts, initially unaware.

I think my stability and commitment has become a little shaky… There was a recent thread from hearcore a few days ago, I think I’m having somewhat similar feelings: a mix of existential angst, loneliness, not seeing clearly where I want to take my life next, yet a bit of overconfidence and not wanting to be vulnerable (or admitting it). I feel that these things are leading me to a somewhat dangerous ground, even though I don’t have conscious thoughts of drinking or doubts about my alcoholism. I absolutely firmly believe that permanent sobriety is the only way for me, and I don’t want anything to shake this determination. Yet my irrational mind does I guess, and luckily I’ve managed to recognize it with a bit of help.

I think I’m quite proud of my success with sobriety this year, especially given that I’ve never tried this before yet after many years of heavy drinking. I believe that this success is making me a bit complacent. I do recognize the hint of arrogance in my recent mental states and expression. I feel somehow that “I’ve made it” already, so I can get sloppier… yet at the same time I dread failure. I was suggested recently that I go to a few AA meetings now again to help me deal with all this irrationality. I did. I thought I did not have problems accepting that my alcohol addiction was much more powerful than my control... but maybe I still do. So maybe this is why I also thought about getting a sponsor in AA even though I have not used AA much in my recovery so far, and work the steps now. Is that unusual, someone starting after a year with no relapses?

I know I usually have very hard time overcoming failures, when I could not get something to work that I invested a lot into. I tend to have hard time accepting that I am not independent and self-sufficient, because these things were something I used to be so proud of when I was younger, until addiction failed it and changed my entire view on this self-concept and more generally also. But obviously I still have a lot of residual resistance. One good thing about me, I think is that I don't think or believe that I am unique, better, more resourceful, etc than any of the other addicts, regardless of stage of alcoholism, personality, status, whatnot. Despite all my eccentricities, I managed to give up that idea about superiority immediately when I decided to quit drinking and posted on SR my first serious thread, asking people to tell me how to get beyond Day 2. But I think I should get a bit more humble again.

Now the story of this thread. I've been thinking about my "progress" with recovery and am not always happy that I still spend so much time on SR; and while I don't feel like I'm addicted to it, I do sometimes feel it's excessive for this stage. Now this is probably the defense here... the "AV talk".

What happened yesterday (the trigger I did not discuss in this post) is personal life stuff, two things about my relationships, past and present. One is that the woman I was in a relationship with for a few years before I got sober is leaving... we have been close colleagues and collaborators since I moved to NY and it's been one of my best collaborations ever. Independently of the personal relationship we developed, it's been a wonderful complementary work connection, and I'm not only sad that she's leaving but also scared a bit because I'm getting a lot of her responsibilities now, and I don't feel entirely competent in all of it, and there will now be even more people relying on me. The other one is the guy I've been dating recently. I mentioned a bit before on another thread that I think my initial idea/motivation to get into a relationship with him was in part experimental... because I don't usually choose intimate partners the same way, not the ones I really care about at least. But I was thinking to myself, this is safer for now. Now I recognize this as yet another fear of following my heart's natural desire, fear that what I truly like/want will consume me once again. So I'm seeing him because it seemed simpler than a deep involvement, and am getting more and more unmotivated because a core feature of me is that I really don't like superficiality.

But still fighting it. Of course he can see this to a certain extent and his reaction now was to suggest that we go on a little trip together sometime soon, and I try to focus on him more. He knows about SR and suggested that I try to take a little break, we do more things together, etc. So this was supposed to be the "experiment", and I guess I did not explain in my post because I feel uncomfortable with all this, it's not what I truly want...

And I like to preach about authenticity. Ha!

So what do I want to run from? This is easy: my irrational motives. But where can I run from them, really? Yeah, I see now how this may be a straight road to relapse. I don't feel like drinking consciously, but I believe impulses could happen to me, they happen to everyone.

I think I'm angry at my irrational mind’s wishes. I'm angry at the lack of freedom to control my feelings and/or change them as I want.

Okay, so this is it, it’s out now and I feel a lot better. Not yet sure about how to resolve the practical issues that are part of this state of mind, eg. that I’m in conflict in myself about the amount of time I am spending here on SR. One idea I had was to now keep going to meetings for a while, so that might provide a dose of novelty, still serving the same purpose. But at the same time, it may not be a great idea to downplay something (SR) that has been working for me so beautifully. Can’t decide whether this is a healthy motive or an obsession I should tackle. But no, I won’t do the experiment as far as not posting for two weeks, it’s not a good project.

Thanks for listening, and I’m sorry about all the madness and the length of this post, but I guess that’s what the first year of recovery entails and it’s totally normal.

All this just reminded me of some discussion on SoberJennie's thread yesterday about authenticity, and what I said there... it is true that being true to myself is infinitely easier for me, and the opposite is very anxiety-inducing. Feeling a lot better now!