Well... my AV has been going nuts for a couple of days.
I am going to an event this coming weekend.... a big gathering of a lot of friends I've not seen in several years. Almost all of whom are BIG party people. There will be surfing and beaching and music (including a really great friend who has gone in the past decade from living in an RV and playing house gigs and bars - to an international hit soloist with a flourishing career). There will be laughter and togetherness and the kind of a gathering that I really want to be there for and enjoy.
There will also be boatloads of drinking. There will be some serious professionals in attendance. There will be a pack of people with whom my entire relationship was connected by booze and parties.
And I've noticed a loud caterwalling of my AV inside starting to try and negotiate. To bargain. Make an exception. Just this one time. It's not like you can't quit after the weekend. It'd just be a break. One for "old times".
I notice, as I look more deeply into this rambling, almost-desperate inner monologue, a fear beneath it all. It's a fear that I won't be accepted unless I'm carrying on boozing and whooping it up. I can see that a great deal of what's behind this turmoil that's arising for me is the sense that I won't be "one of them". That I won't be loved, liked, appreciated unless I'm guzzling alcohol. That I won't be FUN, that I won't be worthy, that I will be an outcast.
It has thus far been the most potent upwelling of desire, negotiation, pleading, almost-surrender that I've felt in sobriety to date. I'm a little bit frightened.
And so I'm sharing it here. I nearly declined the invitation altogether. But then I realized that as much as I fear this - I also really desire it. To be able to see people who have meant a lot to me in life. To reconnect with old friends. To show myself that even in an environment where many if not most are still anchored firmly in the old foundational story of booze-as-life - I can still exist and have fun. A good friend amongst the crew came to mind last night. He was a non-drinker. He came to all the parties. He was respected and loved and he had fun and he was a great surfer and he was accepted and part of the gang, just as much as anyone..... but he didn't drink.
If he can, so can I.
I've existed in many different environments for a year and a half sober... and not once have I been rejected - by anyone - for not drinking.
So I will remind myself of this, and I will spend time on here this week, and I will remind myself of all the reasons I embrace sobriety, and I will go over my old stories this week. On the plane Friday, I will make lists of the 'evidence' I have that drinking doesnt work for me. Lists of the evidence that sobriety does. I will go into this lion's den..... and I will go with the awareness that I'm making this choice and that I will come home - once again - with new personal evidence that sobriety is my chosen mode and that being sober does not mean being rejected.
But I needed to get this out there and not keep it hidden inside me. I needed to defuse the AV's power by exposing his little tirade to the light of public sharing. I needed to open my reality to a group of friends who understand and I need your support and reminders and reinforcement..... because I won't be doing this alone. I'll be going in with all of your stories, all of your love, all of your power and all of your experiences that you've been open enough to share with me - all of it, by my side and steeling my choice.
