Ready to Try Again
Okay, after several days of bad choices, I want to try recommitting. Today is the first time in several weeks that I have woken up with a hangover headache, and I realize that my "moderation" attempts were futile. My head hurts and I'm super thirsty. Comments I made on Facebook are returning to my memory, and some of them are kind of embarrassing.
In my head, I thought once I finished graduate school (which I did last week), then I would stop drinking. After all, it was the stress of graduate school and the influence from my classmates (who often went drinking after class or to celebrate completing a big test or research paper) that got me drinking in the first place two and a half years ago.
However, just because that's what got me started doesn't mean that the absence of it is enough to get me to stop. I see that now. The psychological issues that cause me to use alcohol as a crutch to cope with daily stress runs much deeper than the stress and worry of grades and career aspirations. There's so much more there that has been bubbling under my consciousness for probably most of my life.
You peel back that bandage, and there's terrible perfectionism-to the point of rendering me unable to make any move in my life for fear of failure. There's pain associated with my troubled relationship with my father, who I adore but who has nothing to do with me. There's my grief and trauma associated with the recent death of my friend's daughter. The reasons I drink are varied and all need to be addressed in counseling. I don't think I can get away with claiming it's because I'm stressed anymore. I'm not drinking to unwind- I'm drinking to not have to think or feel, and that's a deeper issue.
BellJar