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Old 06-29-2016, 10:45 AM
  # 6 (permalink)  
EndGameNYC
EndGame
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 4,677
I'm drawn by the title of your thread, EJ.

The Devil doesn't show up at the door with a tail and pitchfork. Always wrapped in a nice, sometimes irresistible, package. And once he gets one foot in the door, it seems impossible to get him out.

People here who know me may know or recall parts of my history. Sober for twenty five years, drank for about three, and now sober for about five.

At the end of my relapse, my XGF threw me out, changed the locks and requested no contact which, though difficult for me, I abided. No matter how much I wanted to stop drinking in order to "save" the relationship, I couldn't do it. My twenty five years meant little in comparison to the damage I'd done during my relapse. And I learned nothing I didn't already know from my relapse. Getting sober again has been the most difficult thing I've ever done, including my first time getting sober in 1983.

We've now been apart for about six years, during which I made both personal and financial amends, through email and snail mail. I didn't expect any response from her, and I never got one. But these were steps I knew I needed to take, both because it was the right thing to do, and as necessary for me to move on with my own life.

I made one last-ditch effort for us to meet in person and possibly become friends, though I made it clear in the letter that I also wanted to explore whether or not we could rebuild our relationship. (We'd been friends on-and-off for about sixteen years before we became a couple.) I felt I needed to do this in order to move on with my life. Again, no response expected (though very much hoped for), and none received. By the time I appreciated that I was not going to get a reply, this fact was very painful for me, and I needed to work in more creative ways to move on. In the end, it was the right thing to do.

As time moved on, she stopped appearing in my dreams, and I only thought of her every now and again. The pain had receded, and it only occasionally returned in mini waves. But, overall, things had slowly changed for the better.

Then, very recently, she reappeared in my dreams again, virtually every night for a few weeks. In my dreams, she was taunting me and both saying and doing hurtful things. She never said or did anything hurtful during all the years we were together. The settings have usually been at parties or dinners with her and me alone or with a larger group. I was neither craving nor looking for a drink in my dreams, but instead was a passive bystander while she flirted with and often was making out with both friends and strangers. She relished theses moments, and rubbed it in as much as my imagination allowed her to. At the very end of the dream, she was coming on to an old friend of mine who's chief counsel for Mercedes-Benz. When I saw this happening, I said to him while she was present, "Joe, when she kisses you good-bye, please limit it to a peck on the cheek and not an act of foreplay." He did so without hesitation, though in a somewhat bizarre way, but he made me feel safe.

Here's the thing...Until today, I only accepted the dream at face value (which is not like me), and took it to mean what I created in the dream. Many people don't believe in dream interpretation, but it's often an invaluable tool in my work. Briefly, I understand that dreams (as does the unconscious mind itself) communicate in symbols, in part as a defense against an in-your-face confrontation about our personal fears, including trauma, and conflicts. I finally asked myself today what was going on in these dreams?

For me, my ex is symbolic of alcohol. It's very attractive, and part of me still wants it, even though it hurts me (as she does in the dreams), even though I use it turn myself and my life to rubble. The extremely powerful seduction of being with my ex -- and she wouldn't be trying to hurt me so much if she no longer cared -- is the lure. If I have her again in my life, then everything will be just fine. The alcoholic part of me knows this since it is part of who I am, and uses this information to seduce me towards taking on a person, place or thing (alcohol) to make everything better. My alcoholic self is pushing back against my work to move on from my ex by offering a quick fix to that process through drinking.

Finally, I'm tortured and tormented during these dreams, but don't truly care about getting back with my ex any more than I normally do when I wake up. I'm indifferent. Alcoholism is nothing if not subtle.

Alcohol was not a reward for me; it was the reward. The more I move on without it, the more sinister the alcoholic part of me becomes. It's just the way things are for me.
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