Read a good article last night - "Why is Recovery So Hard?"
Why is Recovery So Hard?
This is a pretty long paper, but my wheels have been turning in reaction to the section with the header "Addiction, Like Love, is Blind." What Dr. Garrett writes isn't spot on for me, but it's close enough to draw a corollary between breaking my relationship with my addiction and divorcing my husband.
In both instances, I clung for years to a partnership that had clearly gone bad. In both instances, I knew something was wrong but didn't think I was strong enough to break out of that state. In both instances, my guilt and lack of self-esteem kept me in that place where I shouldn't be.
Fortunately for me, I never have reason to deal with my husband again; unfortunately for me, my addiction will always be living with me right here in the house of my self. That is no reason not to lock that compulsion away and ignore it's ineffectual cries of "not fair! you're hurting me! you'll be just fine without me but how am I going to survive?"
Truly, getting divorced from my husband was (seems?) easy in comparison to getting to the place where I can simply say with certainty, "I don't drink." Now that I think of it, that decision took me about 12 years to make, so I'm right on schedule with this one.
Because wherever I go, there I am.
I can't divorce my addiction, but I CAN divorce alcohol.
What do you think?