Originally Posted by
MLD51 
But after a while, looking back, I began to realize how sad and pathetic that life actually was. Sure, there were fun evenings, it wasn't all drunken messiness, but on the whole, looking at the big picture, it was not a fun life AT ALL. The negatives were FAR outweighing any "fun."
I got divorced around the same age as you, although it was much longer ago. I started hitting the bars to have a social life, and my drinking got worse in a hurry. I wasn't like the guy that was out crying in his beer over his failed marriage. My ex and I were in total agreement over the divorce, and it was the smoothest most amicable divorce anyone could imagine.
The bar scene lasted for two years and then entered a death spiral from which I escaped, and 30 some years of drinking just ended abruptly. I'm trying to remember fun things in those two years, but I can't really. Like you, the whole thing was more pathetic than fun, and I think I was semi aware of it at the time too. There were moments that weren't a total loss, kind of like the best that happened would be something that wasn't too bad. Looking back at it now, I believe it was worse than I thought, and I get this mental shiver when I think about staying in that mode. Yeah, calling parts of it not too bad is much too rosy of a description, but that's all relative to my current state of mind.
The last 6 months were beyond pathetic. It was more like insanity. I could have been a leading character in one of those depressing Russian novels, and most of the crazy stuff in my mind was happening in the wee hours of the morning at home by myself. I had gone from seeking out company at bars to a frightening isolation. I'm happy that no one was around to see that part. I went to AA in a state of despair and quit that night. A month later, the insanity was but a dim memory, as I was being swept away on the pink cloud. And 6 months later, I was settled into my new normal.
Yuk, that was depressing, well mostly depressing, Thanks a bunch. LOL