UniqueNewYork

I'll try to keep this short. I was a blackout every time I drank drinker at one point. My emotional baggage would have needed to be carried by a fleet of 18 wheelers. I started to get involved in AA and make amends with the people that were keeping me up at night, including myself and my HP. Theres a lot more to the story but I'm keeping it short. Some of the people I could not make amends to; it wasn't feasible.

I moved away and made a good life for myself many hours away. I sobered up. I became a social butterfly without alcohol. I made real friends. I became a person who could be a good friend to someone.

Today I find out I have to move back to the old town for a job. Its a podunk town where at any time I could run into someone who knows I'm an alcoholic. I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the stories that happened while I was drinking that were so embarassing that I wanted to crawl in a hole and die afterwards, whether it be with relatives, strangers, work people, church people, anyone. No one was safe from my drunken idiot performances. It was so bad that a handful of people actually wanted to cause me physical harm, and hundreds ostracized me as a pariah. Now I find I have to go sit on the throne of a hell I built brick and mortar through my own labors and I'm terrified.

Dee74

Hi UNY

Well for me, I actually found that I'd overblown my reputation in my own head.

People simply didn't remember much, or if they did? they simply didn't care.

I was blown away when I realised that.

I hope it will prove to be the same for you too
D

relisten

Have you been sober lately?

CarolD

Maybe this is happening so you can finish your amends?
i too was a blackout drinker...no amends could could change that
Instead....I made a point of helping new AA members win...

Try to relax...you are not the same person now as
you were when you were a drunk.
Hold your head up as you keep in recovery focus.

Best of luck with the move....

newby1961

I so agree I am a legend in my own mind lol. People don't care they are to wrapped up in their own drama to care about us and what we do or don't do. I would go back hold my head up high and find my local AA hall. Surround myself with sober AA people and make myself new memories in that town. I do get the fear though cause I left a place cause when i was in treatment over 10 years ago they relocated me saying they were afraid for me if I went back to that town. Sometimes lifestyles are hard to let go off, especially if you were out there playing hard, and were well known, but I still believe that if some time has passed people have moved on. Keep the Faith

LexieCat

Hundreds, possibly thousands, of people know that you WERE a drunk.

I agree with the others that most people don't spend nearly the amount of time and energy thinking about us that we believe they do.

No doubt some people will comment when they see you. They may whisper for a bit. They will soon enough observe you are not the person you were.

Hold your head up, keep sober, and the past will fade away.

I take it you have "graduated" from AA? Might be a good time for a refresher.

Sugah

I went back to school two years sober, and I was mortified to see that one of the administrators was the wife of a guy who'd been in a club with my ex -- a motorcycle club, where I, of course, had done an awful lot of drinking and hell raising. She wasn't like me--not by a long shot--and by this time, she'd been divorced for a long time and had moved on. Well loved, well respected. I did my thing, did well in school, was involved in a lot of university organizations, and became rather well-known on our campus.

On a warm spring day in my last semester, I was sitting at a picnic table reading, and I looked up from my book to see her standing there, smiling at me. I greeted her. By this time, I wasn't mortified anymore. I had lived my life much differently in the previous four years than the woman she had known. She said to me, "I don't want this to come out the wrong way, but...you're very different. I'm happy for you and what you've done with your life. I don't know how you've done it, but you're not the same person." I thanked her for telling me that, and I shared with her that I'd been sober awhile and what that meant--that it wasn't just putting down the booze, but making some real changes in my life. She then told me that she wished that her ex-husband could have done the same. She said though she was remarried and loved her husband, she still loved the first an she fell in love with, but that alcohol had taken him from her.

Anyway...I'm just saying--hold your head up and live a sober life. Some folks out there won't ever believe a person can change (I know a few of them--they are not happy people), but most will see that one person left podunk and another returned.

Peace & Love,
Sugah

UniqueNewYork

Thanks for all the words of advice. Sugah's story was especially touching. I am feeling a lot less apprehension about moving back.

coffeenut

You have an awesome opportunity to show a lot of people how sobriety can turn a life around!