Aellyce

I just came back home from the dinner. My colleagues had drinks, not much though. I had no temptation at all. But the best feature was that the woman whose party it was turns to me at some point, saying loudly such that everyone around the table could here: "Aellyce I really would like to see you drunk once. Because I can't imagine you drunk". Then a couple others nodding eagerly.
Hmm that's how well my colleagues know me I have been working with some of these people for almost 6 years now and they can't imagine me drunk! I think that shows secretive I am with most people at work. I was definitely not sober for 6 years, but did not do the crazy drinking/partying anymore during these years and with these people, all that was when I was younger. It is true that even during the worst of my alcoholism, I either did not drink socially or very minimally. I would just go home after and get drunk alone.

Quite happy that they seem to have the picture of me that is the complete opposite of the reality, not that being fake is good but in this case it is handy

The dinner was good and the company as well. This was the immediate team I work with the most and like them a lot. No one got drunk really and the whole thing was just ~2.5 hours of lighthearted conversation and silly jokes. Not what I tend to do a lot and it does me good when I do.

Courage, do you generally enjoy the networking and mingling at conferences? Most of the times I don't unless the conversations/people interest me or it's useful work-wise. I often want to skip the socials at conferences but I learned to make myself go, and then often I end up enjoying it. But not the drinking parties (anymore). When I do have temptation to drink, I want to do it on my own mostly. Not tonight though, luckily

courage2

Aellyce, a few comments about your evening--
I empathize with your pride in how well you've kept your drinking (past and current) hidden. I thought the same of myself. But it was a delusion of my perverted ego that served to prop up my perception of terminal uniqueness, which in turn kept me apart from help to change. Do you feel that?

I very much dislike social mingling. I'm also not a good networker. Unstructured, unpurposive talk hyperstimulates & confuses me. It brings out my innate randomness in ways that are sometimes inappropriate. If it goes on too long, I crash and then my impatience and snarkiness are more likely to emerge. That suggests that if you *had* had the temptation, you would have drunk. Is luck the only thing you're relying on? Because luck is inherently unreliable. What's your plan when you're tempted?

I hope you're not offended by these comments/questions. Please know that I want what's best for you, and believe you can achieve it

Same as I want for all of us.

Aellyce

Thanks for your thoughts, courage. Not offended at all. I've never found anything offensive in your comments to me; like said before, I always appreciate your thoughts and directness and I don't mind my words and actions taken apart, analyzed and compared with someone else's experience, except when someone does it in a self-centered and manipulative way.

Yes definitely think that I tend to be too secretive with most people. But then to some, I give away too much. Some boundary issues there. I think I did keep my drinking a secret from most people but not the consequences of it, that would have been impossible. In a way, it's even worse because the chaos is visible but where it comes from remains hidden. And, as you said, that definitely cuts the possibility of getting help.

When I was sober for 2 years, I definitely did a lot more than relying on luck for my recovery and it worked until I stopped taking care of those things. Right now it's true that I am just trying to get through every day and that has to change.

On the social mingling in relation to work, I often let my collaborators do that as much as possible and I just kinda coordinate things from the background. Lots of email communication. Obviously that does not work well at conferences and it's not a good networking strategy in general. There were a few years in my life around my later 20's-early 30's when I was very different with all this. Not a social butterfly but good with networking and mingling, and in general well integrated into my social environment, both professional and personal. That was the most successful and also balanced few years of my life in many ways, also pretty much free of any addictive behaviors (that I had before and after). I used to think a lot about what happened to that, what went wrong and how... and the main thing I could identify was exactly that I started to drink alcoholically in my 30's. For me, satisfying social life and active alcoholism just don't mix and never really did, much the opposite.

Hope things are good over there, courage