pearlady

Day #10 of Sobriety

Checking in with how I feel.

On the surface: cheerful, playful, good spirits. On the inside: emotional, lonely, and afraid. ( after writing this, I feel less so)

I have been joking and connecting with my coworker. We have a good friendship. I feel relieved because my mom is going to be okay and is out of the hospital. I also feel relieved because my boyfriend and I finally connected and talked out most of the stuff that we have been dealing with.

I was angry with him yesterday. Just stuff. I was so mad; you could probably see steam coming out of my ears. My hands were shaking I was so mad. I am not comfortable with angry. I have always suppressed it rather than experience or show it. I went for walks to blow off the steam and to not drink. I walked around town like 10 times. Then I went home to my apartment and lay down and tried to become calm. I did become calm and after a while, he called me.

He has been distant and we haven’t really been communicating except in frustration with one another the last two weeks. He’s been avoiding me. I’ve been frustrated and hurt at his avoiding me. Previous to this I have informed him that if we are in a relationship that I expect him to be working towards his own recovery while I am working on mine and if he is not ready to then to call me when he is ready. Thus the non-communication began and avoiding me. Last night I said, let’s get down to business and talk this out. I wanted to know what he was going to choose.

We had both been resenting one another and last night we put it all on the table. All of the resentment and anger towards each was aired out. We didn’t yell but we were honest. It felt good to talk and release it. We connected. I felt, at the time, that some of the things that he said were unfair, but when I take an honest inventory of myself, he didn’t say anything that wasn’t true. I don’t like to be called on my **** because I was ready to call him on all of his and I wasn’t prepared for him to tell me that I was as wrong as him.

Really looking forward to step 4 and 5 y’all.

We had quite the banter. Even though it was honest and painful to hear, I could feel his love for me as we spoke.

Here is a sample:

BF: You’re also capable of stabbing any girl in the back. You hold grudges. You give mean looks.

Me: Oh I would stab a girl in the face over my man

BF: You never truly listen to anybody’s point of view

Me: Not true

BF: You think you’re smarter than everyone else

Me: I am

BF: Do you honestly think I am going to marry a girl that consistently does not listen or respect my wishes? I truly think you’re a spoiled rotten crybaby brat. What am I going to do with you?

Me: I am. You just love me and you stop trying to fix me

BF: Well I quit

Me: I will do the same thing for you.

BF: I do love you…for no reason and you are theoretically welcome to call yourself my girlfriend forever because simply I don’t want anyone else, so lucky you. If you want to be my girlfriend, I will call you Monday afternoon and ask if you’re still interested. At that time…we will discuss further. After Monday, you can email me freely at any time, I will check my email daily, I will do my best to call you daily, and I will probably invite you to visit next weekend. Go to bed. I will talk to you Monday.

Me: I love you

BF: I love you too.


He asked me to give him the weekend and that he would call me Monday and we would talk more. He didn’t say why he wanted the space, but I will give it to him. We both deserve the time to process our recovery, how we have behaved in our relationship, and what we need to go forward. It’s hard for me to just agree to not talk for the weekend. It's hard for me to respect his wishes because I am not in the habit of doing so. I am compulsive and needy. I always want reassurance that he loves me even though I know he does. If he doesn’t call, my mind runs amuck. To calm me he sent me a message once that said: If you don’t hear from me, know that I am content, happy, and still madly in love with you.

I’ve cast blame on him a lot. I’ve made him feel guilty to get what I want. He said I bend the rules and I manipulate. I said I create the rules. I create them out of insecurity and a need to be in control to cope.

Gosh, I have been so harsh towards him but haven’t been able to look in the mirror. My codependency, my alcoholism, my lack of self-esteem has made me into a shell of myself. Looks and seems like me, but isn’t.


I’ve not understood that my addiction was as big a part of our relationship troubles as his. The only difference was that he wasn’t in denial of his addiction problems. He wasn’t choosing to do anything about them in his relapse but he didn’t deny them. I’m only just discovering and just now having the courage to take inventory of what I have done wrong, who I have been, and who I thought I was in comparison. I've been quite self-righteous with little right to be. My pain.. my pain.. my pain. How dare you hurt me? And I'm just over here hurting him.

Now that I’m coming out of this fog, I can see things more honestly. I have always spun things to be better in my favor. But he won’t let me do that. My replies to him in the sample of the conversation above were honest; I wasn’t trying to solicit a particular response from him but they were also defensive and uncomfortable. I used to craft my replies to his questions or statements to set up a stage for the desired outcome.


I had hoped to go visit him this weekend because we haven’t seen one another since Memorial Day-previous to my foray into sobriety. I am lonely for him. I miss him. But I need to respect the boundaries that he is requesting as I hope that he would respect the boundaries I have been setting. I have been self-centered and selfish. Acting out of my own need, all others be damned.

It kills me to not know what he is doing. I’m afraid. I’m afraid that I am not enough. But through AA, I am learning to accept the things that I cannot change. I cannot change right now that he wants space. Normally, I try to control everything. Before AA, before sobriety, I would have just gone anyway to his house, called, emailed, messaged, because that is what I wanted. I wouldn’t be able to cope with the anxiety of not getting what I wanted- attention from him.

And I was going to get what I wanted and if I didn’t, I was going to get drunk, pitch such a bit fit, pout, sulk, etc until he gave me what I wanted. Off with his head... to quote a particular literary queen.

The sad thing is that this man is devoted to me, and if I didn’t always force and coerce, he would fulfill my needs generously. I just won’t give him a chance to because I am so insecure.

All of this is a reflection of my deep fear of rejection and abandonment. I have never developed a self-worth that wasn’t dependent upon another opinion of me. No wonder I drank. I had no core.

I don’t know what will happen and I don’t like that. But I do know this- we love one another and we are both addicts/alcoholics. We will only inflict pain and suffering upon one another in the midst of addiction. And that has to stop.

It will be up to him how he decides to seek recovery and if he does. I will not micromanage it. It is very personal and up to him. Now that I am in my own recovery, I understand better why he got so upset when I tried to micromanage his recovery. I will focus on my own recovery. And I will love him as he is without trying to change him. I hope that he will stop trying to change me. I will begin the work to change myself and that’s all I can do.

I can resist the compulsion to call him. I have resisted the compulsion to drink alcohol for 10 days. I will not call him this weekend. Instead, I will do the work of looking inward. I will get to an AA meeting. I will spend time with my family. I will love him without forcing it upon him. I will give him space to love me.

entropy1964

It's great that you are recognizing the need to be a complete person, responsible for your own happiness and well being. No one completes us, nothing can fill a void....not a person or a substance. Boundaries, yours and his, must be respected.

You're smart to give him his space. Sounds like you need some too. Great job.

pearlady

Thank you Fricka. Something in me has greatly changed and I feel empowered as a result.

I managed to make it through the weekend without trying to contact him. His mother did call me a few times to chat. We are great friends. She told me that he had made the decision to go to rehab and that he had decided where he was going to go and he was going to start the process on today. I am hopeful. I said a prayer yesterday morning for myself and him. It was an addiction prayer that I thought was just fantastic. It gave me peace.

entropy1964

Pear lady that's awesome! For me, people can become an addiction too. When I make healthy choices in a relationship, that support and affirm my inner self, I feel stronger. I'm glad he's going to rehab.

Soberwolf

Grats on double digits

pearlady

Two weeks in, I don’t feel as needy or insecure as I did. I am stronger. Honesty with myself has increased my strength. I am not as uncomfortable and fearful of uncertainty. I can admit I am scared but I do not feel that I have to act upon that fear. I do not have to do anything about that fear other than acknowledge that it is there. I will not go to him and ask him to make me feel better about my fear by promising me this and that. It’s not right to pass the burden of my fear onto him, just to relieve myself. That’s no different than alcoholism.

So here is my fear:

I am fearful that he will decide that he doesn’t want me anymore while he is in rehab.

There I admitted it. This is true he could yet he could at any point. This fear is a result of a false belief system that I have that says I am not good enough. The belief system says- in recovery and sobriety, he will take off his ‘beer goggles’ and see you aren’t worthy. Yet this is warped, when we were both sober previously in our relationship, we loved one another more than ever and he was proud of being with me. The belief system doesn’t match the reality. So, the way that I work through this is admit that my fear has nothing to do with him or his love for me but my own personal lack of self-esteem. SO rather than ask him to put a Band-Aid on my fear, I have to work on building my self-esteem and filling my own cup. And when I do that, the fear will have less power over me. It is a much more effective treatment.

His mother told me that the plan for rehab is a 10-week program followed by a transition in a sober living community, where he could be for several months and from there he would re-establish himself with a new job and living independently in recovery.

I am going to refrain from devoting to any vision of what will happen as a result of his rehabilitation or my recovery. I have a way of getting attached to a dream or idea of how I want things to be and trying to force it into existence rather than letting things develop naturally as a result of good choices. I am learning to let go of control. I cannot control his behavior, I cannot control his recovery, I cannot control the future, I cannot control anything at all having to do with him. I can control my recovery. I can control my indulgence of my fears, I can control my behavior, I can control the things I say and what I think.

entropy1964

Great post. You know what you need to do.