My place called drinking (A First Step--sort of)

Hi All. I just started reading my blog from the beginning and all I can say is that my writing has really hit the skids lately. Sorry. Life gets busy and then my writing just falls apart--or so it seems. That said, this is my attempt to get back in the saddle. Be patient with me, please. So as I said in my last post, I am working with a new sponsor and doing the Steps just like in the Big Book. I actually did write a First Step a few times already but am up for the challenge of doing it again. I am not going to publish my actual First Step in its entirety but I am going to give a little snapshot for myself and for anyone else who might wonder just what it looks like to hit a bottom with your job, car, apartment, family, friends, and dog still around.

So my drinking--starting at age 15. Always and forever my favorite place to be was at a place I like to call drinking. It was a chatty, happy, and convivial place. It was a place that was full of intimacy, secrets, and laughing. My first time at my drinking place I felt funny, confident, and pretty. Who wouldn't want to frequent a place like that? I always had a tolerance that was pretty wild--able to drink many women and some men under a few tables. I found my niche in the drinking world. I might not be the smartest, prettiest, or nicest but put me in a bar and I would feel like all three plus some. I felt safe, happy, and comfortable anywhere that served alcohol. During this same period of time I also made some of the best real friends that anyone could ever want or ask for. Most of them I still am in touch with--and any of them I would be in touch with if I could find them or lived near them. I grew up with this crew of people and in many ways they became a family for me. Unlike many other stories--I do not consider these people as part of the problem. The problem was me and my drinking and the protective factor was that I was around people who looked out for me and loved me despite my excess and issues.

So there I was--after highschool and then 4 years of progessively harder drinking in college...I am lost. I dont know who I am. I dont know what I want. I envy anyone who does. I miss my favorite place called drinking. I keep trying to get back there but things are changing there. It is harder and harder to get there. I have this tolerance. I get these hangovers. I feel ashamed and tired. I am 21 and a black out binge drinker. I look like a regular person. I behave in some ways like a regular person. I am a 21 year old girl, who is a college graduate, and who on the inside already knows something is very wrong. I am scared.

I move to NYC. I get a job in advertising. I am 26. I discover Happy Hour. I am a black out binge drinker who is drinking nearly five nights a week. I am a regular at Happy Hour but I have a secret. I cant stop. My friends go home, wash their faces, brush their teeth, and go to bed. I do not go home and go to bed. I leave the bar and buy more alcohol. I go home and really drink. I drink just the way that I want when I am alone. I drink until I pass out. I wake up with bottles scattered around the room--often. I am ashamed, terrified, alone, and more then anything I am scared. I use Visine, I use insane amounts of Ibuprofen, I take NoDoz, I use cough drops, breath mints, perfume, lotion, I have all of the tricks. I use excuses--my job is stressful, my job is social, my job is superficial and I keep drinking.

I am 28, I am still not a daily drinker. I still do not drink in the morning. I still do not hide bottles of anything. I still am not being told by anyone close to me that I need to stop. I begin to tremble by 5pm without a drink. I refer to this as "stress." I drink pints so that no one notices my hands shaking before my first drink. I get flown to London for work and blackout and miss the meeting I am there for. I lie. I get on a plane and fly home and go to a bar. I am ashamed, and scared. I am a 28 year old binge blackout drinker who is an alcoholic. I have no idea what is happening to me. I begin to have increasing anxiety when I am sober. I get hot out of nowhere. I sweat and feel shaky in the afternoon. I cant sleep without alcohol. I take sleeping pills every night with our without alcohol. I cannot maintain an intimate relationship with someone I love because I cannot be trusted.

I am 29, I am in Vermont. I have been layed off. I am with my new/old boyfriend. I try to stop drinking as much and dont tell him or anyone else. I cry for two days straight, and dont know why. I cant sleep. I am irritable. I sweat. I take sleeping pills to feel less shaky. I start using pot to chill out. I tell myself that I am ok. I think I am not ok. I have a solution. I use pot instead of alcohol for a while. On the weekends and some weeknights I drink like I want which is until I pass out or throw up. I do both, often. My boyfriend gets sick of this and after one evening when I come home and kick him and tell him how useless he is and then pass out he tells me I should "cut down" on my drinking. I cry. I cry because i cannot imagine a life worth living without alcohol. I cry because I know that I need alcohol to have fun and to be myself. I cry because I see that my drinking is out of control and am unable to stop. I cry because I know that I will keep drinking.

I feel totally helpless. So, I point my finger at him. I bring up his substance use. I tell him he has a problem. I put all of my energy into noticing his substance use and blaming him. I telly myself that I hate what he has done to me. I feel that everything is his fault and I will be fine once I am without him. I leave him. He tells me he doesnt drink that much anymore now that I am gone. He seems happy and ok.

I am 29 and heartbroken and an alcoholic living alone with my dog. I do what any good alcoholic would do. I get drunk and meet someone new. I meet a new really nice guy. I start drinking less during the week. I am tight but I am doing better. I feel vindicated. My new boyfriend is the solution. My old boyfriend was the problem and my life is just fine--pass the wine. The one problem is that nothing is fine. I miss drinking during the week. When I do drink it is to excess worse then before. I am lonely and sad and broken and cant feel really happy or really relaxed without a drink in my hand. I have blamed my drinking on someone else and woke up without them and still hungover. I have used other people to try to fill the holes in myself only to wake up guilty and still empty. I want to be a different person and do not know how. I know something is wrong with me.

I am 30 and visting my old roomate in NYC. I go out drinking without eating (as usual) around 4pm on a Friday night in April of 2004. I am in the bathroom of a bar in the East Village with a man I do now know who is a cocaine dealer. I look in the mirror and see someone else. I am detached from myself. I think: I dont care what happens to her. I wake up from a black out on Saturday morning. I dont know where I am. I am with the cocaine dealer somewhere in the East Village. I am ashamed. I think of the various things I must do, the first of which is lie about this. I hate myself more then ever before. I think: I could have been killed. I think: I do care what happens to me. I think: my drinking is going to kill me and is dangerous. I know I am in trouble. I think: I need help. I think: I am going to stop drinking--and I do.

So that is my mini story. How I stopped drinking and stay stopped is a longer and maybe more relevant story. What is interesting to me is that throughout my drinking there were times when I did consider quitting and certainly times where I was not drinking that frequently. Some people may have the mistaken belief that my ability to not drink for periods of time indicates that I was really in control. I was not. The simple truth is that for my entire drinking life--any time that I picked up an alcoholic beverage and began to drink it--I wanted more. I always wanted more. The wanting more was deep inside me. I could not think my way out of my wanting more. I tried to. I tried so hard. I would tell myself that I would only have one, no two, no three--and then I would tell myself that tomorrow I would do that and keep going. I could see that other people were not like this but I felt powerless to do anything about it. That feeling of powerlessness fueled my fear and propelled my drinking. Drinking took away my fear, my feelings of powerlessness, my feelings of being less than--temporarily. Of course though the next day, sober, the feelings were back only worse.

I know that my drinking story is no longer a completely uncommon story. I hope that it is helpful for someone. I wish I could reach out to every woman in college or working who is already drinking like this and show them that there is a different way but I know that I cant. The only thing I can do is keep on my path and hope that along the way I can help someone else too. Thanks for listening. xxK

still recovering...

hi all. i keep beginning my posts with the surprise at how long it has been since i last wrote. i am going to try to post more regularly this year. we'll see how that goes. today i was thinking about the process of recovery. so often i am reminded that recovery is a process. it is a process that has a definite beginning but no ending. recovery is ongoing. a journey much more then a destination. in early recovery this awareness was disheartening but recently i have begun to see the journey as encouraging--as in, i have lots of time to work on growing and learning all different things. i dont have to rush. i dont have to be perfect or know everything today. i can just do my best for today and learn as much as i can from whatever happens to me and the people around me.

also, i should say that some big things have happened in my recovery lately. the first is that i finally got a sponsor. if i was into using caps i would put finally in all caps. finally, after about 7 plus years of either not having one, or having one but not using them, i have a sponsor and i am talking to her. i am doing the steps with the big book (AA's basic text) and have committed myself to speaking with her twice a week for about fifteen or twenty minutes a call to read two pages of the book at a time together. we do this and then we talk about the readings and she explains historical information to me and gives me her own interpretation of reading. this is useful for a number of different reasons but mainly because it really has helped me feel more grounded in the actual program of AA. since AA is a fundamental or really the fundamental tool of my recovery--it helps to really understand it. i used to think this sort of thing was annoying but i dont anymore. i guess i have grown in a way and am willing to be open minded about AA not just the people (who i have always loved and been open minded about) but the writing, the literature, the steps---ie the real work.

for a long time i believed that therapy was more effective for me then AA. i have not totally changed my opinion about this but i have started to think that i can do both and they are not mutually exclusive. there are things about alcoholism that i forget. traits in myself i guess that i forget to tie back into addiction. it is useful to remember that many other people suffer from some of these things (a tendency to isolate, a proclivity to obsessive thinking, and a few other self-defeating characteristics like procrastination that can be frustrating and make me feel bad about myself). when i am reminded that i share these characteristics with millions of other people i sort of instantly feel better. i am not alone. a fact that i intellectually know but dont always really feel. when i do the work of AA--i feel it. i feel how much i have in common with other people and how lucky i am to know it and to be able to do something about it.

the other things i am doing are trying to exercise regularly, taking (sigh) new medicine (zoloft for anyone who cares about these things), and going to more meetings. the meds can be a dicey topic for some in AA but i think i have said before here that i REALLY dont think this is an AA topic. my mental health struggles with anxiety and depression have at times felt more terrible then my drinking. i have only been taking the zoloft for a few weeks but i am hopeful that (along w/ my therapy and the other stuff) my irritability and fatigue will slowly begin to lift. there are many people close to me who do not share my views about antidepressants and that is just fine. i am talking only about how i feel about myself and what works for me. i get that for some people the use of such medicine is not only unnecessary but potentially threatening to their recovery (ie the idea of taking a pill to feel better may seem too familiar to some...)--for me, i feel way less likely to pick up a drink now that i dont want to rage at my kids a hundred times a day but this is personal and something we all need to look at for ourselves.

my next blog is going to be my first step written out. i am going to do this bc 1) it will force me to begin writing and 2) i think it might be interesting for people to read what the steps are all about. i am going to try to keep my steps that i publish sort of general and not too specific (to protect the guilty and innocent...). i hope someone out there finds them useful. i thank you for reading and i hope you'll come back again soon. i promise to do more of my sober writing. hope you all are healthy and happy this 2012. xxk

Haunted Houses

Hi Old Friends, it continues to be dificult to find time to write. I actually have been spending a good deal of time reading and working. Maybe I have been sort of hibernating--and dealing with other family matters that I am not sure how much I've shared about before. I guess today is the day to share about those things. Mental Illness.

So, I know I blog pretty frequently about substance abuse and my own recovery from alcoholism. I sometimes write about my own struggles with depression. I dont think I write often about what it is like to live with a family member that has BiPolar Disorder. I actually hate the words, the diagnosis, the title and pretty much everything else that goes along with this insidious disease. What I think I hate the most is that you can't see it. When someone gets sick with diabetes you can test their blood sugar, you can read the numbers, you can help them change thier diet or take insulin. With this, and all mental health problems, family members are left trying to sort thru the emotional baggage of mental illness, denial, and (if you are like me) then you are in a nearly constant state of trying to figure out what is real.

When they said this was it them or their illness talking? When they did this was it them or their disease? And, by the way, how do we separate people from their illnesses when thier illnesses often seem to define their personality? I strange question maybe from someone who identifies herself as an alcoholic.

I am struggling. Can you hear me? Sitting here. Typing to myself, worrying, sorting thru memories, phone calls, events and trying to decipher the code that will help me understand just where this disease stops and my own Dad starts. I want to understand it but I it defies all of my attempts. All I am left with is the DSM defintions, symptoms, and prescriptions.

The DSM does not, for example, say what to do when your Dad is so depressed he wont get out of bed. It doesnt say what to do when he is so manic he calls and yells at you--saying things that are insensitive at best. I tell myself this is just his disease. I talk to my therapist, my mom, my sister, my husband. I tell myself this is not about me. I tell myself this is not my fault. I tell myself I cannot fix this.

Nothing I tell myself sinks in. I am lost, alone, and without one parent. I sit and wait for him to come back. Sometimes he does. Underneath the Lithium haze, behind the Imimpramine glitter, somewhere there is my Dad. The man who taught me to ride a bike in my backyard, the man who used to buy me hot chocolate at Dunkin Donuts and let me sit at the counter with him on early Saturday mornings,the man brought me to his office and let me sit with his secretary and learn to type, the man who was alive, funny, real. This was before the meds--maybe before the disease--this was a different time.

I dont have to tell you that I am older now. That of course things are different and of course I cant expect things to be the same. I dont have to tell you that it hurts or is confusing or even that it can be all consuming if I let it. I guess all I have to do is accept the pain and take it one day at a time. I lean on the AA slogans harder then before. I rework the same program that helps me stay sober. I remember that it is his disease talking not him. I truge along. I miss my Dad. xxK

Green Bottles of Poison

Hi All,

It has been so long since I have found the time to write. Interestingly, I have spent a lot of time thinking. I had a conversation last night that openend my eyes again to how dangerous it can be for me to think my way into feeling better or doing better. I tend to end up in the same grooves that got me a chair in AA in the first place. It is interesing how easy it is to slide back into thinking the same old way. Even when I think I am really aware and working hard to change--when I am not paying attention--my brain just wants to go back to that thinking.

The indicator with me is an obsession with Self. They dont call it the bondage of self for nothing. It is true bondage to be stuck inside my own head, with my own distorted thinking, and my own old self-made solutions. No, not the drinking solution--but the isolating solution, or the shutting down solution, or the feeling sorry for myself solution, or the thinking i am better then or different solution. Terminal uniqueness. I hate being so predictably dysfunctional. Even my dysfunction wants to be special and different.

Despite the fact that my feelings feel quite unique and special to me, many or almost all of my characther defects link up quite nicely to the disease of alcoholism. A disease that I hope we all understand is only partly to do with the actual drinking and very much to do with the thinking that allows this self indulgence and self destruction to continue. My negative thoughts are really dangerous to me and my sobriety. Much more dangerous then I'd like to admit. My negative thoughts really are as dangerous to me (in the long term) as a bottle of Kettle One is sitting on my shelf (in the short term). At least the Kettle One bottle I am aware of and would probably do something about--either give away or pour out etc. The negative thinking is different bc it sort of settles in when I am not paying attention.

Next thing I know I am back isolating, feeling different, and cloaked in a melancholy that I believe is unique to me but really is not at all. Perhaps I should start to imagine my negative thinking as a big green bottle of poison (not Tanqueray but close). When I hear that familiar voice telling me no one really likes me or how what I just said was stupid or how I am worthless then I could visualize the big green bottle and go into action to break it. I need to get rid of that poison with the same intensity as the Kettle One on the shelf--call someone and get some help with those voices before they convince me that they are actually a part of me. What I have learned is that my disease can sound just like me--so much so that I sometimes mistake my disease talking to me for my true self. The difference is not tone but content. My true self does not tell me I am worthless or bad because deep down I know I am not either of those things.

For today, I am again exposing these voices to you all and to myself as I write--then I watch them shrivel up and disintegrate into the air like paper I burned up. I can give those voices credit for a nice try but I am lucky to have too many people on my side now. Those voices dont stand a chance when I have so many other smarter voices to listen to now. xxk

the student becomes the teacher

hi all, no posts since Irene hit this area and caused some pretty serious flooding. our house was just fine but many of our neighbors are still not back to normal. all of this loss has really caused me to reflect--on everything. on what is important and what is not.

last night at work a young girl that i work with says--i just dont understand what the point of life is? we grow up, we pay bills and taxes, we die. i wanted to say something. i wanted to offer an opinion, or some possibilities even but i didnt. i just sat there and thought. shit, i get why she (at 16) does not understand what she thinks life is about but what is my excuse? what is the point of all of this?

i had in my head a whole assortment of thoughts. some buddhist stuff about how pain and suffering are part of life and how we can choose how we respond to it--what we make of it. i thought about some spiritual stuff like the purpose of life is to love. mainly though i just sat there and let the question float around us. a few other kids had similar questions and thoughts. it was hot and rainy. the generators were still on from the power outage from the hurricane. everyone was tired including me. in that moment things felt pretty grim.

about ten minutes later we left that building and saw the main lights on. the power had come back. everyone started clapping and was happy. grateful. myself included. the question though has stayed with me. what is my life's purpose? and how important is it to remember it when it is dark and challenging? my guess is that knowing ourselves and our life's purpose is very important.

i remember a book on addiction that said the people relapse for 2 reasons 1)denial creeps in and they convince themselves they no longer have a problem or 2) they know they have a problem but they lose the desire to stay sober. essentially, they feel hopeless about life and give up trying. the point of this was to illustrate how important spirituality is to recovery--we need to find meaning in life so that we dont give up on ourselves and retreat into the warm welcome numbness of hiding in alcohol or drugs or food or gambling or wherever else we like to hide.

so today i have committed myself to meditating and developing more of sense of my own purpose. more of a sense of what i am meant to do and what i can give back. sobriety is one gift that we really only get to keep by giving away. xxk

grace, dignity, and my ego

hi all,

today was a tough day at work for me. i made a mistake on friday--not a huge mistake but a mistake none the less and then i added to my own trouble but not admitting it straight away. the reason i didnt admit it right away is that i thought i was right. i was digging my heels in about being right when i was actually wrong. it sucks being wrong but being wrong when you really think you are right is the worst of all. i spent all weekend sort of mulling it over. i was initially angry. then more angry. then quitting. then just never going back. then writing a mean letter. then...then...i just stopped. i stopped thinking about it. i put it on hold. i let it sink in.

i went to work on monday. i tried to just be open. think clearly. stay strong but take ownership and be dignified. i tried not to act defensive or like a mad child. and it actually worked. i admitted my mistake. i apologized. i reflected on why i thought i hesitated to admit my mistake (my big fat ego who just loves to be right) and then i said i was sorry and that i would try to not let that mistake happen again. the result was not ground breaking but i did feel better and the situation seemed to improve. i felt that i had for once in my life accepted responsibility but not gone overboard. i mean i took ownership of my part but not anyone else's. also, i didnt feel scared or intimidated or bad. i felt like a strong and centered woman. not a girl but a woman.

i know that may sound silly considering i am 37 years old but the truth is that i dont always find it easy to actually use or own my power. i give it away all over the place when i am not paying attention. today, i paid attention. i kept my power. i was not afraid of it. i was not afraid at all. i learned a lesson tonite about mistakes and dignity and being an adult. it felt good to be an adult doing the right thing in front of kids who dont often see adults doing that or even trying to. this feeling of being proud of myself has been arriving more frequently lately as i work harder to be strong and real.

i am working on my body and my mind. i am eating right or trying to. i am exercising some--doing yoga mostly and trying to be aware of my body and breathing. i feel like finally i am learning how to be the person that i always wanted to be. i hope you are learning to be who you want to be too. i hope you are learning and not giving up and making mistakes and starting again. i hope we can all do this together. maybe just maybe we'll end up proud of ourselves...xx

the real k

anyway, so today i had coffee with an old friend. i missed her so much it made me want to cry seeing her. it was so much fun to just talk. it made me think about healthy relationships and how easy it is to know when things are right because they feel right. you leave a good friend and feel happy. you go to yoga and leave feeling strong, clear, good. good and healthy things actually make me feel good and...yes, healthy. it is unfamiliar territory for me sometimes but it is starting to be easier for me to connect the dots, do the math. doing the right thing and being with people who also do the right thing feels so fucking good.

i used to not think that. i used to only relate to people not doing the right thing. secrets. drama. mystery. etc. give me someone cheating on their boyfriend, husband, someone hating their job, someone hating their life and i immmediately and instantly liked this person. truth be told i am not sure i liked them or just liked how i felt around them. i.e. normal. their insanity mirrored my own and it felt comfortable to be around--it felt exhilirating--the way that roller coaster rides do--only maybe better. when i was drinking i craved this adrenaline fueled relationship, friendship, life. it felt just so right to feel wrong. i didnt get it at all. i thought i had it all figured out.

it took a long time for me to get this. but i am going to tell you here. it is not more fun to use drugs and drink then it is to be sober. you dont feel happier or better using then you do sober. i guess you might think you are having more fun, and maybe there were times on martini 3 that i thought i was happy but here is the trick--i was not actually happy. when i woke up the next day--happiness was nowhere to be found. you dont find happiness when you cant remember where you were, what you said, or who you talked to. you cant find it bc it is not there.

so, if any of you who are reading this are drinking. are thinking of stopping. or are thinking of starting. take it from me that happiness really is the byproduct of right action. i heard it in AA 7 years ago. wrote it on yellow post its and posted that shit all over my apt. i had that phrase everywhere--and still today i return to it. i am doing the right thing and...yes, i am sort of, well, happy. i hope you are too. xxk