Day 348: Moments and Plans and Fears. OH MY!

Whoever said that the few months leading up to a year of sobriety sucked: You are so right.

And while the suckage continues, amazingly, so do the lessons.

I’ve done a lot of reflecting, isolating, complaining, and backtracking recently. But, I’ve also had my mind blown. As I face each new emotion, battle each old demon, I can actually see how much my mind has been opened to the possibility, that maybe, just maybe, I have been wrong about some things my whole life.

And, up until this point, I’ve held on to a lot of shit. Sure, I’ve turned a lot over too. It’s really easy to look at the stuff you turn over. It’s pretty effortless to pat yourself on the back for the small shit that you accomplish in sobriety. But, I’ve found that it’s the big stuff, the stuff that’s hard to conquer, that’s always the last thing I face. And when I stand there, valiantly basking in the glow of my meager accomplishments, patting myself on the back, that’s when the army of elephants I’d been ignoring stomp out.

I’ve noted that Lars and I have has some ups and downs. Of late, it’s been more downs than ups. And, I’ve reverted to some old survival tactics. Mainly: I’m right, he’s wrong. I’ve used my new-found confidence in myself to justify my own self righteousness. And, while there are some things I am, in fact, right about, there are also things that I’m just afraid to look at, afraid to face, and above all: afraid to change.

There is nothing more debilitating than fear. It morphs us into something else. Fear creates other versions of us. Versions that, if we could really see clearly, would not make our true selves very proud.

Amidst an argument with Lars, he changed the focus of our rift. He told me: You’re so focused on what you want, that you don’t see what you have. You think so much about what you should be, that you forget who you are.

At first, I was furious. He changed the fucking subject of our fight. My ability to be present had nothing to do with it. He was deflecting. He was working my program. How dare he?!?! I could work his program for him too, but, I don’t muthafucka!!! I keep my nose out of it! Dammit!

I stewed on it for awhile. And, after cooling down, I asked myself why his interjection got me so fired up. And, it suddenly became really clear. I reacted that way, so adamantly against his presumption, because, well, I was afraid to look at my own shit. I was afraid that maybe he was right. And, when I actually stopped, and held that statement up to the light and tried it against a lot of the problems we’ve had, it’s been a major contributor to our discourse. The things that I haven’t turned over: My plans. What I want. Where I should be.

There’s no God there. No God in my plan, my wishes, my setting. It’s all me. The thing I haven’t let go. I’ve turned over so much that, somewhere, I decided God must be on board with my plan. Why turn that over, he’s working for me, right? Well no. He’s not. I’m working for him. And, by denying myself the joy of living in the moment I’m in, and instead, working in this moment for the next one, I lose a lot.

And, if I continue like this, I lose Lars or he loses me. One or the other.

So, in this moment, I know something new. I know that I have to open my mind to my “now” with Lars, not my “will be.” I also know, that Lars doesn’t get to work my program without getting a few heavy questions from me in return. I learned long ago, in early sobriety, that I don’t have to bury my feelings anymore. I just have to bury the fear.

In this moment: clarity. The next: _________________.

Day 344: Let’s Make A Deal

So much of my sobriety has been a negotiation.

Giving up this for that. Doing one thing instead of the other.

Compromise. No matter how long I do it, it still seems like a tall order. I struggle daily with turning everything over and letting the chips fall where they may. I know that by making the right choices, I help the chips to fall in the best way possible. I accept that in the end, I don’t have the power to determine the whole outcome. I’m just a small part of my own bigger picture.

The problem is knowing what choices to make. Some days, it’s simple. Clear cut. Definitive. I know the best choice. I know what compromise will be the most beneficial to me in the end. But, recently, especially with Lars, I don’t know what the right choices are. They aren’t obvious. It’s a hazy line. And, I don’t know where I’m dipping into self-will and where I’m selling myself short.

I love Lars, but, as time goes on I’m starting to see how very different we can be. And, in sobriety, I’ve learned that differences aren’t necessarily deal breakers. Sometimes differences challenge us to be better people, enable us to see outside our own field of vision, and help us to grow. There are other times, where we have to accept that there are differences that really bring things to a screeching halt. And, we can’t always get past those. Some things are beyond compromise. And, the healthiest thing we can do is be honest with ourselves, and walk away.

Of course I want to work out all these differences with Lars. I want to see how we can each be our own people, true to ourselves, and still find some way to be happy together. But, wanting things can’t always make them a reality. There have been a number of instances recently where the divide between us has grown. And, we’re both present enough to communicate and try to work through them, and even though we’ve recovered from each little explosion, it seems like a little distance remains, and with each negotiation, each compromise, the space between us seems to widen.

I don’t know if this is going to work out. And, the independent, strong part of me wonders if I’m just holding on here because I don’t want to let something fail in sobriety. But, I also wonder if letting go is the strong thing to do, the victory, not the failure. If I were to end things with Lars, it wouldn’t be burning a bridge like it has been with my other relationships. I want Lars in my life. I just don’t know if having him be the role of my leading man is the best part for him, or for me.

So, the negotiation continues. This is a big deal. It holds a big place in my life, and, I won’t make any snap decisions here. But, it’s something to contemplate. What’s the best deal? And, who really gets the crap end of it?

Day 339: Want To Keep It? Give It Away.

Yesterday I met my sponsor.

I told her my recent woes. How I feel like I’m doing all the right things, but I still end up wanting a good, stiff drink. I told her I’d been avoiding meetings. And, this time, it’s not because I’m disenchanted with AA, it’s because I feel like I’ve reached an AA plateau.

I’m sober. I’m staying positive. I’m working my program. But, I’m still crawling into my hole. I was almost embarrassed to admit that, after close to a year in this program, I still don’t have any real recovery friends. I show up to meetings. I know everyone in all my mainstay groups, but, I still feel like an outsider.

She told me that if there was a newcomer at the meeting we go to together right after our one-on-one meeting, I should go up and say “hello.” I immediately recoiled. What was I supposed to say to this hypothetical newcomer? What could I possibly have to offer her? I’ve been here in the rooms of AA for just shy of a year and I’m still a fucking recluse.

After my initial moment of panic, I started to breathe easy. There are seldom newcomers at the women’s meeting we go to together. And, before we even arrived, I considered myself off the hook. I was prepared to sit back in my seat, take in my meeting, and then go home to my cat and marinate in yet another night of Netflix, solo, in bed.

Oh, how the chips of fate do fall. Lo and behold, in our circle of regular ladies sat a new face. She took a 24 hour coin and told her story. And, I’ll admit, I missed a good part of her share stressing out about exactly what I’d say to her once the meeting was over. I tried to smile at her throughout the meeting, hoping to make her feel welcome. Maybe that would be enough?

Well, the meeting ended. And there she stood across the room looking as afraid as I felt. And, I suddenly remembered my first meeting. I wished someone had come up to me that day and told me to be kind to myself, because I had given myself a real mental beating for feeling like I even had to be at an AA meeting. So, that’s what I did. I gave her my phone number and said, “Be nice to yourself. You got here, and it’s a big deal.”

As I walked out of the meeting, I felt like I could have said more, but, I’d done my part. I’d said hello. My sponsor had seen me do it. My work was done.

Well, not quite. Because today the newcomer texted me. She asked me if I was going to another meeting tonight. And, I wigged out. I totally wasn’t going to go to a meeting tonight. I was planning on going straight home from work, making dinner, turning on the tube, and sitting, alone, in front of it. But, I suddenly felt this compulsion to get this girl to another meeting. It was my duty. And, staying home, yet again, isolating was hardly an excuse to blow this girl off. So, I gave her a couple of options for women’s meetings in the Portland area and we met up. And guess who showed up?

My fucking sponsor. And if you all could have seen the shit eating grin on her face, it would have made you smile.

So, maybe this newcomer girl isn’t my new best friend, but seeing her eyes light up at the prospect of getting sober made me hopeful for my own sobriety. I remember feeling the exact same things this girl felt.  And you know, as alone as I still feel today, more than a year after my first AA meeting, my life is so much better. She made me see how far I’ve actually come. And, if she can show up to a meeting two days in a row as a newbie, well fuck, I can say “hi” to a few people I don’t know. Hell, maybe I can even grab a cup of coffee.

They say if you want to keep it, you’ve got to give it away.

And, you know something? They were right.

Again.

Day 337: Isolation: It’s Just A Dark Room Where You Develop Your Negatives

Eleven months and two days sober.

So close to a year of sobriety that I can taste it. Yet, wine, bourbon, vodka, I can taste all those things too.

I’ve been on a roller-coaster. Emotionally and mentally. I want to get off this ride and check out. I’ve spent a very good amount of time this week thinking about drinking. Imagining what and where, and how good it would taste and feel. And then I get to the ugly part. I think about the trips and falls, the black outs, the statements that I won’t remember making, the things I’ll lose, the money down the toilet, and this whole almost-year clean and sober – all for naught.

Instead of drinking (or smoking a cigarette–I’ve been off those little suckers for 81 days today!) I stay home, by myself and isolate. I hadn’t been to a meeting in six days until last night. I used the justification that I had to care for Lars for the first few meetings I missed, totally valid, but as the week went on and Lars became more stable, it seemed that it was me that started to lose it.

I didn’t want to do anything. I just lay in bed or on the couch, watching Netflix. Forgetting the world, without really forgetting a thing.

I hate being alone and I love it. It’s a sick, sick thing. The more I isolate, the more I want to just live in this lonely hole forever, never to emerge again. And, simultaneously, I am furious that no one has come for me, angry that I have no one who cares enough to drag me out of this dark, lonely place.

It’s alcoholism. It’s the disease at work. Knowing that if it keeps me away from everyone, angry and alone, eventually, I’ll cave. Eventually, I will go out and buy that bottle of wine or bourbon. Eventually, I will pony up to that bar stool and watch as the bartender pours that ice cold drink.

But, I sit here. Letting it happen. Ruminating and simmering in my own discontent. Wishing I had meaningful relationships outside of my family and Lars. Wishing I had one girlfriend out there that would just intuit that I’d gone postal and come over, purse swinging at her side, cardboard tray of Starbucks beverages in hand, and a pocket-book-pack of Kleenex ready to go for the waterworks that are about to commence. Where is she? My best friend, my back up?

I don’t have one. Because, instead of going to a women’s meeting and chatting with women who are likely to understand me, who could potentially be my friends, I am here. Wiping my cry-baby-snot from my nose with my hand and telling my cat, who has a very confused expression, I might add, that she is all I have in the world.

What makes many of us alcoholics hole up like this? I don’t know.

What’s the solution? Going to meetings? Making friends? Getting a hobby that involves human contact? Yes. Yes. And, yes.

But, I’m still figuring this deal out. I don’t know who I am yet. I don’t know how to make these friendships I’m supposed to have. I just can’t yet. But, I’m not drinking today.

It’s the best I can do some days. Just fuck all, and stay sober.

Day 329: (Higher) Power Play

Lars is back in the hospital.

Things are totally shitty for him right now, and, they have been for a good, long while.

It’s been a string of horrible luck. And, it really leaves me wondering how I can reconcile this place of positivity in my life with seeing his pain and suffering. I haven’t had nearly as many challenges as Lars. Certainly not in the same way. So, as I hang on to my AA tools, desperately, in my own life, I have tried to share my positive thinking with Lars. But, when all is said and done, the truth is, he doesn’t have a lot to be positive about right now.

I feel like a liar telling him that everything will be OK, that God’s plan is at work even if we can’t see it. It doesn’t seem fair. Why would his higher power do this to him? It seems cruel. And, even as an outsider, it’s really hard for me to see the good here. If I were Lars, I’d have a difficult time making a gratitude list too.

While I know I’m powerless in many ways here, I know that Lars’ fragile state gives me an opportunity to be of service. To be a support. A shoulder to cry on. To be a person who prays for others. But, even those things seem useless. I feel like I’m living on two planes of existence: My own and Lars’.

Here I am, watching my life shape up. Changing my thinking so that I can make it through each day. And, at the same time, watching Lars try and try, and watching things slip for him. What makes one person’s experience so different from another’s? Why can’t we all be rewarded for our honest efforts?

These are questions I just can’t answer. And, for me, this is where faith has to step in. I have to have faith even if Lars can’t right now. I have to believe that something bigger is at work here, even if I’m not meant to see or understand it. Because, without that faith, that belief, there’s really no good reason I shouldn’t drink. If bad shit happens, even when you’re trying your damnedest to do the right thing, it seems that the world is just plain cruel. And, while I hate accepting cruelty, if I’m going to survive this planet without liquor, I’m going to have to find faith somewhere.

I have to believe that one of our higher powers is going to make a huge power play, and soon. Because Lars needs it. And, more than anything right now, I want something spectacularly good to happen for him.

It’s hard to know what faith looks like. But, today, faith means that I’m not only going to have to rely on my higher power, I’m going to have to rely on Lars’ too.