Self-medicating not allowed

9:25 pm

Sorry I’ve been MIA this week.

The past few days have been really shitty, I must say. And, I just haven’t felt like writing about it. However, I wanted to check in and say howdy-do, I’m here, and I’m sober. Coming up on 8 weeks again next Monday. 🙂

I don’t know if I’ve been sad, sick, drinking too much Diet Coke, or inhaling too much second-hand smoke. Whatever it is, I’ve just had a headache. Of the body (my head does feel grainy) and mind (I feel sort of hopeless in the most literal sense, as in, nothing to personally look forward to).

In having to just sit with it, wait it out; I guess I’ve figured out why I used to drink wine when I felt this way: I don’t like being sad. I don’t have TIME for it. I’m also familiar with it, and so afraid of the place it takes me (is taking me) and afraid that I’ll think myself further down. My father has been in the midst of a serious, clinical depression going on 5 years or more. I used to wonder, why can’t he just think himself out of it? Honestly, the hardest thing about the past few days has been NOT ALLOWING my mind to think itself further into the “depression,” or whatever we’re calling it. Which actually frightened me a bit, because it felt like I could, if I wasn’t careful to control the negative thoughts.

Anyway, I’ve learned a lot from the past week. One, I can no longer escape from this, or run from it, with wine. I did that for years, and it’s just not possible anymore IF I want to actually move past it. (This is going to be REALLY hard, I know. It’s why this is such a mental thing for me, a mental battle.) Two, I want to drink LESS than I want to stay sober, which means slogging through the mind-fogs like this. I know these may simply be mood swings, but they could also be NECESSARY growing pains–learning how to deal, unmedicated, with the ups and downs of life. (Though, is this really a “normal” down for most people? These feelings are gut-wrenching, mind-numbing, seemingly pointless; I’m not as much “sad” as I feel totally out of it, lethargic, reflective on past mistakes to the point of feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders. As I told my boyfriend, it’s not even that I WANT to do something, it’s that I want to WANT to do something.)

But, today is better than yesterday is better than the early days of the week. I think I need a new routine, a new project, some meaty changes to bite into…which I’m working on. I did accomplish a few things this week (another editing project; a visit to a nonprofit–a few weeks longer than it “should’ve” taken me, but oh, well, it takes what it takes; a couple of important trips planned, one to a neighboring island for a few days next month–yes, I DO have my priorities straight). I already forgot about most of the negative thoughts that were clouding my mind (there were so many, and they were so confusing, that it was hard to even think them let alone hold onto them), which is exactly where they belong–outside my memory bank, in the ether. And, that thing I mentioned above, which I realized somewhere along the way in my email-reading and comment-writing: I want to be sober MORE than I want to drink; which, in essence, cancels out even the most painful cravings. (As an aside, considering that drinking the other night would have made me feel the same as I already felt–numb, sad, closed off to the world–well, it’s a no-brainer.)

Tags: alcoholic, alcoholism, binge drinking, coping mechanism, coping skills, depression, drinking, recovery, self-medicating, sober, sobriety, wine, women