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Staring into the distance

6:06 pm

I’ve been staring into the distance lately, unsure of what will make me feel better. My “grief”–in quotes because, I guess I never really fully understood that grief can entail a bunch of different feelings, not just sadness or an ache for what once was–seems to come and go; today, it really came, and I was kind of surprised by how it’s tired me out. Hence, just staring into the distance. (A really pretty distance, too, with the “witching hour” sunset colors covering the sky in pastels.)

I took a long walk today, and well, honestly, I reached a point along the way when my slight crying turned to weeping. It was a much-needed processing of my feelings for my sweet, precious friend (our dog) having passed almost three weeks ago this coming Wednesday. It did not help–or, did it?–that I walked where I used to take the dogs, when we both were younger. I’ve finally accepted that my brand of grieving entails anger and a feeling of “what’s the point” before it dissolves into sadness. And, I understand now that in losing someone–including a pet, since they are someone to me–the sadness and nostalgia that comes along with the loss is as much about you getting older and confronting your mortality as it is about that person or pet having gotten older and died.

(Speaking of grief, there is a lot of loss going around these days, and uncertainty; that doesn’t help either, for sure.)

I feel undeniably older these days, and even before our dog died, I couldn’t help but fixate on how I used to be, how we used to be, what we used to do, what we used to like to do. Of course, this has been made worse by the fact that we literally moved home again when we come back last November. I mean, we live in the same house as we did eight years ago, and we walk the same roads, so to speak, but we are definitely different. And that is jarring. I’m grateful that we’ve come a long way, and generally, I like how we’ve evolved! Yet, it all feels gone, sometimes.

I feel mentally strong enough to handle it, though. And, by that, I mean, let the episodes of grief and feeling brain-dead simply wash over me and then…NOT drink and actually move on from the pain. I don’t dwell, like I used to; I don’t drink, like I used to–both of which just reinforced the other, and allowed me to stay stuck in the moment. It has taken over eight years to get to this point, though; and, it’s been a daily struggle to become able to bounce back more easily from bouts of grief, nostalgia, and other emotional pain.

Deep thoughts on the road today, is all. Hopefully, I’ll be able to sleep this off and wake up, reset, tomorrow morning. It’s a new week–all will be well, I have to remind myself. All will be well…

(and, because my coping mechanisms aren’t that awesome, I spent most of last night making a homemade white cake AND homemade ice cream custard; I mean, if one takes five egg whites and the other needs four yolks…what are ya supposed to do?)

Tags: aging, anger, best friend, death, dog, getting old, grief, grieving, how long do you grieve, how long does grief last, loss of a pet, mortality, nostalgia, sadness, walking

Comments 5 Comments
Categories Addiction, Alcoholism, Binge drinking, Death, Life, Long-term sobriety, Mental health, Mortality, Recovery, Sobriety, Sugar addiction

More like my dog

8 Jul

1:14 pm

During these dogs days of summer–I can’t believe we’re well into July; it’s been a steamy one here, too–I’ve been watching my dog a lot. And, man, I wish I could be more like my dog. She is fierce, endlessly patient with herself and her limitations; she is never mean, always loving, and keeps trying and trying, adjusting to every new normal as if it’s no big thang. If it’s sunny, she’s resting peacefully in her spot outside in front of the door; if it’s raining, she wants to be out there, too, getting wet and inhaling the breezes, more alive than ever as she stands guard against enemy dogs who might try to take advantage of the dark wet night’s cover. She never, ever complains; when she is unhappy or depressed about her condition, she gives a nod that she wants to be left alone, and then sleeps it off. Oh, boy, I wish I could be more like my best girl!

Me, on the other hand, I am not patient; I try to take my transitions in stride, but, usually, I let them get the better of me. This past week has been hard, with my hormones not quite right–major heat, constant heart palpitations, anger. The other night, my night heat got the better of me: after about 1.5 hours of sleep, I was jolted awake by some freaking intense heat, burning up head to toe. I turned the a/c down, cranked the fan up, and decreased the temperature setting on my chiliPAD (it’s been a lifesaver these past few years; Google it!). I rushed out to the kitchen, literally gave myself a bath at the kitchen sink, and overheard myself whisper-screaming, This is a living hell; this is truly a living hell. (One more week, then an off-week, and then I start the estrogen patch–we’ll see if it helps.)

My dog just rolls with it at night, which is her worst time, too (panting like crazy, hurting from the day). When I get up at night, she just looks at me like, what? I pet her, smell her ears and feel her fur, and it all just makes me feel better. She helps me get through the nights, which are “dark, and full of terrors”–she’s my best friend, mainly in that she knows more about my nights than anyone can or would want to know. And, still, she loves me!

I am trying to just embrace the days and live free. I’m still off Facebook–and it feels great. I got off in April, didn’t go back on until June, and then went on two more times last night and this morning…which was an excellent reminder that I’m so much better off without it, at least right now in my life. I can’t speak to Twitter or the ‘gram or any other social sties, as I have never been a big user of these platforms.

I do miss certain things about Facebook–I miss my “on this day” feed, which is kind of like a journal that reminds me of the cool things I’ve done on this day in years past; I miss my groups; and I miss certain people, mainly those people with whom I don’t have typical friendships (like, folks I met while volunteering abroad, locals who live in those communities). Most of the other posts fill me with a sense of, this virtual reality is not only not real, but it is designed to keep people stuck in it, wasting time, wasting their actual, in-real-life energy! Increasingly, I see it as a tool to remind me of MY life, but not as a way to actually interact with others. Only took me a decade to figure this out!

I had a job interview yesterday, and I think it went well. The huge plus of job searching as a remote employee looking for remote work is that…everyone is now open to it, if not at least initially. I have been working remote for a long time, years and years; every time I interview for a job, though, it feels like a piece that requires explanation and justification. Not now! And that’s a wonderful relief–it’ll allow everyone to finally focus on the job, not the logistics or politics, you know? We’ll see; it’s one of those jobs that will require a long interview process (at least two more people and then a panel video interview with, I’m guessing, three to six more people), but, it will be worth it if I do land the gig!

It’s a beautiful day here, so I am trying to embrace the wonder; the past few days, I was just angry all day (thanks, hormones), and I took it with me–on my walk, around my boo, maybe even toward my best girl. Today, I’m just trying to be more like my dog: patient, taking it as it comes, and accepting all of things, good, bad, and in between.

Tags: anger, birth control pill, clear your mind, coronavirus, covid, don't overthink it, estradiol, estrogen patch, Facebook addiction, get off facebook, get off social media, heart palpitations, job search, live free, love my dog, low estrogen, patience, perimenopausal rage, remote work, social media addiction, the patch, the pill

Comments 2 Comments
Categories Addiction, Alcoholism, Binge drinking, Change, Choices, Friendships, Gratitude, Insomnia, Long-term sobriety, Moods, perimenopause, Random, Recovery, Sobriety, social media, Women's health, Women's issues, Work, Writing

Quiet on the outside…

19 Jan

6:36 pm

…but raging on the inside! Haha. Not really. Though, I thought this year was going to be it: the year of easy days, no mood swings, no overthinking, no dreading my work or sweating the process of it all. I can’t believe we’re 19 days into the new year! I usually feel pretty good, and motivated; past few days, not so much. Such is life.

Our dog is still going strong, though, her back legs and hind area are definitely weaker than they were a few months ago. For now, she’s managing, maybe even thriving a bit more (we are tapering her off the high dose of gabapentin she was on, and I think it’s helping her to feel stronger and more alert, more like her old self). She peed in her sleep last night, though, and that sucks; we’re used to her not being able to control where or when she poops (she just can’t move that well or that fast anymore), but not this. We’ll see; I hope it was a one-time thing…

Past few days, I’ve been angry, and feeling sensory deprived. I am pretty sure my anger is simply related to the progesterone supplement I take–I feel angry after I take it a few days in a row (and, well, um, the fact that I have this night heat, and I am in this state of flux/confusion/not knowing who I am or who I am going to be, and I just don’t appreciate it). I think that is the number one reason why perimenopause is not talked about: society won’t let women age, but also, for me, I don’t WANT to let people (even other women) know that I am aging, that I can’t take the heat (literally), that I am anything BUT who I used to be, which is young, sexual, productive, I guess. I don’t want to let it stop me from being me, to change me that much. And, the further along I go, the more I see just how little attention it gets (even my supposed menopause-specialty gynecologist was kind of like, gurl, it happens, as she ushered me out–two years later, and three meds later, I am still burning up every night). I don’t know what I want or expect from others, but I do know that this night heat is no joke.

I have to admit, the burning-up-at-night thing is getting better. And, I’m rarely brought to my knees anymore over it–haha. I just accept, and exhale, and move on, shivering and feeling oh, so pained! It’s getting better, though; I mean, it’s not as intense as it was two years ago, or a year ago, so that is something to be extremely grateful for. It still lasts from 8 pm to 3 am, or longer–I burn all night, I don’t sweat, and it is not a “flash”–but it’s not that bad. Maybe I’ve just gotten used to it; I have definitely learned to curtail my reaction to it, to embrace it as somehow normal–that goes a long way toward making it seem better. It’s all relative, I guess.

Anyway, I could go on and on about that, but it really is just a passing phase. I get the sense that my symptoms are WAY better than some women’s; then again, I don’t know if I had or have brain fog, or had or have abnormal mood swings–I lived through at least a decade of mind-bending wine hangovers, so, my “normal” was brain dead; my “normal” was like, psychotic-break-level mood swings. When I stopped drinking, I was like, omg, maybe I’m not bipolar. And, when I started taking the pill for my perimenopausal symptoms at the end of 2016, I was like, omg, maybe I didn’t have to suffer through 30 years of crazy PMS mood swings (I got my first period when I was 12; I never took the pill until I was 42). How I feel now is always going to be 1000 times better than how I felt the past decade of alcoholic drinking!

Anyway, that’s that. Anger from the meds or just general impatience (I am still working on that, believe it or not–haha). I feel agitated toward my “calling,” which is writing. I like having written, let’s put it that way! The blank page does not bother me as much as it does others, and for me, editing small quantities of writing is not bad. It’s planning, structuring, implementing long documents that gets horrendous–there are writers of books, I guess, and then there is everyone else. Writing is also extremely analytical, and, you’re doing it in a state of sensory deprivation most of the time (I love nature, the sights, sounds, smells of the world around me; writing is not that!).

And, so, it’s for these mundane reasons that I have been thinking of drinking: I want to feel something; I am bored; my mind hunts for new terrain. And, that’s when drinking-thinking comes in, to fill that desperate void: Well, why are you doing this to yourself? No one cares if you drink; everyone ELSE gets to have fun, to relax, to refresh their minds with wine (or drugs)! But, for me, I know it would not be just one glass–still, after all these years, I know this–and, I think having a hangover and being unproductive the next day would just boggle my mind and make me feel worse than I can even imagine.

So, onward we go, plugging toward the goal, the light, the future perfect (that’s a tense!). But, nothing is ever going to be perfect, or in place, or without struggle; so…finding the joy along the way, and the ability to let go of what does not serve you, which is anger and perfectionism and the desire or need to control the bad feelings; I guess that’s what the real lesson is, for me anyway, this year (this life). I guess.

Tags: anger, angry, birth control pill, birth control pill perimenopause, burning up at night, burning up but no sweat, hot flash but no sweat, hot flash that lasts all night, hot flashes, hot flushes, mood swings, neurotic, night heat, overthinking, perimenopause, progesterone, the pill

Comments 3 Comments
Categories Addiction, Alcoholism, Binge drinking, Long-term sobriety, Mental health, perimenopause, Recovery, Sobriety, Women's health, Women's issues

Why was I so angry?

9 Nov

10:05 pm

As you know, I’ve been rather methodically going through my “stuff,” the stuff that I threw into storage a decade ago and haven’t really looked at since. All these seven years, while getting sober, I have speculated but never really “corroborated” the conclusions I came to regarding why I drank; I never really looked at all those writings and notes and pictures, just to see, was that really how it went down? Was that really who I was back then?

Anyway, the question keeps coming to mind, Why was I so angry? And, after all these years and all that wine–and now, all these weeks spent purposefully going over my “boxes of the past,” so to speak–I don’t really know. It’s really a tough concept to wrap my head around: I was SO angry back then, and it defined my life and relationships during that time as well as impacted them for years to come, but I cannot for the life of me really remember what I was fuming about. It’s crazy-making, albeit I’m grateful to not be anywhere near that angry anymore–and, have had, dare I say, years of feeling relatively stable and joyful.

I have to say, this process of sorting through my stuff (as we prepare for our move back to the island) has been tedious by my own making, and it’s been more a process of reminiscing as well as letting go (of the past, of my youth, I am not even sure). I mean, I was perfectly fine not remembering all this stuff, and then here come the boxes and I’m all reflective and sad and kind of reliving that horrible past that “caused” me to drink in the first place (caused in quotes because I know that no one or no thing made me drink–I loved drinking until I didn’t and couldn’t).

After going over some stuff, looking for clues as to what made me so angry that I ramped up my drinking, this is what I do know: I seemed to be my “old” self, bruised and battered like everyone else, but still happy and smiling, confident and well, resilient, up until about 2000 or 2001 (I turned 27 in 2001). I had already gone through many things prior to then that might have broken me but didn’t–fighting parents; a binge eating disorder in my late teens and early 20s; college itself, which was difficult and maybe a key to my drinking. I majored in biology/pre-med, something that I wasn’t even really good at (Does a love for animals necessarily equate to studying biology?) because I told myself that “I should”–instead of something that I loved and was good at and DREAMT of doing, writing, specifically writing poetry. I was too afraid, so I pushed my dreams out of mind and did what I told myself I should do. I negated my dreams, discarded my self. It hurts to even write that, to read it out loud, but it’s true. Pain is behind anger, and maybe this is where it all began?

All this is to say, there wasn’t this one big thing that made me angry. Did I just feel erased, exhausted by my refusal to express the real me? Maybe. I mean, looking back at pictures of myself from around 2000, 2001, 2002–that was when I became uber-angry and started drinking; or, started drinking and became uber-angry–I can’t come up with any one thing that happened that should have made me as angry as I looked and felt.

I hate to admit it, but I think my drinking ramped up with an increasing disappointment over my romantic relationships. Like, it sucks to admit that my life could have been derailed by a man (haha), but I think that most of the depression and rage that came to a head during my late 20s came from feeling slighted and not good enough and then, finally, unloved and unloveable, or so I told myself. Of course, I had a role in all these failed romances (I was that crazy drunk bitch), but it was still painful and frustrating–and made me angry.

Another thing that might have made me angry, over time, was the fact that by my late 20s, I was starting to get ground down by always doing what I was supposed to be doing, and hating every minute of it (I mean, I still do the same kind of work, but I have a longer-term plan, and I’ve spent years finding my voice as a freelancer). I never allowed myself to freely express myself, to not be agreeable, to be loud and ugly and well, angry! By the time I turned 30, I finally decided to go back to school for one of two things (writing was one), two things that I had determined I liked. Before then, I felt like I had not lived a determined life, that I had let this people-pleasing mentality go on for far too long. I was desperate to break free–to fucking break things! And, break things I did, while blackout drunk.

I think one key aspect to blackout drinking is saying, fuck it, I give in/up, let me just smash the fuck out of it all. Let me drop the ball. The only way perfectionists and people-pleasers, the always-agreeable ones, are going to let it go is to not be aware of the fact that they are letting it go. For me, drinking to the point of not remembering what I was doing not only let me do things that I would never normally allow myself to do, but it also allowed me to not have to account for dropping the ball, you know? If you can’t remember, it didn’t happen (in your mind, at least).

At the end of the day, I can’t say what ONE thing made me angry. What I can say is, I cannot blame anyone else for doing anything to me that caused me to be angry, and to drink. No parent, no man, no biology text book made me drink. I chose to drink–the way I wanted to drink, which was to erase the anger, the hurt; to erase the self who was stuck inside, trying to get out.

Drinking soothed my angst (I was scared to be a poet, so I told myself that someone was telling me I “should” not do it), my loneliness (I wasn’t able or ready to relate, which is why I picked the wrong men), and my social anxiety (I am by nature an introvert, so drinking made meeting new people actually somewhat fun).

SO, do I have any more answers than I did before I got my stuff out of storage and started rummaging through said past for clues as to why I drank? Eh, sure, I guess, but like all things related to alcoholism, nothing is cut and dry, and everything is everything. It’s not like I can close my boxes and computer and say, I know why I veered off track (the scarier question is, was I ever on one?), I know what made me drink. It won’t ever be resolved, but…there’s good news.

The good news is, I’ve realized with almost certainty that you don’t have to live in the past; you can remember your mistakes and learn from them, and you can process your experiences in order to be a better person or live a lighter, truer life–but, you can take the good bits of the past, and relive those, and leave the bad bits behind. You don’t have to relive any of it.

Honestly, I feel like I’ve lived LIFETIMES since that time, which was almost 20 years ago. And, really, does it even matter anymore what made me so angry if I’ve moved so far beyond who I was then?

Let it go, let it go, let it go. Learn from your past, cherish it; but don’t hold onto it. Such a simply worded mantra for one of life’s hardest exercises.

Tags: anger, angry, being dumped, blame, depression, learning from mistakes, letting go of the past, mistakes, Past, playing the victim, processing past experiences, relationships, resilient, self-esteem, self-expression, social anxiety, victim, victimization, what caused me to become an alcoholic?, what made me drink?, why i drank, why I drink

Comments 4 Comments
Categories Addiction, Alcoholism, Binge drinking, Long-term sobriety, Psychology, Recovery, Sobriety

The angry insomniac

20 Jan

9:33 pm

Perimenopause is ruining my life.

I actually Googled that the other night–as I was sitting up once again until 5 am, getting more and more, uh, agitated might be the best way of describing it. Agitated, angry, raging, whatever.

Come to think of it, I don’t know if I’ve EVER felt as angry as I did last night–like, an out of control, desperate anger that not only lingered into the next morning and afternoon, but persisted and felt just as strong upon waking as it did at 5 am!? I am trying to move on from it, and not hold onto it, but…guys, this feels a little bit WAY too much like a hangover, and I do not like it!

I’ve mentioned that I started experiencing symptoms of perimenopause all the way back in 2013 (when I was 39), but they never really affected my life until the fall of 2015. It took me until the fall of 2016 to start taking the birth control pill (to even things out–it was amazing and I had no side effects), and not until well, this past year, to really start having “night heat” and insomnia. Now–and this is what is so damn maddening, especially for someone like myself, an alcoholic control freak–I have no clue if it’s the pill that’s giving me night heat and insomnia, or if it’s the peri. One thing I do know is that the pill I have just gotten back on in the past few weeks seems to be exacerbating my mental health issues–crying jags, dark thoughts, anger anger anger. I know I should get off it, but…maybe one more night (I am afraid of that intense body heat at this point, even more than I am of the sleeplessness)…?

So, last night, right on time, my body started to heat up at about 10 pm–it has been doing this for a while, maybe a year on and off; and I’ve fixed it by both going ON and OFF the pill (go figure). I recently had about two months of continuous heat–it’s like having a fever and the chills, at the same time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; I don’t have hot flashes yet, so these are more like heat flushes that just don’t stop and that seem to come only at night, except for this two-month period where it just didn’t go away. For some relief, I decided to get on the pill again, and while it has helped some, I have nights where it seems like the pill causes me to both burn up and wake up. Last night, I was up till 5, and in between all the huffing and puffing, I just got SO ANGRY. Angrier than I can even define, or have ever felt.

Mind you, I think I HAVE been this desperately, painfully, crazily angry before, but I was blacked on on wine and never actually had to deal with it. Last night, I just could NOT calm down; I was almost heaving, I felt so angry. I paced around, cried, heaved silently so my boo couldn’t hear me (he was sleeping); I slammed my fists into my quads, but not hard enough like I did last time to leave marks. It’s like, I wanted to break things. I finally fell asleep for a few hours at about 5, and woke to a relatively cooler body.

Though, like when you wake up after a bender, I was still feeling angry. I went to the gym and pounded out a few miles on the treadmill, which helped but not completely. By the time we went to see a movie, I felt anxious, and struggled to not have a panic attack throughout the entire length of the film.

Man, it just feels SO much like a hangover–the lack of sleep, the anxiety from the lack of sleep, the fuzzy brain…

I am feeling better now, but, I don’t think, outside from being drunk, I have ever felt more out of control as I did last night and this morning. Maybe it’s just the lack of sleep, and my reaction to it is anger. If only it were that simple…

I just want myself back! I haven’t felt like myself in quite a while, I have to admit. I am trying to not think about it and hope it just gets better, but I don’t think I can stay on this pill and also have it get better. I thought I could deal with a few side effects for the relief of not burning up all night, but maybe it’s better to burn up all night? I am trying to have patience here, but why does it feel like perimenopause is ruining my life (and I don’t even have true hot flashes yet)? I am going to see my doctor next week, but until then, I guess I’ll really have to work on cultivating a positive space in my mind, reserved for my old self, whenever she happens to come home. 🙂

Tags: anger, angry, burning up at night, feels like a hangover, heat flush, insomnia, night heat, not sleeping, not sweating, perimenopause

Comments 13 Comments
Categories Addiction, Alcoholism, Anxiety, Binge drinking, Blackout, Hangover, Insomnia, Mental health, Psychology, Random, Sobriety

Writing and cold cities

27 Nov

11:45 am

Hey, folks, Well, I’m here, back at it, and ready to be fierce. NOT! Happy Thanksgiving to all, and a kickoff of the holiday season! For some, that means painful memories, for others, it means an uber-busy next few months. For me, it means both, and cookies, and cakes, and just continuing to be grateful–5-plus years later–that I am here, and not there. Here, having this life, with its ups and downs; and not there, drinking my everything away, and all the possible everything’s, too.

I realized recently that part of what is causing me to feel less than whole is that I’ve stopped writing. Even writing this makes me feel a bit sick in the pit of my belly–anxious, actually. Must must must start writing again! I think my depression, and self-loathing (to be blunt, I hate myself more than a little when I don’t write or create), is caused by this. There is no magic in my world if I’m not writing, or, in general, being creative. I look at this blog and think, what happened to that girl? She is still here, she’s just not writing. And therefore, not feeling quite whole.

The hurricanes have turned our world upside down, and rearranged our lives. I miss going to the beach; I miss running on said beach road. I miss knowing that while I’m in the middle of the ocean, things are FINE here–things are NOT fine here, and things won’t be fine for a while. There are uncertainties that won’t–can’t–be ironed out. There are things and faces and places that are never coming back. And, while I want to ignore this reality, it’s there, the new “normal,” as everyone down here keeps repeating.

I refuse to give up, though, on figuring out what, exactly, I need and want right now. It’s not wine, it might be hormones, it could be a move (while we have made our exit plan, which is both saddening and enlivening to me, I know changing locations is not going to change what’s going on inside my head and heart, fundamentally), and it most definitely is to start writing/being creative more. I won’t give up! And, I won’t stop choosing to be happy, content, grateful, and empowered by that choice.

I flew home last week after about 3 weeks away. I am glad to be home, with my loves, in the light (literally; cities just might not be in my cards anymore because they are so dark, so angular); and one main thing I realized when I was there, in the big city, is that if I’m honest, I don’t really want that lifestyle anymore. And, that it is OK to be angry and that instead of fighting the anger, the sadness, the whatever negativity I’m feeling, I should just accept it. Huh? The thought sort of bowled me over: accept and don’t judge your negative feelings instead of exhausting yourself trying to outrun them. I’m going to try the former and see what happens.

And, so, yeah, cities. Drinking and going out in cities, which is what I did and how I defined myself for so long. Not anymore. I mean, YAH, it really is a bit more heartening to go out for a pink twilit walk with the dogs than to be walking into a pub, ready to temporarily and artificially enhance my mood! It really is better this way, soooo much better. Even when I feel quite lonely here–alone as we all do now and then on our solo paths and journeys–I know that I have this world within that is never-changing, that is always bathed in that pink moonlight, that is there to hold me, to embrace me, and to tell me that It Will Be OK.

It Will Be OK.

That is default setting when you’re sober. When you’re not, default setting is, The World Sucks and Nothing Will (Ever) Be OK.

Walking into a cold bar to drink among cold non-friends? Eh, no thanks anymore. I choose light, and happiness, and maybe even accepting the darkness so I can move through it without fear. Huh, maybe cold cities have more to teach me than I thought?

Tags: accept anger, anger, change, cities, cold cities, dark bars, darkness, don't judge your feelings, embrace anger, lack of sunlight, mindfulness, moving, negativity, writing

Comments 8 Comments
Categories Addiction, Alcoholism, Bars, Binge drinking, Change, Choices, Depression, Gratitude, Happiness, Holidays, Recovery, Sobriety, Writing

On anger and forgivness

16 Nov

12:10 am

There is no way around it: I am angry. I am just plain angry. I want to scream into their faces, Who do you think you are? And, what, exactly, do you think you’re doing? It’s about being sober, and being able to see those people SO uber-clearly now, 5.5 years later–and seeing that some of these faces are bullies, and the bullies can’t touch me anymore.

I think I have had a lot of bullies in my life, and I NEVER knew what to do about them–out of fear, out of self-loathing (as in, for some reason, I believe I don’t have the right to talk back), out of lack of self-confidence (as in, my idea or path can’t be the right one). I let people bully me–but I also, of course, participated in the exchanges by not being direct, or being secretive, or taking things too personally, or just plain assuming things that were not or are not true. That’s part of my alcoholic drinking problem as much as it is a personality “flaw.” However, not “talking back” led me to bury a lot of anger, and to learn to bury it and be passive-aggressive (which I fully admit that I can be). Now, I see the bullies and their ways for who and what they are, and I do talk back, and the response is usually one of either reciprocal anger or deeper bullying tactics. And this, too, I can see, and it makes me angry!

Am I paranoid? Maybe. I just feel like, with these handful of old relationships, they’re still running on (over) the “old me” tracks. Even now, years later into my sobriety. It’s actually strange to see how these people either try to continue their old ways, or simply detach because they just don’t know how to relate to the new me, or simply don’t want to relate to her.

Can’t we move forward? Is it my job to school them on the “new me?” Probably, and eventually. It’s hard, though. It takes a lot of trial and error and effort! And, for people who for some reason refuse to acknowledge my sobriety–my having gotten sober–it just doesn’t seem possible to have a relationship. And that is the hard truth, because I am the one who has to accept the change and move on with or without their ability or desire to relate to the new me.

Maybe letting go of this anger and paranoia, this is part of that elusive process of “forgiveness?” I wish I felt some sense of sustained relief, of renewal when I have chosen to forgive, but it’s more of an intellectual pursuit for me–the next day, when I think about that person, I feel angry again. Nothing has changed, inside or out. I know that I should continue to try–but, IF these people are in MY PERSPECTIVE (again, that could be skewed) bullying me because they still think of me as sad or poor or drunk; how can I cultivate good will toward them? It just doesn’t compute…yet.

It could just be a matter of having those hard conversations, where I, um, tell them how I feel and allow them to explain to me how they feel. Haha. Oh, me.

On a somewhat different note: I am not at home (where we get a LOT of sun) right now, and I really notice it (I think your brain gets used to a certain amount of light and can no longer function well in places that are darker). That is me, now; it’s actually been me for years, and every time I come back to this city, I am a little bit less enamored (I am in the cold city where I became a drunky drunk girl, and where I also started this blog two days after quitting drinking). I’ve been here before, in this space of being reminded, literally around every turn, of what went down and who I used to be–and, I’m used to the sour feeling in my eyes and belly and brain, that thing I just can’t shake, that time machine effect where suddenly, I am closer to BEING that old me than I am of only just remembering who she was. And, it is not a good feeling; it’s not as heart-hurtful and soul-sucking as it used to be, but it’s still there.

Am I still there? Maybe I am; or, maybe I’ve just never dealt with my anger. I don’t get it. FIVE years later, after having worked through what I thought was my anger, and now…I see that I’m just scratching the surface? It kind of scares me, this whirling from past to present and back again; how my emotions can exist in a timeless state, evergreen, able to trip me with the flick of a brain cell back into my past. Boom, and I’m literally there; and it’s hard to not feel the same way, to not see myself as my past self. The thing is, I AM that person, as much as I am the one writing this now; I can’t not embrace what happened to me, what I went through, because that has made me the person I am now.

Is this how it’s always going to be, living in a prism-like reality, where it’s never really over? I guess as long as I have memories (which, hopefully will be until the day I die!), and as long as I choose to confront these deep-seated feelings that caused me to drink in the first place–no, I don’t think it will ever be over. In fact, for the first time in many, many days, I’ve thought about drinking (more than once while here; not good). I have even slipped into thinking, ahh, it would take the edge off, it would be such a nice treat, a reward for slogging through..what? A dark, cold night? A storage unit that seems to have a life of its own? Um, NO. No, no, no. It would SO not be a relief, or a treat. Duh, I know this. God, do I know this!

I have had FIVE damn years of practice, of re-training my brain–am I just feeling extra-sensitive to the triggers here because this is where the worst of it went down? Probably, and I will remain steadfast, but…I haven’t heard the whiny voice of wolfie-boy (a pup barely in the womb, that’s how small it is) in a very long time, and it’s more confusing and surprising than anything.

On that note, I have to close it up because it’s midnight and I have a bunch of stuff to do tomorrow. Needless to say, I still love this city, and I am, of course, grateful to be here, now, sober.

Tags: anger, angry, being bullied, bully, forgiveness, paranoia, paranoid

Comments 18 Comments
Categories Addiction, Alcoholism, Change, Cravings, Family, Friendships, Issues, Recovery, Relationships, Sobriety, Triggers

Five years…and counting

15 Jun

3:37 pm

Five years ago yesterday, I got sober. And, I started this blog. And, my, I’ve come damn far from this first post (this is how I started the post):

I woke up today hung over. And it’s going on oh, about 48 hours or so since I had my “last” drink and I still feel like ass. My belly is swollen and my liver hurts, which, this morning makes it hard to fit into my interview clothes. My pants are too tight and my underwire bra is pressed so tightly against my aching liver that it makes me cry. So now I am crying and I’ve got less than 10 minutes to pull it together and all I can think is, Fuck, I wish to Jesus on the Cross that I hadn’t poured out the last third of that “last” bottle of red that I had stored in the fridge two nights ago when I binge drank.

And, five years later, my life has changed drastically. I can’t even begin to write about how different my life is–how different *I* am–it’s that different. And, I’ve written five years of blog posts covering all that awesome progress! Suffice it to say, I am never hungover, I have paid off my student loan debt, I have gotten engaged, I have become a “successful” freelance journalist; I have gone on trips, volunteered abroad, become a barista. All that, however, is the cosmetic byproduct of a deep, unwavering peace.

Yes, I feel negative emotions, and get confused about what direction to go in; but beyond and untouched by all that surface stuff is this, well, peace. The big stuff stays in place. I can think and plan and act coherently; I continue to work steadfastly toward my goals, even if I can only intuit what they might be in the long-term. I sometimes focus on the negative (especially lately), but beneath that external chatter is a universe-sized body of water called *possibility*–into which I can deep dive because I am sober. Only because and precisely because I am sober. I can even see a life–a world, actually–beyond me, and my past, and my sobriety; and boy, is it endless with possibility.

Exhale, is my mantra these days.

All that being said, I haven’t been blogging much, and I haven’t been feeling that excited by my sobriety these days. I’ve been re-reading my posts from years ago, and I’m left wondering, where have I gone? Where has that girl gone? That getting sober girl who was on freaking FIRE to be getting sober? I guess it’s simply that we all grow, change, evolve, move on. And, I can accept that, and I do. It’s just… I want some of that fire, and I want to know why it’s no longer infusing me!

Not to say that life isn’t full, and complicated, and grand–because and only because I got sober, and wrote this blog, and made a new way of living for myself. Life has become full, almost always a race to the finish. My partner and I are in a transitional phase, meaning, we want to move but we’re just not sure where–where to go, what will it lead to, how we’ll fare in a new place and a different life. We’ve been talking about it for years; I think we’re at the point that if we don’t make a change soon, we’re going to implode. Pull the trigger, I say!

I’m tired of waiting, of wanting another life! Yet, I also want to know what, exactly, I’m looking for, and why, exactly, this amazing life I’ve created here seems no longer enough. Maybe I’ve just outgrown it? Been there, done that. I mean, it’s possible! I’ve been living here for five years now. While I want to continue to write about sobriety–there’s so much to mine–most of the time I just want to forge ahead on my work, and keep getting shit done. And I do. I just wonder where all the excitement has gone.

Frankly, I think it might be related to taking the pill. I have never taken meds, and since I’ve been on these, I just feel…flat. I feel nothing. To the point where, I feel no “looking forward to” feeling, no “I can’t wait to do this” feeling. I don’t dream–like, literally, I have no dreams. It’s like, I can’t “see” my emotions, I can’t “see” my desire; it’s like, that part of my brain is off. I can’t see it; it’s dark in there. It makes it easy, I guess, to live on a day-to-day basis, because I have ZERO emotional ups and downs. Except, the only feeling I seem to have, that I can touch, taste, smell; is anger. And, that sucks.

Exhale. Maybe all this angst is circumstantial: maybe my corporate job has driven me insane because it feels SO irrelevant to me now, having been a journalist, having done freelance writing. I wouldn’t mind leaving the corporate work for good, and becoming a barista full-time again, you know? I can’t, though; after all this time, at 43 years old, I’m finally gaining some ground, financially. I can’t let this go.

I don’t know what the next step is, which is a good thing, in a way. Why? Because ANY next step is the right next step! So, I have decided to take a few weeks off and travel to a country I’ve never been, on a volunteer project I’ve never been a part of, alone. I am hoping it’ll jump-start me–take me out of myself, and my situation; help me to figure out what’s going on. Or, what the next steps might be. I leave next week and come back after the holiday in July.

My life is awesome, I have to say; which is why all this internal angst is confusing. How can I intellectually see how good I have it while also feel so…frustrated? In any case, I am sober, and that is 99% of my life, and that 99% is simply awesome. I would not trade the past five years of learning, and even this period of struggle, for anything. I wouldn’t trade it for the brother who has written me off, the friends I no longer feel connected to, the big city career that I probably won’t (and don’t want to) regain. I feel so blessed to have made it out alive! I feel so blessed to have been given the gift of having to work on myself, of being forced to change and grow and evolve.

Five years…and counting. I can’t wait to see what the next five will bring.

Tags: anger, contentment, five years sober, peace, soberversary, the pill, trying new things

Comments 36 Comments
Categories Addiction, Alcoholism, Binge drinking, Change, Life, Milestones, Moods, Recovery, Sobriety

Dealing with negative emotions

22 Apr

2:02 pm

Even today, I get angry. Depressed. Sad. And, I think about drinking. I do. I don’t want to, and know that I never will–I’ve been there, done that–but, it’s still there, this DESIRE to soothe. It’s more like a whine, faint, in the distance, reminding me of the hot mess I was when I first got sober:

But THEY get to get away, to escape, to use their substance of choice–why can’t I?

I was thinking on my run today: it’s not that I am UNHAPPY–happiness is most certainly a choice. And, after years of forcing myself to find happiness in the corners of my early sober life; and more years of learning how to cultivate happiness as a choice, 100% of the time–well, I’ve realized that I can be happy without being content. I am not content, and frankly, I am not sure I ever will be. At 42 years old, I think I’m just beginning to try things that might actually make me feel contentment, which I suppose might be the opposite of things like accomplished, or having won the prize, of having earned the medal.

It reminds me of where I am right now in my job search: I have been contracting with the same company for almost two years, but they still haven’t hired me. Not only that, but I’ve interviewed for more than one full-time job with them, and each time, the interview process has consisted of meeting/being interviewed by 7, 8, 9 people! I’m wondering, are they simply trying to make me second-guess my abilities? Cuz, you know, of COURSE, I can do these jobs. It’s not rocket science. The drinker in me, though, craves their approval; wants to do it “right;” wants to win! In reality, for the most part, I so don’t WANT the job. What I want is them to want me, like me, hire me. I want to win. Even if that means that both during the interview process AND while I’m doing a job that I don’t really want to do; I am totally freaking DISCONTENT.

Ahh, life. Sobriety has allowed me to recognize the nuances to all this “character flaw” stuff, and well, the difference (in my mind, anyway) of being unhappy and being discontent. And, while I’ve wanted to drink lately trying to figure out just what is going to alleviate this lack of contentment (as a writer, I wonder if I am always going to feel like I haven’t done anything, or need to do something more, or different, or else), the five years of sobriety under my belt–and feeling this way so often back in the early days–has given me the tools to realize that drinking won’t solve anything. Won’t alleviate anything. Is not an escape, and is not a reward. No matter how many people I see drinking to reward or alleviate the stress of transition, or decision-making processes, it still reeks of bullshit. Drinking is bullshit. Do I want a thing, somewhere that I can go? Yes. Is it up to me to figure out where that so-called place is, that place of acceptance and happiness in the moment, for the moment, and of the moment? Yes.

We whine, we do. I do. Yet, that is allowed. And then, depending on how practiced you have gotten, you move on. You place those negative ideas and feelings into the “perspective” box, and you move on. I feel happy most of the time, and that’s what matters and what I try to continue to focus on. That and remembering how AWESOME-SAUCE it still is to be here, and not there (hungover on a Saturday afternoon)–being grateful, and cultivating happiness, in spite of this so-called discontentment, which is fleeting, and fickle.

Tags: anger, contentment, difference between being happy and content, discontent, discontentment, happiness, lack of contentment, negative emotions, unhappiness

Comments 9 Comments
Categories Addiction, Alcoholism, Binge drinking, Change, Choices, Depression, Gratitude, Life, Moods, Psychology, Random, Recovery, Sobriety

I don’t think I’ll ever drink again, but…

28 Mar

10:23 pm

That doesn’t mean that I don’t feel angry, lost, overwhelmed. Bitter, resentful. Joyful, too; much joyful. And content. Though, I am realizing daily, almost on an hourly basis some days, that I have to cultivate contentment. I have to make sure I see that there is SO much to be grateful for; that my brain does not have my permission to hijack my mood, my peace, my sense of belonging in this strange sober world that I discovered/created for myself.

I was thinking about my slips here and there over the past 4+ years of continuous sobriety. I basically got sober in October 2012, drank once the following March (2013), then went over a year until the summer of 2014, when I think I had a beer one day in June, and then a few sips of wine and/or alcohol (maybe an accident, maybe to “test” my waters) at some point that summer; I had a horrendous drunk one night in October 2014, then…didn’t drink again until the following fall, of 2015, when I was away in my new location, working a big-girl job, and pining for “what was.” I think I drank a couple glasses a couple times, with the final, third attempt in January of 2016. That was really a dud–sandy and uneventful and sad. I had two small glasses (I think, something like that, very minor) and was TOTES hungover for the next day. LOL.

The point is, I haven’t looked back since January 2016. Not at all. I’ve realized that I have no interest to try, to test, to wonder. I think it’s because I did all those things–I tried, I tested, I wondered–and wine didn’t work. It never worked again. But, it’s not like I gave up trying, or, believing somehow someday wine would work again.

This time was different: I think (now that I’m actually taking some time to revisit how I felt in January of 2016 and the fact that I haven’t felt like that since) I just surrendered. Or, was taken up–like, lifted up. Like, my higher power–I actually like to think of my higher power as a higher me, a higher self, my best self, some evolved sense of myself as this great and good creature hovering over the pathetic, wimpering “real me” below, living out her day-to day–said, No. Let it go. There is no reason.

And, really, I haven’t thought about drinking since then. The past few months, even, I haven’t considered that drinking would help–and, the past few months have found me feeling quite angry. Like, all the bad feelings and habitual ego stuff is still right there, very much at the surface, as if I never did any work! Angry. So angry. So angry. At whom? It’s like, I don’t recognize myself some days. Except, I do; I see through the personality bugs and character flaws and negative thought loops to the real me, the me I liked best a few years ago, the one dancing on her self-styled pink cloud/bubble.

I’m not in a bubble anymore, and I admit, I do/can have a lot of negative thoughts and feelings these days. But, I’m working through them, and realizing that getting sober–close to five years ago–is just the beginning of this strange trip called sobriety. It doesn’t just keep getting better…without work and self reflection. However, the desire to drink, in all its entirety, does go away. No matter how angry or frustrated or trapped I feel these days–and, admittedly, I do a lot–I don’t even consider drinking as a solution. As something I would even want to do, regardless of its (in)ability to solve my problem or resolve my conflict.

And, holy eff, is that startling to realize. Like, I don’t think I’ll ever drink again. And, it’s not like this big revelation that I thought it would be. It’s more like, a foregone conclusion, one that I’ve been too busy and productive and angry and frustrated and in flux to notice!

Yet, sobriety, and all its work and progress and lessons and maddening ins and outs, continues. Is it just life? Um…I don’t know. I think those who have gotten sober have a newfound perspective on all this life stuff, I really do. Yes, this is life, and yes, I’m bitching about it here, on my long, but hopefully not lost blog. But…there’s so much nuance; life is reflected through the prism of sobriety and getting sober, such that we see all these different colors, maybe more colors than people who have never had to deal with all their shit (yet).

Random thoughts on a Tuesday night. Miss you all, and hope to start catching you up once I remember how to form this whirl of thoughts into words!

Tags: anger, life, living sober, never drink again

Comments 12 Comments
Categories Addiction, Alcoholism, Binge drinking, Change, Choices, Life, Slip, Sobriety

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Drunky Drunk Girl

Staring into the distance

Quiet on the outside…

The angry insomniac

Writing and cold cities

On anger and forgivness

Five years…and counting

Dealing with negative emotions

I don’t think I’ll ever drink again, but…

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