Day 73

Today I think I can safely say I’ve had a great weekend. I’ve spent the whole weekend writing, which is very unusual for me these days. Writing fiction was always a fantasy hobby of mine, in that I’ve spent years wishing I could be a better, more committed writer. Sometimes I get flashes of inspiration, and I’ll spend a few days or weeks struggling to get it all down on paper. But in the past, that output has been invariably crap, and I’ve never managed to finish an entire story, usually because I’ve got bored of it at some point.

In recovery from alcoholism, I have suddenly discovered that my creative side was blocked for years. What was blocking it? Fear, I believe, which was a major hindrance in just about every other area of my life. Yesterday, for the first time since I gave up alcohol, my creative valve opened again, and I’ve managed to write sixty pages of a new novel within the space of two days. That feels like an astonishing achievement for me. I don’t know whether I’ll finish this new story; I might be bored of it by next week, just like I got bored of all the other stories. But this time, my creative output has a lot going for it. I think it’s the best stuff I’ve ever written, and if I can write sixty pages in two days then I could have finished a 200 page novel by the end of the week. 200 pages seems like a pretty impressive amount for a first novel, doesn’t it? As long as I remember what stopped me from finishing all those novels in the past – fear – I should be OK this time. The doubts might start creeping in; I might start to think it’s not such a good story after all, and I might be thinking by this Friday that I need to change loads of things and go back and start all over again, but I really hope I can ignore those doubts this time. When I’m soaring through a new story, like I was yesterday and today, I feel free. Writing heals me, and the hours begin to feel like minutes, so that time means nothing when the words are flowing.

Considering I was feeling rather disconnected and disenchanted with life last week, I feel lucky to be this happy today. Some stressful things have happened in other areas of my life this week: I’ve started my final year at University, and as well as being told that I have to pay my own fees this year, I also have to bring my average mark up by a significant amount, if I want to get a good degree next year. It’s going to be a difficult year ahead, with lots of responsibility on my shoulders, because I really want to get a good degree. It would feel like a waste of time if I just get an average to low mark over all next year. Last week I was feeling pretty scared of the future, but after the great weekend I’ve had, today I’m looking forward to the challenge. Being back at Uni this morning it was nice seeing all the old faces again, and the topics we’ll be studying this year sound very interesting. I know I can manage my finances this year and bring my average mark up, if I put my mind to it. All I have to do is refrain from giving into fear and insecurity; instead of running away, I can stick around and deal with the challenges ahead.

Day 65

So sobriety continues, and it’s getting harder! I’m being shown all the reasons why I used to drink, every time I go to an AA meeting. I find that I feel resentful and jealous of people who have done me no wrong. Purely because of the fact that they appear to be doing better than me in recovery, I’m caused pain and discomfort. Because I don’t feel as good as those other people, I instinctively isolate myself from them, and secretly hate them, wishing I didn’t have to see them any more. It’s only a few people at the moment, but I can see it getting worse. Naturally there are groups of friends in AA, and in my mind I can’t help but see them as I used to see the ‘cliques’ at school. I fear and abhor them, even though they could be really good friends to me, if I gave them a chance.

 I’ve embarked on AA’s recommended 90 meetings in 90 days; the novelty’s sure worn off. I’m 10 days in now and going out every single day to hear the same stories is very wearing. But I’m determined to keep going, to see if I can do it. I knew nine weeks ago that if I listened to my own ideas any longer, I’d be doomed. I still need help, and AA is the only place where I can get it. I just wish it wasn’t so emotionally draining.

Everyone in AA feels resentful and fearful in their early days, I know this. Many people have talked of feeling the same things that I’m feeling right now. But when it’s the people I resent telling me about those feelings, it’s hard to link the reality with the inner, instinctual feeling of loathing that I still have. My reasons for disliking such good people are borne purely out of jealousy. I’m jealous of them for appearing to be so much happier, and more confident than me. Of course, they’ve all been sober for a lot longer than me, so it’s natural for them to appear happier than me.

Sobriety gets harder every day, and I don’t know when it’s going to get better. I still hate having to trust people, to confide in them about things, because I’m scared of being let down after every corner I turn. Everyone says it gets better eventually, so I should believe them, but if I could just accept that everything will be all right eventually, I guess it wouldn’t be so hard for me, and I wouldn’t be an alcoholic.

These are all the reasons why I used to drink. The fear, the resentment, the jealousy, the deep insecurity. Self-centred, self-absorbed egocentrism. I am a classic alcoholic, who can’t think of anything but my own problems for a moment and see that other people hurt just as much as I do. Well, maybe by writing all this down I am starting to see the world from other people’s point of view. But this is just the start. My psychological hang ups have a lot of mileage in them. It could be years before everything really is OK for me. What seems clear is that whenever I appear to deal with one problem, another one crops up, and I have to go through the fear and insecurity all over again. Another classic sign of alcoholism: one worry after another. Non-alcoholics can’t fully understand , which is why I need AA so desperately.

Day 61

So here I am, nearly two months into sobriety, still with sanity intact! Sobriety pleasantly surprises me every day. I never thought I’d do it, I never thought I could survive without a drink for seven days, let alone nine weeks. But I’ve done it! I already know for a fact that if it weren’t for AA, and the support I’ve received on this blog and elsewhere, I wouldn’t be here in this great position. Though sometimes I feel like I’m up shit creek without a paddle, I’m starting to see the positive changes in my life now, and I can probably start to say that my life is infinitely better without alcohol in it.

 Sadly I did the same thing on Tuesday evening which I did last Friday: I walked out of a meeting without saying goodbye to anyone. I’m not quite sure how it happened. I just felt frightened, and I wanted to run. In AA, if you are a true alcoholic you hear a lot of stuff that is very close to the bone; it’s like people are speaking your thoughts. That’s how AA works: alcoholics can understand each other like nobody else. On Tuesday, and last Friday, I guess this scared me shitless, because it means I have to start opening up, and trusting people at some point, and my instincts are telling me to avoid such vulnerability at all costs. If I trust someone, how do I know they’re not going to let me down? The point is that I don’t know – we can’t see what’s around the corner. My AA recovery will depend on trust of other people, and I’m slowly learning how to do that every day.

 Another thing that has scared me a lot in the past two months is my feelings. Before I began drinking I was so emotional all the time – I was a very angry, scared and lonely teenager. I honestly thought I had stopped feeling those things when I turned 18 and began escaping every weekend with a beer in my hand. I thought it was bad to feel things all the time; I thought I was a weak and screwed up teenager. In many ways my life was screwed up – but I’m starting to guess that maybe I wasn’t so screwed up personally. In fact when I look at some of the things that have happened in my life, it’s actually amazing that I’m still here, still reasonably sound in mind.

 Now I’m starting to feel those things all over again – all the anger and fear, and it is scary, because sometimes I don’t know where the feelings are coming from. Unlike the teenage me, I now have tools, thanks to AA, to deal with the resulting emotional turmoil. I can call someone, or I can talk to someone online. I can even add another post to this blog. The main thing is I keep in touch with the outside world at all times, because if it was left up to me alone I’d probably drink again. This is, as yet, an unbeatable illness. The only solution is faith and trust. When I was a teenager I had no trust for other people whatsoever. Consquently I had no friends whatsoever. Nowadays, thankfully I can call many people a friend, and that really is wonderful.

The fact that I ran away from another meeting this week without making an effort to socialise is a concern. Obviously the fear is a powerful force that cannot be dealt with effectively in two months. Sometimes I don’t know how it’s ever going to be dealt with. Maybe it will always be there, and I’ll just have to learn to ignore it. What I did on Tuesday was isolate myself; I pushed potential friends away when I walked out of that door quietly, making sure I went unnoticed. Self isolation is a classic symptom of alcoholism. The thing is that people talk about this kind of experience all the time in meetings. They’ve all isolated themselves in the past, they’ve all run away from meetings terrified and angry; I know I’m not the only one to have ever felt vulnerable, but making my heart believe that I’m not alone is another matter.

I’m so impatient to know what’s around the corner, to know what other people are thinking, it drives me up the wall. I’ve had countless sleepless nights worrying about this problem of how I’m going to trust people. My sponsor tells me all the time to stop living in the future, because all I need to actually KNOW is that I am all right in the present. The problem is that when I stop thinking about the future I inevitably begin to think about the past. They say that if you stand with one foot in the past and one foot in the future, you piss all over the present. How ironic, and how true!

As well as my recovery, I keep worrying about the financial situation, because I have to say that my drinking days have left me in quite a pickle financially. I have no money, and I’m about to embark on my sixth year at University, for which I will have to pay entirely by myself. The government can’t help me any more, and neither can my family. That’s fair, I accept that. A year ago I would have seriously contemplated leaving University in this position. The meagre loan that I get every year will just about cover my fees, leaving me with an even more meagre amount to live on for the rest of the year. It’s really harsh, and I have a tough year ahead of me, but it’s another one of those things I have to stop dwelling on if my recovery is to remain intact. I don’t know what’s around the corner but I know that I will probably manage this year, if I’m sensible with money and don’t drink. It’s a challenge that I’m willing to take on. I could leave Uni to go and get a job, so that I’ll have more money, but I’ve already done two years of this course. Why leave now with just one little year left? I really want this degree, in fact it’s taken on a much greater significance to me since I quit drinking. I now have the opportunity to do better than I ever did in my alcoholism. I can focus all my energy on achieving good marks, because in the last few years, needless to say, I was a perpetual underachiever.

Whatever happens this year, I intend to stay sober, and I pray for that to remain the case. I might not be the life and soul of the party any more, not that I go to many parties these days – but being in control of my actions is how I’d like to remain. Alcohol makes me lose control, and I can’t afford to let that happen again. My sobriety and my sanity are worth fighting for, so I fight the illness day by day, and I hope that anyone with a similar problem out there who’s reading feels able to fight it as well.

Day 55

I think my posts to this blog have probably decreased over the last couple of weeks because not much seems to be happening at the moment. I seem to have settled into sober routines, and I think I can say that I’m more comfortable with it than I was two months ago. My head certainly isn’t all over the place any more; I haven’t had a major mood swing for at least a couple of weeks. I’m still attending at least four AA meetings a week and know that this is the sole reason for my continued sobriety. I realised the other day that I can’t remember the last time I wanted a drink. In the beginning I asked for my compulsion to drink to be taken away, and so far all the evidence suggests that it has been.

 That said, sobriety sure isn’t an easy ride now. I still regularly catch myself thinking the old negative thoughts that used to get me into trouble. It’s become clear that all of my instincts about how to behave in the world are wrong. That’s what got me into drinking in the first place, I suppose. I still get nervous about going to meetings, thinking everyone in the room is going to dislike me, and anyone who I haven’t seen for a while will no longer be interested in talking to me. I still get angry about this, and lots of other things, and I know that in the coming months and years I’m going to have to do a lot of work on my anger and my fear, if I’m ever to progress in life.

 What’s probably true is that the anger and fear will never go away. I’m going to have to learn different reactions to my emotions and feelings. Instead of feeling resentful at life for being so difficult, I need to start facing up to the challenge. In a way, the thought of the challenge ahead is quite exciting, because I know how good things could be if I make a success of my recovery. But tonight I found myself slipping into resentment once again, isolating myself at the back of an AA meeting and slipping out unnoticed as soon as it was over, because it was easier than making an effort to socialise with the group. I feel embarrassed and guilty about my unsociable behaviour, but I keep doing it, I keep pushing potential friends away, because I’m scared to let them in, in case it makes me vulnerable.

My sponsor would tell me how great it is that I can accept and vocalise all of this stuff. I wish I could do something about the problem, though, instead of running away from the challenge like I did tonight. I wish I could go into meetings and not feel like everyone is so much better than me, just for once. I wish I could instantly make friends and impress people. Sometimes I don’t know what to say to people, even when I’ve made the effort to go for coffee with them after a meeting.

 Only this morning I thought I was getting better. I thought I’d made so much progress and that I wasn’t scared of the meetings any more. I guess I was complacent this morning. The only thing I can do is go back to the meeting next week, and start making the effort again, because it’s not like I’ve never spoken to anyone there. The fear and anger will undoubtedly rear its ugly head next week just like it did today; I’ll probably want to run away and take the chance away from people before they can speak to me. If I never make any friends in this particular meeting on Fridays I guess I’ll have other meetings and other friends to fall back on, and my recovery will still be OK, but I know in my heart that something wasn’t right today, I didn’t handle the situation as well as I could have. I shouldn’t have to avoid this meeting because of awkwardness and animosity. I can make friends there just like I’ve made friends elsewhere; so I will.

Day 49

Sorry for the slight delay in posting an update this week – there are times when I’m desperate to write everything down, and other times when I can’t be bothered. That’s just me. I really will try to keep this blog updated at least once a week, in any case. Luckily there hasn’t been a huge amount of excitement this week, meaning it can all be summed up quite easily today. Monday was probably the most emotional day of my sobriety so far, when I got into a petty argument with my mother (who I live with) and ended up snapping quite explosively. My anger seemed to boil up out of nowhere, and it was so dramatic that I had to get out of the flat for a while. As I walked around the local area aimlessly for twenty minutes or so I was scared, angry, guilty and mortified all at once. I couldn’t believe what I’d done. Before I quit drinking I thought I’d dealt with my anger issues – but clearly the alcohol was just keeping a lid on it. I’m not a violent person, and neither my mum nor I would ever come to harm because of this problem – but we were both shocked by my temper tantrum on Monday and I realised all of a sudden that my issues in sobriety are not going to be dealt with very easily or quickly.

 I’ve discovered that my drinking disguised many psychological hang ups for six years. I thought I’d stopped being an anxious person when I turned eighteen, but really it was just the alcohol remedying my nerves all that time. During the past seven weeks I have felt on edge for nearly the whole time. I’ve felt far more emotional than I normally do. All these things I now have to deal with without resorting to alcohol. I think it’s safe to say that I am dealing with it quite well. I don’t want to take a drink ever again. In fact the thought of drinking again scares me quite a lot. The thought of getting drunk and losing control of my behaviour is not something I would ever like to contemplate.

 I’m still going to lots of AA meetings, about four a week. I can definitely say that I would not be sober now if it weren’t for the meetings. My AA sponsor and friends have all been a tremendous support at my lowest moments. On Monday when I was terrified that my mum would kick me out of the flat, my sponsor met me and sat with me when I was crying. I’ve never had that kind of friend before.

 I’ve recently started to have a social life outside of AA again, which is exciting. Going out these days feels very different to how it used to, mainly because I don’t have to worry about being able to afford the next drink, or the following day’s hangover. Sobriety has freed me and allowed me to focus on having fun, and being myself. When I go in bars these days I can’t say I ever feel completely at ease – all those drunk people can be quite overbearing – but knowing that I will be in complete control of everything that I say and do that evening is a wonderful tonic. Many people in AA don’t choose to hang around bars and clubs; unfortunately I seem to have this dancing gene which means I need to go dancing somewhere at least once a month!

 Until my next posting, my thoughts are with everyone who is reading this; I wish you all the best.