4 months, 15 days

What a fabulous day it’s been! I was one of very few people to turn up to the lecture this afternoon, which made me rather proud of myself. All the absentees missed out on what was a thoroughly interesting class. After that I had a few spare hours between the end of the lecture and the meeting in Soho that I always go to on Fridays. Instead of killing the time in the computer room, I decided to head to Soho early and grab a hot chocolate in one of the busy coffee shops. I was mildly nervous about sitting on my own in a busy place for an hour, but I just thought of all the times I stood on my own in the bars down there, and I got through it. I’m glad I did that because it took me out of my comfort zone a bit; it meant I didn’t have to waste an hour looking for things to keep me occupied on the internet, and I was able to consume a lovely mug of hot chocolate before the meeting.

 The meeting itself was fantastic, as ever. The chair this evening was given by someone with a lot of sobriety and a very engaging story to tell. He radiated gratitude and happiness, and I could have listened to him all night. His main message was that sobriety doesn’t have to be a prison sentence; we could all do with lightening up a bit sometimes. And he was certainly right. The theme of the meeting, then, inadvertently became the catchphrase ‘lighten up’; everyone talked of how they were guilty of living under black clouds in sobriety and the fact that one doesn’t have to live like that all the time. In many meetings people share a lot of deeply honest, painful stuff and it’s not usually so positive; that’s all good but tonight showed how refreshing it can be to look on the bright side of life.

 I’m certainly guilty of taking life very seriously and wilfully living under the black cloud a lot of the time. In the past a few friends have actually advised me to ‘lighten up’; before it would always offend me to the core. How dare anyone tell me to lighten up! Don’t they know how difficult my life has been?! Nowadays, I know I oughtn’t be taking myself so seriously. Positivity is good for the soul; tonight’s chair proved that. How I’d love to get to a stage where I can just go through the day without endless worrying. I can already see that stage getting closer; with step 4 I’ve actually begun to let go of a lot of resentment, and I can literally feel the negativity emptying out of my head. Often I’ll wonder what I’m going to replace it with – as I said the other day, my head feels empty when I’m not worrying about something.

 Of course, I still have many things to worry about in my life. But I know the extent to which I’ve spent my life worrying is extremely unhealthy, and I simply have to stop now. I’m tired of being negative and anxious all the time. When I first came into the fellowship and saw all these happy, healthy people, I just hated them. I couldn’t understand how alcoholics could be that happy. Now, nearly five months down the line, I’m beginning to understand that I can one day be like them. I can have that happiness too, if I work the programme.

4 months, 14 days

Much like the last few days, today has been fairly uneventful. I managed to get a bit of step 4 work done earlier in the day, which at first felt a bit like pulling teeth, because I haven’t done it for a few days and I always feel that lethargy when I go back to something after a break. I’m grateful that I got a bit more step 4 done today as I am now that bit closer to being finished with it. I’m as convinced as ever that this programme will work for me, and I look forward to getting onto step 5 and so on.

 After that I made the random decision to go a meeting this evening. I don’t normally go out on Thursdays, as there aren’t generally any meetings I like on this particular day of the week. Today I attended a meeting in Central London which I haven’t been to for about two months. I had no expectations about it, as the last time I went it was very quiet and quite depressing. So today I was genuinely pleased to find it quite busy, and to see a few familiar faces there. I didn’t share, but I managed to make a new friend, a newcomer to the programme. We exchanged numbers and for the first time I felt the real significance of the four months of sobriety that I have behind me. This newcomer was only a couple of weeks into the programme, talking about the fresh and raw difficulties that being sober for the first time has presented to him. I remembered my very early days and was genuinely humbled by the conversation.

 Just to be able to have that conversation was wonderful; whenever my sponsor tells me to create links with newcomers I’m only half listening because I generally don’t find it easy to make friends with anyone. Today I was able to share some valuable knowledge about the programme with someone who has very little experience of it so far. I sincerely hope he sticks around and makes it as far as I have.

 The only slightly worrying thing about today’s events is that I didn’t specifically approach that person; he had to come up to me. I never approach anyone. When I saw him coming towards me, for the first few seconds my illness was saying: ‘please go away.’ That is my instinctual reaction to anyone new who I’ve never met before. It’s a very deep-rooted reaction which has caused me so much fear in social situations all my life. It’s the reason why I probably haven’t made as many friends in the fellowship as I could have; all the friends I’ve currently got have been the ones to approach me in the beginning.

 Once someone has made the effort to initiate the conversation, I’m generally fine. It’s just the initial ice-breaking part of the interaction that terrifies me. They say you shouldn’t leave the fellowship before your miracle has happened; I’m sure my ‘miracle’ will be the day I start going up to strangers in rooms and offering them my phone number. I don’t know if or when that might happen. Since I’m not meant to be projecting into the future, I won’t take a guess.

  Anyway. Today I am grateful for my continued sobriety. I’m grateful that I was able to go to a meeting that I don’t know so well without too much anxiety. I’m grateful that I was able to see and make friends there.

4 months, 13 days

Haven’t been out of the house today, so there hasn’t been much exciting going on. But that’s not to say it’s been a dull or bad day. Over the past few months I’ve kind of filled my time with more and more things at home, to keep the boredom away, because with me boredom inevitably leads to depression. This blog is something to look forward to every day now, and the other blogs I’ve recently started contributing to are each a weekly occurence. To take a look at them, here they are:

Queer Deviations

Pink Boots

The first one, QD, is a group blog, where I contribute as thingmebob82. I just posted something new there today. The second one, Pink Boots, is my exciting weekly review of new album releases in the UK. I’ve loved writing all my life and with all this online activity I suddenly feel free. So I generally have things to do all the time now. It’s the best thing for me, because it gives me less time to think about drinking. I haven’t done any work for Uni today; I hope I can get on with that tomorrow because I think I’ve been feeling a bit lethargic about it recently, and I don’t want that lethargy to become an issue again.

4 months, 12 days

Just got back from a really interesting meeting which gave me (and everyone else in the room) a lot of food for thought. Sometimes you get these meetings where the tone can be quite exploratory in terms of underlying factors in our illness; I really like those meetings as it is in my nature to intellectualize things anyway. Tonight many people shared about their various addictions other than alcoholism; indeed the guy giving the main chair explicitly identified himself as more of a drug addict who happened to have a side issue with alcohol before coming into recovery. Some talked about food addiction; someone mentioned shopping and sex addictions; someone else mentioned addiction to negative thought processes. If I’m really deeply honest, I’ve probably experienced all of those things to an extent. I can’t say I’ve ever been addicted to food but I’ve certainly had a weird relationship with it throughout my life. As a kid and a teenager I just never ate; not because I didn’t want to – I really wanted to eat and put on weight, but I never had much of an appetite. As a consequence I was significantly underweight until about the age of 21. I still don’t really know what was the cause of that issue.

 I certainly became addicted to shopping for a while when I left home and got my first student loan/grant. For years a week rarely went by without me buying a new t-shirt or CD or book. All along I knew why I was doing it: to make myself better. Unfortunately I didn’t see it as a problem until I was already in serious debt. I now find myself in a financial black hole partly because of that.

 Sex, like food, I wouldn’t exactly call an addiction, but for a few years I definitely let myself go home with a lot of men for the sake of having a kiss and a cuddle. As I said the other day, for years I was desperate to be loved and part of me didn’t care who I got that loving from. Of course, alcohol contributed to this behaviour significantly. If I wasn’t drunk I would never have gone home with anyone – but sadly I was drunk for most of the time that I was out.

 This addiction to negative thought processes is the most interesting to write about, because I’d never thought of it as an addiction until I came into AA, but this week I’ve started to think that I’ve really got it bad. I always knew that my default setting was to be mildly anxious; I’m beginning to believe it’s more than that, in that my default setting to is to be negative. The rooms have made it clear to me that all alcoholics blow things about of proportion and dwell on negativity and worry endlessly, so I’m not saying I’m special in that regard, but it still feels odd to realise just how consistently negative my thinking is. When I left home at 18 I really believed I’d changed, that the negativity, self loathing and self pity had disappeared, so to discover how wrong I was is still a massive shock. I find it hard to be positive about anything, from getting up in the mornings, to going to University, using public transport, learning new things, coming home, going to meetings, speaking to people, making friends, looking to the future. All these things worry me to such an extent that I am under a constant cloud of fear and resentment. Yes, I’ve talked about those two emotions so much in this blog that it ought to have been clear a long time ago how real and ever-present they are in my life, but to be honest I still can’t get over how big the problem is.

 I know it’s an illness now and that I can change, if I work the programme – but the trouble with this illness is that it speaks with my voice, and right now it’s telling me that I’m just a negative person, and that I can’t do anything about it. When I’m not consciously thinking about the illness, I tend to forget about it so that it continues to strengthen, and when I come back to thinking about it it’s like a bigger shock every time, and I’m thinking: ‘whoa! Am I really that bad?’

 I know now that I must not allow myself to forget how serious it is. There aren’t supposed to be any rules in recovery (apart from don’t drink, of course) but for my own benefit I’m sure a few simple suggestions would be good to bear in mind at all times.

1: I wasn’t born negative, it’s just what I learned to be

2: I can change

3: The world isn’t out to get me, it’s just my head

4: If I keep my AA support network close, I will always be OK

5: I can’t afford to isolate any more

 I like those rules. I’ve pretty much stuck to them since I came into recovery anyway. It’s only when I’m starting to neglect one or two that I tend to feel a bit out of sorts. The beauty of the programme is that it is simple to follow. Not always easy or fun, but neither is life. Just because I never learned to live life on life’s terms doesn’t mean it’s too late to start.

 So, tonight I’m grateful that I was able to drag myself to University earlier, even when I didn’t want to, and learn something interesting and useful. I’m grateful that I was able to go to the meeting this evening, even when I didn’t want to, and share confidently and freely, and see friends. I’m grateful that I could come home at a reasonable time and feel comfortable with that. I’m grateful that I have a warm and secure home to come back to every night. I’m grateful that I will go to bed sober tonight.

4 months, 11 days

Sooo not in the mood to write right now, but write I must. It’s not exactly been a tiring or stressful day, but I had to force myself to go into Uni earlier as for some reason I really felt like staying in and having a lazy day. I seem to be getting into that ‘holiday’ frame of mind where I neglect all sense of routine and responsibility, though there are plenty of things going on at the moment that require routine in my life. When those two assignment deadlines passed two weeks ago it’s like I used up all my mental resources for the term. There are no more deadlines until the New Year, but as I’ve probably said a million times already, the work needs to start now. And I know I probably moan about this a lot, but I’m worried about it because from next year I’m going to have to get up early every day and go to work. Given my previous experiences with work, it’s just not going to happen if I can’t get used to daily routines and early rises now.

 I just about managed to get up at 10 o’clock this morning and I was so close to staying at home this afternoon, I don’t know how I got myself to Uni in the end. I was going to use the excuse that today’s lecture wouldn’t be relevant to my coursework; but of course everything in this module (Health Psychology) is relevant to the coursework. Luckily I was rewarded with an interesting and informative lecture, given by a very engaging lecturer. I’d reward myself further by giving myself an evening off in front of the television, but right now I’d feel bad just taking the rest of the evening off. I feel I should be doing more, revising or something. Ironically, part of today’s lecture focused on stress and anxious personality types and their link with heart disease; after taking this unit I’m more sure than ever that I have an anxious personality disorder, and it does worry me a bit how much time I spend worrying about things. But when I’m not worrying my head feels empty, and I know for a fact that in the past, not worrying about things has got me mediocre to low marks in exams and coursework.

 Getting a job next year is also a big worry, as always. I seriously don’t know what I’m going to do; I’ve tried making a start by applying to every voluntary organisation in London which offers counselling services, because if I ever want to achieve my ambition of becoming a full time paid counsellor I’m going to need the experience starting now. Sadly all the applications now require two references, which I just haven’t got because I haven’t worked a lot in my life. That’s partly because of all the time I’ve spent in education but it’s also due in large part to this anxiety which I’ve talked about so much. At the moment I feel completely unemployable and this blanket requirement for two references in every application that I make doesn’t help. How am I supposed to get the experience and the references if no one’s willing to help me start off getting the experience? Voluntary work used to be a good way of getting that foot in the door, but as I’ve just said, even voluntary work is virtually closed to the inexperienced these days.

 I can feel myself getting worked up and angry about this now. What would my sponsor say? Probably that I shouldn’t be worrying about it now because I don’t finish Uni until next year. People have already told me that a thousand times. But do I listen? No. I don’t listen because that graduation date is getting closer and closer, and as the days go by I’m still no nearer to securing my future after University. I can’t bear the thought of another minimum wage job; even worse is the thought of going back on the dole. I did that for a while after I finished my first degree three years ago, and it was mind numbing.

 God! It would be so much easier if I wasn’t at University now, so I could focus all of my energy on looking for work, but I can’t do that because of all this Uni work. Being a student these days is really shit – I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Not anyone over the age of 21, anyway. When you’re 18 and leaving home for the first time it’s great, but I’m 25 now and I feel completely lost sometimes. I’ve been at Uni for nearly six years and I’m thoroughly sick of all the downsides that come with it: never having any money, having to do work in the evenings at weekends, having to spend hours searching online for one article, having no guarantee that there will be a good job at the end of it all. I went back to Uni three years ago to try and improve my job prospects, because my first degree (in Philosophy) turned out to be worth virtually nothing. Now I wish I’d just put some more effort into finding work, but at the time I wasn’t willing to put the effort into anything. Work scared me more back then than it does now; and it didn’t help at all that I was well into my alcoholic ways of drinking.

 I hate moaning about my situation but I need to get this off my chest. The lecturer today mentioned that getting problems off our chest is a far healthier solution than keeping it all in: apparently bottling anger and various other powerful emotions up is linked to heart disease. That’s something I didn’t know before. With all this anger and anxiety, it’s no wonder I spent so long drinking. If I’m honest, I’d love a drink tonight. I won’t have one – I literally couldn’t bear the thought of going back to Day 1 – but at the moment I don’t know what to do with my feelings. I thought I wasn’t scared about next year any more, but I so am. No, such negative thoughts won’t help me because they lead to self fulfilling prophecies, but it’s hard to be positive when even a voluntary organisation who should be crying out for people with as much spare time as me won’t give me a job because I can’t provide a frigging reference from someone who’s known me in a professional capacity.

 In AA they say that feeling low is the best time to do a gratitude list, so it’s a good job I’ve decided to write one every night, isn’t it? Tonight I’m grateful that I went to Uni earlier, even when I didn’t want to. I’m grateful that I was able to learn something interesting and useful. I’m grateful that I could come back to a warm and secure home. I’m grateful that I will go to bed sober tonight.

4 months, 10 days

It’s an average Sunday, and the highlight of my day has been the Central London meeting where I always go on Sundays. I got there half an hour early as it was my turn to do the greeting this week. I can’t say I was completely unaffected by nerves, but I was told by someone with a lot of recovery that the best way to do a commitment is to turn up on time. So I’m not as stressed out about the greeting as I was a few weeks ago, which is good. The meeting was lovely and warm, as always. A lot of meetings end up focusing on one theme, and today’s theme seemed to be relationships. Many people talked of how they had searched desperately during their drinking days for someone to ’save’ them. I used to do that. Most of my ‘relationships’ were with older men who I half unconsciously stayed with because I wanted them to look after me. I needed a father figure, because I’d never had one, and a lot of men were very happy to fill that role.

 For years I just didn’t have the strength to be on my own. Every man who came along was instantly ‘the one’. My habit of getting very drunk in bars and going home with the first guy to show interest arose purely because I just wanted to be loved, to be enveloped in the big strong arms of a caring older man. I always knew it was tragic, but I couldn’t help it. I never loved myself enough to go home alone when the opportunity to spend the night with someone who looked like a potential daddy candidate came along. To an extent I still don’t quite love myself enough, and I’m still always looking for ‘the one’ subconsciously. At the moment I have about fifteen crushes in AA, and often I catch myself looking at these people and thinking well ahead into the future, dreaming of every minute detail about how our relationships will pan out.

 I’m really trying not to get carried away with the fantasies, but it’s something I’ve always done, it’s a big part of my psyche. Fantasizing doesn’t hurt as much as it used to, because I know exactly what it is now. I don’t expect any of my fantasies to ever turn into reality – not when it comes to relationships with these particular people, anyway. Yes, I’d love a relationship one day, but I’m determined for it to be the right relationship at the right time. I’m not looking for a father figure any more. I’ve already signed a secret contract with myself to stay celibate until I’ve been a year sober; that’s still going strong. I need to see if I can stay away from men for a year, just because my head is definitely not in the right space for relationships at the moment. Many people stay single and celibate during their first year of sobriety – it’s not just me. And just because I’m confident about this doesn’t mean it’s the right answer for everyone coming into recovery. No one told me to make this decision for myself, I’m doing it because I want to.

 Today I’m grateful that I was able to get to my greeting commitment on time and do it well. I’m grateful that I saw friends at the meeting and didn’t isolate myself at any point. I’m grateful that I was able to come home at a good time after the meeting was over. I’m grateful that I always have a warm and secure home to come back to. I’m grateful that I will go to bed sober tonight.

4 months, 9 days

Just got back from a meeting on the other side of London which I have rather taken to recently, even though it clashes with some good Saturday night television. When I first went to that meeting four months ago, I hated it. It’s quite a small meeting, and everyone really knows everyone else, and I’m afraid I didn’t think I would ever fit in there. Luckily that feeling passed after a month and now I’d probably count that as one of my favourite meetings, because it is quiet and you can share for a bit longer there. They always go for coffee afterwards and since it’s only a small group it’s easier to feel part of the conversation. In the beginning I would never have imagined myself liking a meeting like that. Funny how feelings change, isn’t it?

4 months, 8 days

Thankfully it’s been a much more interesting day. I was back at Uni, which meant I had some pretty involving stuff to occupy my mind with for the best part of the day. When I went in I saw friends, had a good chat, and I also got to feel clever taking part in a presentation on a pretty complicated subject (temporal construal theory in economics, for anyone who cares!)

 Afterwards I made my way to Soho where I attended the Friday night meeting that I usually attend on Fridays. On my way there I was really looking forward to it, as I know it’s a really good meeting now, but I couldn’t help remembering that whenever I’ve looked forward to meetings in the past, my expectations have usually been let down. This is not because the meeting turns out to be bad, it’s just because reality can never possibly live up to my lofty expectations. No matter how good the meeting is I always seem to be let down by something, and so I was very weary of expecting anything fantastic to happen tonight.

 When I got to Soho I saw everyone I knew, felt welcome instantly, but of course not as many people said ‘hello’ to me as I would have liked, so my hopes for the evening were shattered instantly. I might be coming across as a bit of a misery guts – but this is my alcoholic thinking that I’m trying to describe. No matter how many people say ‘hello’ to me it will never be enough, and even when lots of people do greet me I’m thinking: ‘why are they saying ‘hello’ to me? They must be making fun of me.’ I have a warped perception of reality which means that I can’t just see things the way they are; there’s always an imperfection, always something wrong.

 So once again I sat down in the midst of that prickly, awkward uncomfortableness that I always get in social situations. For the first half hour or so I struggled to ignore it, even as people were sharing. When I’m not feeling ignored I’m paranoid that everyone is looking at me, judging me. Someone said that in their share tonight, and it captured the precise social discomfort that I always have. It’s going to take a long time for it to sink in that no one is looking at me and judging me; no one is bothered by what I’m wearing or how I’m sitting in my chair.

 Eventually I settled in a bit and found the strength to share about something that I’ve never told anyone before. The chair had talked about a suicide attempt at the age of seven; somehow tonight I just knew it would be the right thing to do to talk about my own suicide bid, at the age of sixteen. As I was talking about it I found myself speaking like a normal, confident, intelligent and mature person in recovery. For the first time my voice wasn’t broken by nerves; for the first time I didn’t beat myself up for missing bits out of the story or not sounding poignant enough as soon as I’d finished.

 Once I’d finished I felt relieved, a part of the room once again. After the meeting was over my self-centred inner child expected everyone to come up to me and congratulate me on my stunning bravery. What happened is that a couple of people told me they’d liked my share, and that was it. My selfish inner child was determined to get a resentment over this lack of attention, whilst my rational, serene inner adult refused to fall into the pit of negativity again. I went home calmly ignoring the waves of resentment, reminding myself that I will have the rest of my life to give attention-grabbing shares in meetings. Tonight I shared what I needed to share and it does not matter how many people did or didn’t congratulate me afterwards. The world doesn’t revolve around me; it’s not important what other people think about me.

 I got to the tube station and was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by someone from the meeting who I’d never spoken to before. He was a visitor to London, from America, and would be getting the same train as me. For fifteen minutes or so we chatted freely about our recoveries. It was very pleasant and refreshing. After he’d gone I was humbled and rather astonished that I’d managed to hold a friendly conversation with someone I’d never met before. I didn’t just sit there and let him do the speaking – I took an equal part in the exchange, expressing my own opinions and being fully myself for the whole fifteen minutes. The nerves didn’t bother me at all. So I was able to come home even more content with the evening’s events, having made a new friend. That person brightened my day, just as I probably brightened his.

 Today I’m grateful that I managed to make a new friend. I’m grateful that I was able to remain confident, calm and content all day. I’m grateful that I didn’t have a drink today. I’m grateful that I did the required work for the afternoon’s lecture. I’m grateful that I always have a warm and secure home to come back to.

4 months, 7 days

Not a lot to report today; I’ve mostly been indoors again, copying up the old diaries to the computer. I’m on early 2001 now. It’s really interesting, even though I’ve gone back through those old journals many times over the years. I seem to discover something new every time I look at them. It seems more incredible to me every day how much my life has changed in seven years – yet how similar I am to that young 18 year old today. Seven years ago I was writing about social phobia and anxiety, about inappropriate crushes and how stressful my college work was – just as I do today. I’ve said it a lot before, but the most important change in my life since then is that it involves other people now. I’m not alone now; I have an outlet for my troubles. My voice is heard today. What strikes me every time I pick up my old diary is that I never felt heard when I was a teenager. I was going to college every day, sitting alone in classes and coming home having spoken to nobody; I’d consider it an achievement if I managed to exchange a couple of words with someone on any given day.

 When I think about those days it seems silly that I can still complain about my social life. It’s my birthday in a couple of weeks and I have about fifteen people coming for a meal. Seven years ago I was struggling to find anyone to help me celebrate my 18th birthday. One of the girls at college had invited me to the pub, as it would be her friend’s 18th the day after mine, but at the last minute she couldn’t go for some reason and I was stuck with nothing to do. I didn’t feel comfortable gatecrashing the friend’s party, as I didn’t know him. So I ended up doing nothing for that birthday. It had been a similar story on every preceding birthday, so I should have got used to not celebrating birthdays by then, but it still hurt, because I had been really looking forward to my first ever night out at the pub – to my first ever ‘normal’ birthday.

 It’s incredible how I still worry about socialising with strangers to this day. Attending Dean’s birthday meal the other day was my most nerve-racking experience in sobriety so far, and I was just as nervous as I used to get when I started going out to such social events when I was 18. So it seems clear that social anxiety is part of who I am, and I don’t think it’s ever going to go away. I’m grateful for the fact that despite these nerves, I’ve managed to make so many friends in sobriety that fifteen of them are coming out for my 25th birthday. I’m also grateful for the fact that I’m comfortable with not using alcohol to deal with the nerves any more. Having been through six years of alcoholism I finally understand that alcohol turns me into something I’m not: it makes me unsociable, annoying and angry. When I’m sober I might never feel completely comfortable in those social situations, but at least I can be myself.

4 months, 6 days

Not much to report on today, as I’ve spent pretty much the last two days indoors, partly to save money after Monday, partly because there’s nothing much going on at Uni at the moment. I thought I would be back in the swing of things there this week, but it turns out things won’t really be kicking off again until our project proposals have been returned to us, either approved or rejected. I should know how that’s going by December.

 It’s probably a good job I’ve had the time off this week, as I’ve been able to throw myself into step 4. I’ve written about twenty pages so far and have just about finished with the first eleven years of my life. Being made to go back and examine the past in such detail has thrown up a lot of resentments that I’d forgotten about. I was bullied at school from an early age; one of the resentments happened when I was just 4 years old. And I know I’m still holding many of those resentments now because as soon as I think about them, I feel a twinge of fear and anger in my gut. They can’t have been buried deeply, because it’s been remarkably easy to recall the details of everything that happened, and it’s clear to me that I’m still living in fear of those bullies now.

 I was never physically abused as a child; all the bullying took the form of verbal abuse, on a daily basis. So to an extent I can’t help wondering sometimes if my issues are that important. Many people in AA have been physically and sexually abused; I can’t compare my story to those people’s. When I first came to AA it was embarrassing to admit that I’d never been beaten up, thrown down stairs or whacked around the face as a kid. All that happened to me is that I was called names, belittled, laughed at, threatened and excluded every day of my time at school.

 My sponsor’s already told me that my experiences have been just as painful as everyone else’s; many people have told me that over the years, actually. So I’m starting to believe them. Considering I’ve written twenty pages about the things that happened to me at school, it’s no wonder I’ve spent my entire adult life living in fear. I’m only halfway through the list as at the moment. Every time I get nervous in social situations, it’s because I was so humiliated by countless peers at school across many years. The humiliation didn’t stop until I’d left school at 18; from the ages of 5 to 18, then, I was going through this each day, and it’s no wonder I attempted suicide twice when I was 16.

 What worries me is that just thinking about those people can still produce an emotional reaction inside me. I thought my parents had played the biggest part in my emotional problems, but if I’m honest, thinking about what my parents have done doesn’t exactly upset me as much as it used to. I can accept what happened between my parents now; I’m probably halfway to forgiving my father. Am I ready to forgive the bullies at school? I don’t think so. I can appreciate that they were just kids and it’s in kids’ nature to be cruel, but I don’t think I’ve even really begun to come to terms with what those kids did to me.

 I still get scared every time I have to walk past gangs of kids in the street. It’s not like I wasn’t aware that I still felt this way, but it’s become apparent that I have to start dealing with that emotional trauma right now, if I’m to do a good step 4 and 5. And sometimes I don’t know if I want to forgive those bullies, sometimes I don’t want to let go of the resentment because it keeps me safe. It keeps me from having to take responsibility for my own life.