Thursday, March 8, 2018

The Wagon

I've been thinking a lot about where I am today in comparison to a year ago. A year ago, I was finishing my last semester of grad school, interviewing for jobs, working hard on my sobriety, and had six months sober under my belt. Things were going well. They weren't easy, but I was managing.

And then I moved across the country in July. I started a job that I thought I was going to love and I fell in love, hard and fast, with an incredible woman (that I miss dearly and cannot wait to see again I might add). And then things started to get really hard at work. Harder than I ever imagined, and I started to hate my job... the job I uprooted my life for. Things were getting hard for my family back on the East Coast so I paid them a visit to give myself piece of mind. And in December, one day shy of my 15 month milestone, I fell off the wagon. And I haven't gotten back on. 

I had come so far and was doing so well... why did I need to start again? I had every excuse in the book lined up, but it honestly just came down to this: I started again because I fucking wanted to. 

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It was hard to tell my family that I am drinking again. So hard, in fact, that I waited until I had a drink in my hand before saying anything.

Being a twenty-something person, or even a person in general, (or maybe just being me...) it is hard to not want to drink socially with friends/family. It's hard to not drink when you're at a wedding celebrating or out with friends for dinner. It's hard for me to tell myself "no more" when others don't have to worry about that. It's hard to feel like I'm constantly walking on eggshells in fear that I may slip up so badly that everyone will notice... that I'll be the fuck-up I've been trying so damn hard not to be my entire life.

Most days, I'm fine, but when I'm not, I remind myself of this:
You don't need alcohol to always be your crutch. You are fully capable of handling things without drinking your problems away. Yes, drinking is fun and a temporary escape, but that is all that it is: Temporary. 

And when that doesn't work, I remind myself: If you start to rely on this again, you won't be able to have it at all. 

So I've been working on it. Every day. Working on taking things one day at a time. Working on not drinking every day. Working on finding other ways to solve problems rather than forgetting about them while I drink myself into oblivion. Working on talking about my feelings rather than holding them in (which is a work in progress and probably always will be). And when I can't work on it anymore, when it gets too hard, I'll do what I need to do. But for now, I'm chugging along and doing the best I can.


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* Thanks to everyone in my life for always being so patient and supportive of everything I do. Thanks for letting me make my own mistakes and for always being there when I inevitably need to be picked up off the floor. I appreciate you all more than you know. *