Hope

I’m here, Day 4. I nearly drank about 1000 times last night – it was ridiculous. But I kept checking back into the blog, and your comments and the thought of starting again today kept me from the bottle. Thank goodness, although I still feel horrible today and tired, and no pink cloud remotely in sight. I think I’ve really punished my body in recent weeks, and it’s going to take a long time to feel good again.

But something happened this morning: I got a call from someone I’d met in a meeting (not the striding away lady),an actual call, a real voice. So far, I’ve only been able to text people, and even then I worry when they don’t reply. I worry too much about what other people think, I know that. I had texted this particular lady last night, in the midst of my panic, and when she didn’t reply I was anxious about it. And then, this morning, she rang me, and asked me to describe what was happening, and we had a really good, helpful discussion about it all.  She suggested I go to more meetings if possible, and that I make an appointment at this addiction centre where she said you sit in a group with other people and fill in some sort of form.  It sounds quite scary, but I’m going to do it.

One of my issues has been that when I hear other people’s stories, I feel that I’m overreacting about my own.  But talking to this lady today, she made me realise that I am tackling my problem before I hit the dark zone.  It is almost as though, in recent weeks, I have been trying to become a ‘darker’ alcoholic, one who drinks in the morning, or who buys brandy and pours it into her tea, or who hides bottles.  Dabbling in that area is a dangerous process: I don’t need to wait for someone to stop me, I have to be responsible for myself.  Yes, I can get my husband on side, but I can’t expect him to stop me drinking.  I have already seen that he is willing for me to start drinking if I want to, and willing to support me if I stop; in other words, I have to do this, he can’t do it for me.

I am rambling.  Today will be challenging: my son has a birthday party, and a group of 14 year old boys are coming here to make pizzas.  I would normally use this – oddly – as an excuse to crack open the booze and ‘celebrate’, so I need to be extra alert.  Because every morning I am fine, but every afternoon I slide into a self-pity party where I justify all the reasons why I should be able to drink like everybody else.

My friends, I need you, and I am grateful you’re here.  I tap into the blog every half hour or so at the moment. In a recent comment on my blog, FitFatFood described the ‘little lights of hope’ and harnessing my ‘silent support network’.  This image keeps coming back to me.  Thank you for being here, little lights.