StayStrong4's Journal

Today is 7 weeks later. I think about these past 7 weeks and I am going to tell the truth, it has been an ETERNITY.

What's strange to me was that I was all geared up for the drinking part. It was so focused on what I would do insteadof drinking. I had read a lot about cravings and DTs and all of that.  I was so scared about it that I had tons of water ready, sugar free candy, diet ginger ale in case I needed the feel of a drink.  But strangely, my hand on my mothers grave, I have not one time wanted a drink.

BUT.

BUT. I had a very hard time. It was not about wanting a drink. But I have never been so terrified as I have been in the past 7 weeks. As each day passed and I saw my life more and more clearly, I have spent nearly every day in fear and shame. I have been horrified at the state of my life. But I didnt want to drink. Every single thing that is wrong in my life is about my not wanting to face real life.

I do not blame that on drinking. I blame drinking on that. I was not raised to look at life squarely and deal with it. If money was tight, hide from them and just walk away from debt. If relationships soured, sidle away like a crab. If work was overwhelming, create a force inside to overthrow the "bad" bosses. I was never taught to look at ME and take responsibility. When I ran out of ways to hide conciously, I started drinking to make it all go away. Then my mom died last year and I started overdosing on alcohol to make it all go away.

49 days ago, I woke up in my room, as I had not been out the night before. I had drunk my usual 1-1/2 magnums of wine the night before and woke up in my usual state of haze. I dont get hung over, which is not positive, just tired, but a shower always fixed that.  I went to take a shower and saw my face and body in the mirror. My forehead was split open and my right eye purple black and swollen completely shut like a boxer. I had bruises and cuts all over the right side of my body. Huge 8 inch by 10 inch black bruises. I searched the house to see signs of where I fell but never to this day found it. I do know  I did not go out, so I will will never know what happened that night. I had blacked out apparently and it was my first time knowing that, and realizing that I had probably blacked out many other times and just not had physical proof. So, that day, 49 days ago, I quit drinking. I thank the universe that I have never driven when drinking, I cant imagne what I could have done.   I am genuinely thankful to know that bruised body I did to ME and not to someone else.

In these 7 weeks, I have had to live in the squalor of my life. I dont mean physical squalor, I mean emotional and self esteem squalor and bankruptcy.

I never realized that by being brought up to avoid life, I was having my self esteem undermined. In these 7 weeks, I tried AA. It was not for me, but filled with lovely people. I have a therapist and I am now working with a different group that deals with accepting personal responsibility and building self esteem. Knowing that I can rely on ME and that I was capable of building a better life. This is not without help. But it's not about abdicating my life to a power outside of me., It is me that has to get a job, pay bills on time, build my relationships and face the hard times and not drink, over eat or dissociate to not face life.

As I have posted about, the nightmares every night all night have been one of the worst things for me. The nightly re-enactments of every bad day of my life has been just awful. Educational but in a terrifying way. I could have done without the night terrors. But for whatever reason, they have come every night and still do. Graphic terrible exhausting and so real. One person after another in my real life enters my dreams and tells me how awful I am,. Or like Wed night, I am strapped in a chair and as my mistakes are announced, someone nails one of my fingers at a time to the arm of the wooden chair, then they need longer bolts to comtinue the list and nail my forearms an inch at a time. They last forever.  The night I spent trying to get to my moms funeral and not being able to find it was filled with people from my past on the bus or plane, laughing at me or holding me in mychair so I missed a stop. These nightmares are gruesome, unrelenting and always make me feel so tormented.

But I can report today that I felt better physically every day. Hard to explain it all. The first wave was how plain exhausted my body was from processing the amout of alcohol it was processing. I could feel after about 2 weeks a definite cooling and calming of my internal processes. This many weeks later each day I feel more calm inside.

I am still struggling with the emotional side of being sober. I am a 51 year old 24 year old. I got a good education and have a lot of skills. But feeling worthy of having a good life had eluded me.

I am not sure what happens next. I know I will work to stay sober. I have an near aversion to drinking at this point. The best way I can describe it is the way you feel after getting bad food posioning from something, like say tuna fish. The idea of tuna fish is out of the question for a very long time, maybe forever. Your insides revolt at the possibility of it. At least now, that is how I feel about alcohol.

That said, I would give almost anything to have someone who was here taking care of me. Not a nurse kind of taking care, but a hand hold, being held at night, someone who will sit with me and look at this mess and stand next to me while I fix it. I cant let someone else fix it, cause I now know I need the self esteem of doing it for myself.

Anyway, thats where I am on this, Day 49.

I love DS, I love my therapist and I am hoping to love me again one day.  For now, I am grateful and healthier and my eyes are clear literally and figuratively. Sometimes almost TOO clear, but even that is better than the time I wasted in a fog.

Peace to all-

Liz