Denial is a powerful tool. Never underestimate its ability to cloud your vision.
Be aware that, for many reasons, we have become experts at using this tool to make reality more tolerable. We have learned well how to stop the pain caused by reality - not by changing our circumstances, but by pretending our circumstances are something other than what they are.
Do not be too hard on yourself. While one part of you was busy creating a fantasy reality, the other part went to work on accepting the truth.
Now, it is time to find courage. Face the truth. Let it sink gently in.
When we can do that, we will be moved forward.
God, give me the courage and strength to see clearly.
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Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~Dr. Seuss
I had a great reminder of this yesterday, listening to someone who was back four days after picking up. She, like me, was never an everyday drinker, and did not get drunk during the occasions when she had started picking up again. She was having doubts that she really had the same problem as everyone else, but came to realize listening that she did, that picking up is no fun, and that is the problem in the first place.
I feel somewhat similar sometimes, like I could pick up and have one and stop. There was a time when this was possible. But I have also learned in my short time that strength and concentration are more powerful than denial, as is the ability to ask myself, "why do that?"
The fact is, I did not enjoy what was happening to me during my binges, and I know that three, four, years down the line, it would not take long, if any time, to get right back to the binge without moderation. So, in the meantime, a day at a time, and if denial is going to come into place, then let it be denying that I will never be able to handle alcohol normally, rather than denying that I have a problem today.
