First of all, I want to thank those who responded to my last post. I found the advice and encouragement tremendously helpful. I would have had 10.5 weeks had I not slipped on Monday. But since I did, I only have 3 days. I have made the decision to just pick myself back up and try again...paying closer attention to that which made me fall. What I am most struggling with however is the disappointment and hurt that I have caused in my significant other...not just because I slipped, but because I lied to him about it. Those were my choices and I must face the consequences. For now that seems to be more of the same...emotional and intimite isolation (which I completely understand). I am finding that I am starving for affection...a problem that has gotten worse with my last fall. I want so badly to fix the pain, hurt, resentment, and anger that I have caused in him...I just don't know how. I know that this will take time...but what am I to do in the mean time?
Try not to beat yourself up about your slip. It does happen. It certainly happened to me a fair bit until something finally gelled with me.
It does take time to gain trust back, but one day at a time it will start to happen. It took quite a while until my boyfriend could trust me again, but we're fine now.
While you are waiting for that to happen, get to as many meetings as you can and work the steps with your sponsor (if you have one). Try to collect 'phone numbers at the end of a meeting of folk who live in your area. They will always be happy to chat with you if/when you have a problem. Having contact with another recovering alcoholic really helps me every day and I needed those 'phone numbers in the early days and I still use them now.
Please keep posting and letting us know how things are going for you, won't you?
Take care,
Carol
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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 admire you for making the new start. You could have just kept drinking, but you didn't. Most of us (if not all) have been exactly where you are right now. In a relationship and shamefully made aware of our dishonesty. I feels like being naked, hence the word "embarrassed". When you drink, you become a different person, like Mr. Hyde. When you are sober, that is the only chance for your "Authentic Self" to be present. Think about it for a moment........It is the imprisonment of your "Self" when you drink. Only difference is, there is someone else acting badly in your body and you are responsible. Here's a question, would you lend your car to someone who was obviously drunk? Probably not. But you're lending your heart, mind, soul, body, life, and loved ones to a drunk when you drink.
I struggled for 2 years to get sober on My terms. I was not "willing" to do all that I heard others did to get sober. I paid dearly for it with the loss of a great job, my marriage, and the right to live with my 2 yo son that I thought I loved. There were other dues that I paid before and during that period that I wouldn't wish on an enemy. Unfortunately some of those "dues" spilled over into my early sobriety period as we call them "our wreckage of the past". Thankfully I did great the "willingness" that I prayed for during that 2 years to do all that I could, all that I heard others had done to get sober. And for a tough case like me, someone who knew that they were smarter than the average bear, it took all of that and a miracle. I did not earn my sobriety, I only made myself ready to receive the gift. That gift is a daily repreeve from my disease and I can only keep it if I maintain my spiritual condition.
Now I've obviously seen a lot of people come and go in AA. And to be perfectly honest with you, not many that were in a relationship got sober and stayed in the relationship (myself included in fact at 6 months sober my wife asked to come back and I told her "no thanks"). Either they felt way too comfortable to acquire the "willingness" or they got sober and outgrew the relationship. In other words their sobriety didn't survive the relationship, or their relationship didn't survive sobriety, but usually it's the former because the drunk couldn't hit a hard enough bottom while the significant other was there to keep putting pillows under their ass, but alas eventually all pillows wear out and I imagine the threads on yours are wearing thin. The odds might be long, but you've got no chance if you keep drinking.
I often hear discussions about saying the right things to newcomers and how it might affect them. Well I say this, the people who come into AA with "willingness" chapter 5 "How it works" describes the promise to them very plainly "rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path", nothing you do or say will make them leave or deprive them of there mission to get sober. If you feel that way about your sobriety, then you will make it. If you don't, I highly recommend that you begin praying for that "willingness" on a daily basis. And remember this, anything that you put in front of your sobriety, you will lose.
Now get in there and make ready for your gift of sobriety. The harder you work for it, the sooner it will come.
Hi again chap, "What I am most struggling with however is the disappointment and hurt I have caused...." O.K. It happened. You did it. You apologized. You can say that you will do your best not to let it happen again but, being an alcoholic, you can not PROMISE that it won't. You can only do your best to want to and stay sober. The rest of the hurt, the baggage, is the other party's to carry, not yours. You've slipped. You've come back. Now you are doing your best to stay away from booze. That is all that you can do. None of us can honestly say say that we will not drink/drug again. We try on a daily basis to abstain. Sometimes it's a minute-to-minute or even second-to-second struggle. We can only put forth our best effort. If that is not good good enough for others, it is THEIR problem. Love in recovery...Tim
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"We posess the eyes through which the universe gazes with wonder upon its own majesty."
Working the Steps, going to meetings, reaching out to the newcomer---these are the ways I stay sober. It's worked for over two decades now. It's a Higher Power of my personal experience and understanding. I don't go to a church, and I believe my Higher Power is accepting of that. Each of us has our own understanding, our own belief system. And that's the way the program of AA works...be blessed, Chris
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"Never argue with an idiot... They'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience..."
