30-Day Sobriety Solution Journal: Day 4

So, I was supposed to do Day 4 on Friday, but did not have time. On Saturday, I had three social events throughout the day, and by the time I got home, I was able to read the chapter, but there was no way I was going to be able to dive into something so emotional well after midnight.

So today, I have been putting this off. This is a hard one for me. I didn't have a traumatic childhood, but codependency does run rampant with my mother. The thing is, I have gone to therapy of all sorts over the last 20 or so years. I already went through a guided process of writing a letter to my mother maybe about 10 years ago. I think I have forgiven her. We still have a codependent relationship, but at this point, I can better manage it, and I'm not going to go through the "boundaries" conversation with her one more time. She's getting older. She'll be gone one day. She needs me now. And I will be shattered when she leaves this earth. I don't harbor constant anger at her anymore. But then she is the person who comes to mind when I ask myself who I hold the most resentment for.  I'm not mentioning everything, since I already did this letter and forgave her on a number of other things though! And again, I didn't have a traumatic childhood, so I will probably sound ridiculous!

Since I had already done a similar exercise about my mother, I thought, who is the second person I am most angry with? That would be myself. But not in a I did all these terrible things when I was wasted thing. A lot of it was before I ever had a problem.

So I decided to write a letter to both my mother and myself. I don't even know if I am doing these right, but I have got to get something down before I put this off even more. It's at least a start if not complete.
____________________________________________________________________________

Dear Mom,

I am upset that you never taught me that if I tried hard I could do anything. You never taught me that my dreams could come true. I hate that you always told me I would be missing out on a “normal” life (of getting married, having kids, not struggling for money, and a 9 to 5 job) when I wanted to pursue musical theater in college. I hated that you discouraged me from certain things, like trying out for the dance team in high school because of stupid things like what if I hurt myself. I hate how you still nag me about things as if I am still a young child. I hate that because I am single and childless that all you wants for me is a rich husband, that you don't even care if I like or am attracted to, as if that is the most important thing is to be rich and married, and I couldn't possibly take care of myself. I hate that you think you know what it’s like to date for over 20 years, when you got married when you were 22 and are still married to the same person. I hate that you are so concerned about what you (and I) look like, and what other people look like, as if that is the most important thing in life. I hate that you care so much what others think about you and our family, as if you are still in the 1950’s and you have to keep up appearances. I hate how we have a codependent relationship. In my adulthood, I hated that when I dated a women, and I came out as bisexual to you, and even though you accept that for other people, you were devastated that your own daughter was in a homosexual relationship, and you asked me not to tell any of the family.

I felt like I was not good enough at the things I wanted to pursue because you don't believe dreams can come true and still don’t believe that people can do anything they set their minds to. Even though I didn’t pursue my dreams, I didn’t get this “normal life” that you talked about either, so I feel gypped because I believed I would get one or the other. My self-esteem is wrapped up in what I look like in great part to the importance you have placed on appearance and what others think. It hurts that you don’t believe I am capable of taking care of myself without a man. It hurts that you can’t fully accept my bisexuality. If I had a child, I would support them no matter who they loved, as long as they were happy. I would not be embarrassed to tell anyone.

I’m sorry that I was too afraid to ever tell you how I felt when I was younger, and still sometimes today. I’m sorry that I haven’t created the proper boundaries with you in my adulthood.

I want you to believe that whatever I want to do or whoever I love is good enough and that I can be successful. No matter what or who it is! I want you to believe I can do anything, even if I end up failing. I want you to not care about what you look like or what I looked like all the time.

I understand that you are a product of your upbringing. I know that you were brought up to keep appearances and being gay was not normal in our family. I understand that you did what you did to protect me (e.g. from failure), to try to give me a better life, and only because you loved me and wanted better for me than you had. I forgive you for all these things because I do really love you, and I do know you love me more than anything in the world. I don’t know what I will do without you. I appreciate that you are always there for me still, and you listen to what I have to say as an adult sometimes and even take my advice sometimes.

____________________________________________________________________________

Dear Me,

I am the most angry with you. I am angry you think that if you aren't number one at something, then you shouldn’t do it, and you quit, as a child. I am angry that you thought everything comes naturally, and you shouldn’t have to try that hard to get it. I am angry that you didn’t believe in yourself enough. I am angry that you didn’t work hard enough, practice hard enough, or focus enough to be better at what you wanted to do. I regret that you did not try harder to pursue music and other things you enjoyed when you were younger and more capable and alcohol was not a problem in my life. I am so mad at you for not taking it more seriously, not believing you could do it, being afraid to fail, and not feeling good enough.

I hate that you gained all this weight back that you worked so hard to lose. I feel like you are a failure, and I am having a hard time forgiving you. No one forced food down your throat. No one forced you to drink. No one forced you to stop working out. You made all those decisions. You did this to yourself. You undid your own success and wasted the last four years getting fatter, when you could be healthier still and feeling good about yourself. I feel like an idiot. I hate you for this sometimes.

I resent that you often listen to your mother about what you should do still in your 40s a lot of the time because you can’t make a decision. I regret you listening to her when it came time to decide to put your cat down. I feel guilty that you did not take care of her better because many of the times you were drinking and either forgot or just didn’t feel like dealing with trying to give her the medicine. You were selfish because you were sick of taking care of her and didn’t want to spend thousands of dollars trying to save her when there was no guarantee. I feel guilty because you think you cut her life short, when you should have spent all the money in the world to save her like other people do with their pets.

I hate all the times you decided to drink when you knew you really shouldn't and woke up in the morning hating yourself. 

With all these things, you sometimes feel worthless, unlovable, like a failure, and not living up to the world’s expectations.

I’m sorry that you didn’t try harder. I’m sorry you were incapable of believing in yourself at times. I’m sorry you were afraid to fail. I’m sorry that you compared yourself to other people. I’m sorry that you often used alcohol to cope instead of trying. I'm sorry you didn't have the willpower. I'm sorry you were too sad to realize just how bad things were sometimes.

I want you to believe in yourself now. I want you to realize that you are worth something, you are lovable, and you are a success, and you don’t need to compare yourself to anyone else. I want you to know you did the very best you were capable of in trying to take care of your cat, and she is no longer suffering. You cannot change the past, so let it go. You may have made poor decisions, but you can start to make better ones. Failures happen so that successes can be appreciated. You are a good person, and you deserve forgiveness and happiness.

____________________________________________________________________________

And then there's this business of making a list of other people I need to forgive, so I can do this exercise with them later. To keep anonymity, their names will not be used.

1) My ex-boyfriend from about 4 years ago
2) My best friend from my late-twenties
3) My other best friend from my late-twenties

Also, I did look in the mirror and say "I love myself." Several times in fact. I posted a note on my bathroom mirror that says that. I also read the forgiveness affirmation, I read my "New Me" this morning, and I memorized and said aloud my 30-Day Vision Statement too. Whew... finally done with Day 4... it took me 3 days!

Until tomorrow...
Aspiring Reformed Party Girl

30-Day Sobriety Solution Journal: Day 3

Completely understanding this pendulum solution. Not that I really like it. I hate that we have to feel pain to appreciate pleasure. I hate that we get tricked into the temporary pleasure of overindulging in alcohol, only for that pendulum to swing further into that pain when it fades away. I suppose someday I will think of experiencing that extreme as a gift. It's a little hard to feel that way now.

I did as instructed and re-read my "before me" and "new me" journal entries from Day 2. I'm not quite sure if my "before me" is associated with enough major pain, or if my "new me" is associated with descriptive and specific enough pleasure to be as effective as possible, but it's all I can pull together right now. I really did try to actually feel both. I really do feel like I need to keep reading my "before me" for a while to remind me of the pain.

Soooo, lastly, I'm supposed to journal a quit-drinking strategy... a detailed action plan to stay sober. I've already managed to stay sober for 25 days without any sort of an action plan. I just made up my mind. I do drink club soda and lime instead of vodka sodas. I even still have alcohol in the house, and I haven't touched it. I feel like I am sounding conceited, like it's been a breeze for me. And not to say I don't have any cravings, but they have become less and less. But I might just be in a fuzzy pink cloud stage, leading me to think that I've got so much going for me, that I've come this far, and that it's only going to get easier. I know logically it is not, so I should really have a plan here.

QUIT-DRINKING STRATEGY
What I am going to do to stay sober and when I have a craving:

• I will distract myself with other things, such a game, calling someone, hobbies, or taking a walk.
• I will have a club soda and lime, even at home, so it feels like I am having a vodka soda.
• I will reach out to my friends who do not drink as much to do non-alcohol related activities.
• I will find new opportunities for sober social events to meet new people like me.
• I can call my mother for support.
• Each week I stay sober, I get a special chocolate or dessert.
• At 60 days sober, I will treat myself to some sort of spa service.
• I will put away $1 for every day I stay sober, and buy something special with it after a year.

It might need adjusting. It likely needs to be more specific. But I'm going with this for now.

Until tomorrow...
Aspiring Reformed Party Girl

30-Day Sobriety Solution Journal: Day 2 (Part 2)

I didn't receive any feedback in the forum on my 30-Day Vision Statement from yesterday, so I'll keep it the way I have it! I've written it down on a notecard for my bedside table, so that I can read it every morning.

Now, given my emotion when I read the chapter for Day 2, I was sort of dreading completing the remainder of the action items. I put it off until pretty late tonight. I was only relieved that I didn't have a long chapter to read before doing it tonight! I did listen to the guided recording on the companion website for inspiration. Here is what I came up with...

“Before Me”

What caused me to want to cut back or quit drinking...

The number one reason was that I am concerned about the consequences of my drinking on my health. In February of this year, I started getting hypnic jerks, also known as sleeps starts, that would keep me from falling asleep, sometimes for hours. They would happen while I was still practically awake and very lucid. They would scare me and I was sleep deprived. It seemed the only thing that kept them from happening was drinking enough alcohol to woo my body from wake to sleep stage. My drinking escalated quite a bit over those months, both in quantity and regularity, often drinking copious amounts every night for weeks. The nights I didn’t drink, I would get terrible jerks. Eventually, even the alcohol didn’t seem to completely cease the jerks. I had a sneaking suspicion that my heavy drinking was actually causing it. That my body had now gotten used to having alcohol in my system when going to sleep, and without it, it wasn’t able to breakthrough to the sleep cycles. I thought my body was defying me, but it was as if it was confused and telling me to wake up because we didn’t have the alcohol we needed in our system to go to sleep. Truth be told lately, I had been passing out and blacking out more and more. I was concerned what that might be doing to my brain, especially with Alzheimer’s in the family.

Beyond that, I lost a lot of weight in 2012, and had steadily gained almost all of it back by the beginning of 2017. I was now back in the “obese” category. I had been struggling with trying to get the weight back off since 2013, not to mention I felt like a failure for gaining all this weight back after working so hard. The stress of worrying about my health and the sleepless nights with scary body jerks sent my anxiety and depression through the roof by March. I broke down crying at my annual physical. My blood work ended up showing I was pre-diabetic and my triglycerides and “bad” LDL cholesterol were high. I have already been on medication for high blood pressure since my mid-30’s. I found out my results on a work trip, in which I also found out my 68-year-old uncle who drinks every night had had a stroke. I had a panic attack walking to dinner that night, and I cured it with a few glasses of wine and a phone call to my mom. I have used alcohol to escape my depression and anxiety a great deal on and off over the past 20 years.

I have been non-productive so many times because of choosing to drink instead and then the next day because of the hangovers. I haven’t really made any life goals, so instead I drink. I was so sick of failing at weight loss. I was so sick of failing to cut back. I have often said my biggest problem with losing weight was drinking. And I even have guilt that I was unable to take care of my sick cat properly because I spent too much time drinking, nursing my hangovers, and worrying about myself. Thank god I don’t have children or a spouse.

And because I am single and childless, it is so much easier to hide the amount of alcohol I drink. No one is here at home to see it. I “pre-drink” before meeting up with friends. I would venture to say that my friends and family are not truly worried about my alcohol consumption because they never actually saw most of it.

And speaking of being single, I do want to attract the right relationship. My last three major relationships revolved around alcohol in some form or another, and I drank more to hide the pain and and avoid the fact that they really were not the right person for me. In one of those relationships, we had terrible fights that were fueled by alcohol, and I would push him. I would cringe when I was sober and think to myself, who is that girl? I’m not at all violent. Fortunately, I was never like that in any other relationship, including the ones after that, but I know the alcohol exacerbated my actions.

I do feel like alcohol is a big part of my social life. It has masked my general anxiety and social anxiety. It has become my identity in a way. Everyone knows me for being the life of the party. I often want to be the center of attention. Everyone laughs at my stories. Everyone knows me for having a high tolerance too. I don’t talk as much, if at all, when I am sober. I don’t get as many laughs when I’m sober. I'm afraid to be the center of attention when I am sober. I fear talking to new people when I am sober. I am afraid to do new things when I’m sober. I am afraid to date when I’m sober. I’m afraid to have sex when I’m sober. I don’t feel like me when I’m sober. 

I am afraid that I will have to quit entirely. I am afraid my life will change so much. I often fool myself into thinking lots of people drink as much as I do, and they are fine, as if I’ve seen their blood work or live in their bodies. I’ve often convinced myself that I am fine with cutting my life short for the thrill of a "party-hard," "anxiety-reducing," "glamorous," "fun" drinking lifestyle. More times than not, it's not any of those things. At an event the week before I quit drinking, I was having a conversation with a friend about some sort of health issue, and I raised my drink and said, "This is what is going to kill me!" with a smile and a boisterous laugh. Sad.

“New Me”

My vision of what I really want in life and what sobriety will give me...

I feel amazing thriving in sobriety. I have boundless energy. I am so proud of myself. I believe in myself. I am content, calm, and comforted going to bed sober, and I sleep peacefully throughout the night. Waking up without a hangover is enlightening and refreshing, and I am grateful every morning.

There are a number of things I accomplish as I thrive in sobriety. I do volunteer work. I try new activities. I am active. I might try a new sport or take up a new hobby or pick back up an old hobby, such as singing, dancing, piano, acting, or photography. I finally learn Spanish, and start speaking to my fluent friends. I finally get my passport and plan a trip to Italy and other international destinations. I welcome doing new things and talking to new people, and sometimes I even relish being the center of attention in my sobriety.

I put in the effort to determine what my true passion and purpose is in my career and in life, and I take the necessary steps to achieve that. I have the energy, the drive, and the time to dedicate to this. I am better able to manage the work I have in my current career. I have more money in the bank, not spending it all on alcohol and bars every weekend. I even earn extra money from the blogs I now have more time to write.

I find a loving and supportive partner because the person I am in my sobriety attracts someone who is right for me. I am in true love, and I am abundantly loved. I am married. I enjoy sex so much more in my sobriety. I revel in my self-confidence, and I feel sexy in my own skin. I am skinny, in shape, and healthy. I have accomplished maintaining a healthy weight, my blood pressure is normal, and my bloodwork is perfect. I do not worry about my health. I feel good. I have a glow and a presence that is irresistible. I am vibrant. I have a circle of friends who support me, love me, and are fun to spend time with even without alcohol. My appreciation of humankind is overflowing. I have found my own sense of spirituality. I am thankful for the time I still have left on this earth and the extra time that sobriety has given me.


Until tomorrow...
Aspiring Reformed Party Girl