Lately I have had the strongest urge to go out to a bar and drink. I desperately miss the camaraderie, the joy of meeting strangers and old acquaintances, the easy-flowing conversations, the lack of inhibition, and, most of all, the feeling of belonging, of being home. Without that refuge, I feel lonely and bored. I feel like I am a boring person when the most interesting thing that happens in my day is getting access to Excel 2007 at work, or making progress on Daryl's afghan.
I shared this feeling with my therapist, and he reminded me that it is natural for me to grieve for the loss of my relationship with alcohol -- that it is no less intense than losing a loved one.
I think it's like a woman who has been in an abusive relationship and finally breaks it off because she realizes that the violence is escalating and is afraid for her life. But after she leaves, she misses the good times she used to have with her lover when he wasn't hitting her, and all the reasons that she loved him in the first place flood her memory. When he calls and asks her to go out, promising that it will be better this time, that he's learned to control his anger, she yearns to see him. She feels lost without him. Being with him was her main identity, and she doesn't know what to do with herself now. She knows with her head that he is poison to her and that it won't be better, it will only get worse until he actually kills her. But there is a gaping hole in her life that only he can fill, and it makes her feel like risking her life is worth it, since she is so miserable without him.
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3 comments:
Wow! you imagery of the abused wife is powerful, especially after having watched 'the burning bed' yesterday.I can not say I exactly understand your feelings, But I do sympathize with your feeling of grief and loss and want you to know how important I real I know those feeling to be, that they are a process and not an action, and that you are in my prayers
That's a great analogy. I can promise you without a shadow of a doubt though that it will at least get different. And the good news is that the bars and the fellow drunks aren't going anywhere. They're all going to be right where you left them (except for the ones who have died or been incarcerated of course), so once you've given the steps a try, you can always go right back if you choose to. Karen used to remind me that my misery could always be refunded to me in full whenever I decided I wanted it back.
The twelfth step in the 12&12 is a great place to go for hope and direction:
"...as we grow spiritually, we find that our old attitudes toward out instincts need to undergo drastic revisions. Our desires for emotional security and wealth, for personal prestige and power, for romance and for family satisfactions – all these have to be tempered and redirected. We have learned that the satisfaction of instincts cannot be the sole end and aim of our lives. If we place instincts first, we have got the cart before the horse; we shall be pulled backward into disillusionment. But when we are willing to place spiritual growth first – then and only then do we have a real chance (p. 114)."
I love that part about our instincts needing to be tempered and having the cart before the horse. The things that you are craving - social interaction, the ease and feeling of belonging that come from taking a drink - all of these can come through working the steps. It's one of those paradoxes of the program: we stop putting the satisfaction of our instincts first and instead focus on our spiritual growth and spiritual development, and lo and behold, we look around one day and realize that our instincts are somehow, almost magically being satisfied.
okay, and then one more excerpt:
"Still more wonderful is the feeling that we do not have to be specially distinguished among our fellows in order to be useful and profoundly happy [profoundly happy!]. Service gladly rendered, obligations squarely met, troubles well accepted or solved with God's help, the knowledge that at home or in the world outside we are partners in a common effort, the well-understood fact that in God's sight all human beings are important, the proof that we are no longer isolated and alone in self-constructed prisons, the surety that we need no longer be square pegs in round holes but can fit and belong in God's scheme of things – these are the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living for which no amount of pomp and circumstance, no heap of material possessions, could possibly be substitutes (p.124)."
skip a bit...
"We have been talking about problems because we are problem people who have found a way up and out, and who can share our knowledge of that way with all who can use it. For it is only by accepting and solving our problems that we can begin to get right with ourselves and with the world about us, and with God who presides over us all. Understanding is the key to right principles and attitudes, and right action is the key to good living; therefore the joy of good living is the theme of AA's Twelfth step.."
I say try working the steps (all of them). That abusive lover ain't goin' anywhere, so what do you have to loose?
GO TO A MEETING. I am going to one right now!
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