Restless, irritable, and discontent

By some miracle, I’ve managed to stay sober since my last post (~ 50 days ago). The inspiration to write hasn’t really hit me since. I guess it’s a lot easier to write about out-of-control relapses than, dare I say, “normal” day-to-day activities?

My schedule consists of job searching, AA meetings, therapy, and Fat Petes. As happy as I am to no longer be actively ruining my life, I have been in a MOOD lately. The smallest things have been irritating the hell out of me. This morning, for example, someone was walking really slowly in front of me and blocking the whole sidewalk, and I spent a good five minutes fuming and internally screaming. Eventually I got a grip of myself and realized how misplaced my rage was. It’s not like I was in a hurry, I was headed to the dentists..

Speaking of which, apparently I’ve started grinding my teeth at night. I now have three chipped teeth as a result…gross.  It was suggested that stress might be a factor. Me stressed? Never! *puffs on JUUL desperately*

As I’m writing this, I’m realizing that I’m displaying classic symptoms of being “restless, irritable and discontent”. According to AA, an alcoholic who no longer drinks will feel this way “unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks.” If I understand correctly, this “ease and comfort” is supposed to come through working the steps.

UM HELLO? I AM WORKING THE STEPS! WHERE IS MY INTERNAL PEACE AND SERENITY? KUMBAYA ANYONE?

Yes, I’m being ridiculous and impatient. Sometimes I forget that although my life is currently pretty slow-paced, I’m working on implementing a lot of internal changes.

Recently, I worked the infamous steps 4 and 5 with my sponsor. Basically, this entails writing out all your resentments towards others, then figuring out what part you played.   The end result is that you discover what your “character defects” are. I was certain that some of my resentments were 100% not my fault, but as it turns out I was wrong.

For example:

I am resentful towards my old boss because she made me feel like a sub-par worker and a dumb millennial. My part was that I was an inconsistent employee who showed up drunk to work half the time, and who even breached security by plugging my phone into a classified computer (because I needed to charge it…. the most millennial first world problem ever.) Despite blatantly half-assing my job, I expected to be respected. By analyzing my actions in this situation, I can see that arrogance and victimization are character defects I need to work on.

Needless to say, It doesn’t feel super great to shine a light on all of your “character defects”. The goal of the exercise isn’t to beat yourself up though. These defects served a purpose in active addiction: they were survival skills. They allowed me to maintain a warped sense of sanity. Arrogance masked feelings of complete inadequacy. Dishonesty was an attempt to prevent loved ones from turning their backs on me. Anger made me feel less vulnerable after the countless dangerous situations I found myself in (*cough* jail). 

I guess the key take-way in uncovering these character defects is realizing that they’ve now outlived their usefulness. 

“We cannot build a life of peace and joy using the tools of war.” – Jody Doff

Steps 6 and 7 involve facing our newly-discovered imperfections and asking a higher power to help us change for the better. Because self-improvement is a process, taking these steps is more about developing a willingness to change than fixing everything overnight. And, like all the steps, they are meant to be worked continuously.

I guess this is where I’m at. The good news is that I’m becoming more self-aware, and able to identify when my character defects are acting up. The bad news is that my character defects are so deeply engrained that it’s extremely uncomfortable to work on them at times.

People-pleasing has been the hardest so far. I am absolutely terrible at setting boundaries with others, and frequently find myself believing that I am responsible for other people’s thoughts and emotions (newsflash: I’m not). One of my latest “challenges”  was breaking up with my old therapist. The therapist in question was a lovely woman, but I noticed that I wasn’t making much progress in our sessions. Oh, and she had a tendency to doze off while I was talking…

Sounds like an easy situation to handle, right? Not for me! I tried to tell her at the end of several sessions that I wanted to move on, but froze out of fear each time. Eventually, I ended up letting her know over text (and of course, it was no big deal.)

Logically, I knew that it was ridiculous to continue paying for a service that wasn’t meeting my expectations. Not to mention that the purpose of therapy is to communicate feelings. Despite all of this, some part of me felt worried that I would hurt the therapist; I didn’t want her thinking she was doing a bad job or that I didn’t like her as a person.

It’s almost laughable when I think about it. The woman is literally trained in feelings management and has dealt with hundreds of clients, yet I felt responsible for protecting her. Did I think I was so important that MY actions could potentially affect her self-esteem? Apparently so.

Ironically, people-pleasing is an extremely self-centered behavior, which I still have a lot of trouble accepting. I’ve always prided myself on being helpful and relatively unselfish. Somewhere along the way though, this turned into a subconscious belief that I have way more power over others than I actually do.

So yea, the people-pleasing thing is a work in progress. The challenge remains accepting that I have no control over other people’s thoughts, feelings and opinions. Hopefully once I become more comfortable with this idea, I’ll start to feel more serene.

I guess that’s my update for the day/week/month. Overall, I really can’t complain. I’m grateful for my amazing support system, without which I would be homeless (and probably drunk). I’m grateful that today I can focus on my recovery and take the time to better myself. And I’m SUPER grateful to be sober.