Ugh. Of course I ended up drinking just a few days after my latest post, despite being convinced I was on a solid sobriety streak.
While re-reading said post, I realized I should have known a relapse was blatantly in the making. A newly-sober alcoholic mind does not fare well with feelings of “restlessness, irritability and discontentedness”. Those three ingredients are actually the primary components in feelings-avoidance.
If I had limited my drinking to one night, the situation might have turned out ok. Instead I pulled the oh-so-classic move of trying to mitigate my withdrawal/hangover symptoms by drinking “just enough alcohol to get me through the next day without feeling terrible”. HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN HOW IRRATIONAL YOUR ALCOHOLIC MIND IS, VICTORIA?
In all seriousness, dealing with the repercussions of feeling THIS physically and mentally awful has made me realize that I had indeed forgotten a lot. Even (only) about two months of sobriety, distanced me enough from my last shitshow experiences that I blocked out how terrible it feels to come off an alcohol binge-fest.
Today, those memories have been racing back full-force. My anxiety is through the roof. My heart is racing, my chest feels tight, and more than anything I wish I could just chug some vodka to ease the god-awful physical sensations I’m experiencing. But then again, I now remember that any hope of physical soothing is yet another delusional ideation.
Currently, my rational mind is trying to dust off sober Victoria and prevent her from falling back into old, self-destructive patterns. On the flip side, my alcoholic mind is doing everything it can to convince Victoria that she’s an awful beast that deserves utmost failure. (Makes sense – the worse an alcoholic feels, the more likely they are to drink). Also sorry for talking in the third person – (“we are not amused”).
Thankfully, I’m not alone in handling this latest setback. As always, I have my amazing families, both genetic and acquired. I’ve also developed some strong relationships within AA and my outpatient rehab program that have continued to be super helpful – so long as I remember to take advantage of them.
I actually spoke with a particularly amazing friend from AA that I wanted to mention, because our conversation helped me more than I can explain. Like me, she went through several relapses before getting on track, but (unlike me) she now she has over a year sober. She reminded me today that setbacks don’t cancel out overall progress, and that relapses are sometimes crucial to an overall learning process. Meeting inspirational people like her, who have achieved so much despite their original hardships, provides fuel to my sobriety fire.
Anyways, hopefully I’ll one day be an inspiration to another newly-sober individual. If anything spurs my inspiration to work hard at my sobriety, it’s that hope!
Almost Linear 