Again I find myself feeling close to defeat. I am on the edge, staring over, knowing exactly what lies ahead. I know how this works or at least I want to think that I do.
What has happened? I have been carrying out the experiment again, using all the same elements, using all the same methods and getting precisely the same results. The illness hasn’t changed, I haven’t changed and the results will always be the same. I had reached a point of some success, I had managed to achieve a goal that I had set a while back, I had managed to gain the confidence of the people I care about most, I had put my life in order to some degree . … . And then I allow myself to be fooled into thinking I can handle alcohol too. I can’t, I’m not sure I ever could, I know how I can’t live feeling this way. I know I cannot take a drink, I know that I will spend my entire day craving a drink, I know there is never just one drink.
Yesterday is a great example of how it goes. It really starts the day before where I managed to fake my way through an evening with my girlfriend, whom I love dearly. We had a friend over for the evening, we ate, we drank some wine, we laughed a lot and had a wonderful evening. I went to bed relatively sober. Honestly, four or five drinks really doesn’t take me to a point where my craving is satisfied but sometimes that’s alright, that evening was just fine. However, the next day I plan to be alone with my illness, I set it up so I will be able to truly satisfy the craving, the obsession. I drink beers as I move through he day, I am alone with the alcohol, with the alcoholism. I function, but barely. I take the risk of driving having had more than enough to put me over the limit, more than enough to put me where I would loose everything. More than enough to make my girlfriend worry, she is the best thing in my life and she is privy to pretty much everything about my illness. She is not privy to it all, who is? Anyway, I went to bed drunk enough to satisfy the obsession, at a point just before the blackout.
So I wake, I hate myself, I worry. My mind is so full of fear for where I might be heading, I am scared. I am here again, searching for a way out. I am reading the steps as I type this, I get it. I truly get it I do understand what is going on, I understand that I am not well, that this is a course for disaster, I have no choice but to change course.
This morning I have prayed. I ask humbly to be shown the way, let me see what I need to do and give me the strength to do it. Give her the strength to find her way too. I pray that is with me beside her. I ask that I can be the man she needs, the man she wants.
Damn I need to get to a meeting, I need a sponsor, I need to do this properly . . . Not my usual half-arsed bullshit, self-deceiving… Faking it doesn’t work. I need to be honest about this, I need to be honest to somebody. Can I go straight to the fourth step?
