Day 12

Yesterday was better than today. I woke up in poor spirits feeling defeated and sad about the fact that I can't drink the defeated and sad away. I feel like I'm going through two break-ups at the same time. At least the human relationship that ended is rational. The alcoholism is not. It's cunning, and this morning as I was taking my meds, I thought, "You know, I bet I could go out and just have a couple of drinks. I don't need to get drunk." And I wouldn't get drunk, it would probably be fine, but eventually it'd lead to me sitting on my couch alone, watching tv and getting drunker and lonelier.

I hated the first outpatient meeting last night. I had to sign a contract saying I will admit my powerlessness over alcohol and give my will over to a higher power. No matter how many people explain it to me in an atheistic or agnostic manner, I still don't get it. And I believe in some sort of higher power, too. But I don't think I or it wants me to give up my will to it. If it has feelings or opinions at all, it probably wants us to own our shit.

I own my shit, that's the thing. Some people are workaholics so they don't have to deal with their thoughts, or feelings, or their past, or the present. Some people use drugs to escape. Some people restrict themselves in some manner, to feel control. Some people escape into video games, or the internet, or something else less tangible than life. Some people are addicted to exercise (I could easily get myself addicted to running, if I wanted to replace one addiction with another) as another means of controlling something that feels out of control, some people spread themselves so thinly so that nobody can get too close to them. I drink. I drink for all those reasons that other people do things for. I drink so that I don't have to deal with my past, or the present, or my feelings, or my thoughts. I escape into the cushy feeling of inebriation, I drink to feel in control/decide what I want to feel (which is illogical), I drink to escape the realness of life, I drink so that nobody can get close to me, so that there's a barrier between me and them. And I am owning ALL of that.

My will got me to this place and my will will get me out of this place. I admit I am powerless over alcohol, but it doesn't have to be that way. I know it's a disease, and like many other diseases, it can be cured or managed. But unlike other diseases, it is partially my fault, because I knew what I was doing. I knew what I was doing from the start, and I knew that this would happen; somewhere in me, I knew. And I did it anyway. My mom always said I was strong-willed and that when I set my mind to something, it'd happen. And happen it did. I wanted to annihilate all the shit I went through as a kid, I wanted to kill all those memories and emotions, I wanted to become shallow and one-dimensional. I almost got there before I changed my mind and decided I didn't want to be a hollow shell of a person. My will will get me out of this. My higher power will not, because I am taking responsibility for this. If a higher power is indeed conscious, wouldn't it, like any respectful parent, want us to take care of ourselves? It doubt it wants us to stay as children, needing to be coddled and cared for.

Maybe I've got it all wrong. Maybe this is my ego talking. It probably is. But I still want to take responsibility for my actions that got me here. The initial actions may have been innocent, but the subsequent actions were deliberate, and I was conscious of the probable final outcome.

This is a huge struggle. I will grapple with this for a long time. Maybe I should consider myself, the ideal me actualized, as my higher power. Then I can relinquish control to that person and he can guide me along the way. I know who he is, and I'm sure he'd be willing to give me a hand; he's pretty nice. Sometimes you can see glimpses of him when you look at me from the right angle.