Posted by partlycloudy on March 11, 2005, at 7:48:29
Being sober is one thing. Staying sober is another. How do you change, at 42 years of age, an entire lifetime of behaviors, reactions and actions, and reinvent your very inner self? "Just don't drink" takes care of this moment, and you can say over and do it over and over again and voila! you've made it to the end of the day without one.
But to learn to LIVE and enjoy life in sobriety? That's the part that, at the moment, stumps me. I don't have friends to call. I don't have family who aren't judgemental or as messed up as I am (and no one lives anywhere near me). It's at this point where my isolation really, really hurts. That's what drinking used to suspend - the hurt of isolation.
When I stopped drinking, I didn't all of a sudden become a gregarious, outgoing and engaging woman with a quick wit and ability to attract friends like flypaper. Hmmm, bad analogy. I'm the same old partlycloudy, without the drink. No cushion between me and my flimsy self esteem. It gets bolstered up, it whithers away. It's a fragile, tentative thing, and it's hard to maintain in the bright light of being sober.This post isn't going anywhere except to say that I feel like my work is just starting. I have a lot of gaping holes in my psyche, ego, whatever you want to call it, that used to be filled with a nice Cabernet or a gin martini. Being sober makes me feel quite naked.
pc
poster:partlycloudy
thread:469603
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/subs/20050129/msgs/469603.html