As I sit here, so angry, avoiding phone calls to go out.... I just hate not having an answer that would be acceptable to not join my friends out tonight. I don't understand how my friends can go out and have a couple and not WANT to get completely smashed; or not have a couple before we leave to insure that we get trashy when we go out. It is just pissing me off that my friends can go out and have fun without dealing with the..demons/nonsense/struggles, that I do.
Yeah I know, poor me, poor me...but seriously why can't I? I don't understand why they are satisfied with a couple and I need a bathtub full of vodka to be happy. URHGGGGGGG....I am just angry right now. Why can't I just drink like "normal" people do?
Once you're a pickle, you can't go back to being a cucumber again. get over it already and get to a meeting before you lose you mind again and drink. You might not be able to get sober again, but you can always get drunk. Do you really want to dry out go through that again? Think that you saying grrrrrr now?
I went further than thinking "why cant I drink normally", I thought I could and went back out there. What a difficult road back I had but thank God I made it back. It took me years and the YETS had started to happen. I had lost my job, if it wasnt for my father and my sons father, my bills wouldnt have been paid and would have probably ended up on the streets etc etc.
Since getting back to A.A., I dont think "why cant I", I have accepted that I cant and what a wonderful life sobriety is once you accept that you CANT drink like your friends.
Do your friends know you are in recovery. If so then i wouldnt call them true friends if they know and are phoning you to go out.
I had to let go of my so called friends (drinking buddies) when I got sober and the last one I only let go of a couple of weeks ago but ive made some fab new friends in this fellowship who dont phone and ask me to go for a drink.
Stick with it, it does get better and easier honestly.
Do you have a meeting near you on a Friday evening. We have quite a late one on a Friday which is fab for people who are stuggling.
I struggled with the same thing for about 2 yrs, then I finally figured out that I can't drink normally or socially because I'm an alcoholic. It's just that simple. But until I accepted it, I continued to struggle...
If you want to stay sober you gotta change the playmates and the playground. Besides, if they can't accept the fact that you're an alcoholic & be supportive, then they're not real friends anyway.....In my sobriety I fill my weekends with AA meetings. I go early to 'hang out' and stay late for the same reason. These days I spend a lot of Friday and Saturday nights going for dinner, coffee, ice cream, etc with AA friends.
If you want to change your life, then you've got to change your life!
Hang in there. It gets better.
-- Edited by Doll at 09:48, 2008-08-09
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Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass... It's about learning to dance in the rain.
How do you know that it is a truth that your so-called friends are not struggling? They may very well be and are in their own denial. For what little I had drank in my lifetime, I questioned why I felt I HAD to drink when we were all togethor. Couldn't find a valid answer. I asked this of my AH. Of course, again no validity to his responses and for every answer given I could come up with a rebuttal to it. He now runs a tavern (his mistress bought it for him) and is still plowing that road of insanity. Health has been damaged, they fight, ect. ect., ect. He stands strong though in that he'll tell you he's "much happier". LOL AND the same goes for the bulk of his so-called friends. Sure bet that kind of mentality has been validated by them all. When he left.....I was devastated.....all those years were just going down the drain and I couldn't stop it. My prayers changed from help him to 'help me'. Took a while yet...... I AM the far better off for it. With exception of a little bout of breast cancer which seems to be genetic (not alcohol based) in my family.....I am healthy both physically and mentally. Some of those in that realm.......are no longer living, some are in serious finacial trouble , some have serious health issues. Yet I know if anyone would attempt to tell them that the root of these problems is alcohol........denials would, have, and will be resounding loudly. Sobriety is death to alcoholism and the lifestyle of most everything that comes with it. As is bodily death so comes a grieving process when there are major changes in a lifestyle that one is accustom to. ( EVERYONE is effected at one time or another, even those who don't drink.) One denies the change...."this is not happening/has not happened".....one is angered by the change......because they want things as they were, one accepts.... "....this has happened, this IS the way things are....." and one lets go and moves forward...."because of this I can......" Emotions are powerful, yet by centering thoughts on the latter two aspects of grief, the transition seems to be smoother and quicker. This is a choice one can make. Just by posting on this board.....you are reaching out and attempting to move forward in your sobriety. You are making a choice at 'finding' new friends who have the same struggles and understanding as yourself. That in itself hints that you are moving in the right direction. Yet we are faceless and imagination gives way to what we look like, what our expressions are, ect. You have had that with the friends you speak of. That is why it is much better to go to meetings where you can tangibly see, hear, and even feel those who are fighting the same battle. The transition will be much smoother. It is a choice!
Sorry for venting, I just so-o mad at feeling "left out" from my friends last night. I stopped being angry when I woke up this morning without a hangover to such a beautiful day!!! Thanks for all of your replies, they are really helping me get through rough patches. KLT, my friends do know that I quit drinking but they think that I am joking, or that I am going to get over it, like its a faze that I am going through. Its kinda strange. I have to keep telling telling them that I am serious and I mean it. They just laugh, which in turn makes me laugh because it is such a silly conversation. I am going to my first meeting today. Its an all women meeting and its also a couple towns over so I won't be so nervous.
