What happens when you stop drinking is that you stop drinking. The immediate consequences - memory blanks, embarrassment, wasted money - stop but you don't change into a new person. I'd partly hoped that I would.
At times I think that all I'm doing is not doing something - that I am doing nothing. At my core is an absence, I am defined by a lack. But if there isn't anything there why does it hurt so much?
It has been hard but not quite in the way I imagined. I am not having to pull myself away from off licence doors: it is more the devilish thoughts that flicker; that my life is over and I'll never have fun again, that if I'm not going to amount to anything I might as well drink.
I've been applying for jobs and have had a couple of interviews but am still on the dole. Unfortunately, what is probably the biggest achievement in my life looks like a gap in my CV.
As a present for reaching six months sober, my brother gave me a voucher with which I bought a new hat. I wore the hat on the day of my Grandad's funeral, holding my four-month-old nephew who has never seen me drunk.
Since you gave me this link (on Saturday) I've spent an enjoyable (if perhaps less productive than it could have been) late morning reading your past posts, and love your writing. Also, needless to say, I've found lots to identify with.
ReplyDeleteKeep it up! Tell us more about life AFTER booze and drugs...that's the scary prospect that's kept me teetering on the brink for too many years.
If you don't change into a new person, then what fills the gap...or will there always be a gap?
I have so missed reading your writing! What else are you writing? I want to read it!
ReplyDeleteLove you Amymay
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