As any of you with your own blog know, a blog tends to be an organic process. When we begin we may have a general idea what we will write about but we may get sidetracked, or become interested in something else, or have significant life changes that send the blog in a different direction. It may even end up hanging around the blogosphere like a lost child, alone and forgotten. This is my second blog; the first was about being single in a small town and the alternatively hilarious and horrifying events that came about due to that fact. Being single - anywhere - gradually became something I embraced instead of something I wanted to change and I stopped writing on that blog. And it's been a funny thing - no married men have hit on me since then. I have to wonder if my intent to stop focusing on that area of my life was instrumental in that development.



When I began this blog I wanted to offer a different look at recovery. Because AA didn't work for me and because I had long believed there were other valid and workable ways to do recovery, I wanted to share my process of exploring some of those ways. I tend to do things headfirst, diving in and thinking later. So when I began the blog I never stopped to think about the consequences of drinking while writing a recovery blog. Then, I found myself in that very situation. And it was a dilemma. I handled it the best way I could figure out.



One morning I received an e-mail from someone who implied that I sort of managed this whole thing on purpose. The implication, or accusation, was that in not exposing certain facts about my life, I was still being dishonest and that my behavior was approval-seeking at best and outright deceptive at worst. I know they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I believe it. But, still, that was not my intention. Like, I'm not really that smart.



The e-mail did give me pause and gave me yet another opportunity to look at recovery, what I think it is, what I want it to be and what I believe is true about it.



I've known several to many people in my life who have identified themselves as alcoholic at one time or another. They may or may not have stopped drinking for a period of time. But, eventually they were able to moderate their drinking and move forward from identificaiton with the paradigm of alcoholic or addict, or they never became identified with it in the first place. I believe this is possible. I think it's probably possible for me. Maybe that's why every time I stay sober a few months, I drink again. Sometimes I over-drink and sometimes I don't. Fifteen months ago I kicked a fifteen year addiction to ativan, a benzodiazepam that greatly enhances the effects of alcohol. Since then, each time I've succumbed to the temptation to drink, I've drank less and had fewer repurcussions. Does this mean I'm in denial again? Does this mean I'm just biding my time until alcohol once again takes over my life? Or does it mean that I've made significant changes in my attitude and behavior and other changes are following on the heals of it? I don't know.



I don't expect it to be linear, or neat, or pretty, because not much about my life ever has been. But, since I hold the belief that it's possible to break an addiction without abstaining forever, it's highly unlikely that any recovery program will work for me and by attempting to write a recovery blog, or be in recovery, I'm wasting my time and yours.