What Happens to Me

It's going to be two weeks before I can get into treatment. I'm not drinking now.

The last few times I've begun drinking after a period of sobriety - four months in April when the tension with the owners of the Inn got to be too much, two months the last two times, it's like I'm actually leave my body. I'm observing myself get the alcohol but I don't feel like I have any control over whether I do it or not. The only place I felt really safe was at Claudia & Bob's house and I suppose I should've stayed there but I needed to check on Attaboy and they've already been way too kind to me by opening their home when I needed a place to stay.



So my hope is that in an in-patient treatment facility they can begin to help me with the mental health issues that accompany my alcoholism. The medication I'm taking for depression helps a lot but my anxiety is hard to control and I literally get into this frozen place - body frozen, mind frozen, spirit frozen. I have severe insomnia and sometimes go a week or more without sleeping well. It's my belief that my inability to effectively deal with the depression/anxiety is what causes me to drink again. It's so hurtful when someone thinks I'm just making all this up or that it's not that bad or that I should just get over it. But I guess that's what the majority of people do think which is why having a recovery community is so important. In a recovery community they understand the powerlessness over alcohol; they understand the deadliness of it; and they understand that there is a real person in there and they're suffering, a lot. Especially if they want to quit drinking, which I do. They understand that we don't want to start drinking and smash our own lives and everyone eise's that we're close to. They understand how difficult it is to gain a foothold on life and sustain it. They will never say it's okay to have a drink and I've had several people very close to me in my life who have said that to me over and over again. "It's okay if you need to take a drink, Angela. We all need some relief sometimes. " Yeah, some relief. These people can be dangerous for us if we take them seriously which I've decided to stop doing.



I see so many women with these same issues. Mosf of them are highly creative, caring, sensitive women and they're usually holding someone else afloat, either financially or emotionally, but they have a helluva time solving their drinking problem. And they're so easy to blame.