Happy New Year 2007

This is one of my favourite days of the year, if not the favourite, so I thought it may also reintroduce me to more regular blogging.

Don’t get any wrong ideas, this isn't some kind of New Year’s Resolution, those things are way too much pressure for me. What's more, I recognize how much of a creature of habit I am. Except for the wrong policy foci, I’m probably just as stuck as Presidentissimo Dubba is, where mindset is concerned.

I like auspicious dates. I don’t usually do anything special, but I do tend to note and/or care about them.

Today is the culmination of my own private Easter. That sounds a little blasphemous but don't get too anxious, it’s only a metaphor. I’ll let everyone know when I decide to create my own religion. (to be sure!) What I mean by that statement is...

December 30th, 1991: the last time I tied one on at a favourite restaurant bar. I had five vodka-on-the-rocks, with a twist.

December 31st, 1991: the last time I woke up with a hangover and called into work again because of one.

January 1st, 1992: the first morning I woke up without either drinking the night before or a hangover. And because it was the first, it was an easy date to remember to see how long I could go for another stretch of not drinking.

Writing about it like this feels like I’m tempting fate. Being somewhat aware of my subliminal tendencies, I think I may be trying to. I’m not sure why I would want to tempt fate or why I would admit that but hey, if I don’t challenge myself to be as honest as possible in navel-gazing or writing, where’s the fun?

I am an alcoholic; just currently not a practicing one. Yet, I feel sure that if I picked up another drink (or any drug for that matter) a couple of things would happen. One: in spite of my once-considerable-then-eventually-deteriorated capacity, I would be drunk at an acceleration worthy of a Porsche. There'd be a moment of a warm glow and not much of a happy buzz. Zero to blotto in five sips or less. That's where I was when I left off.

Two: even if there was a stop-and-go period beforehand, it wouldn't be long before I'd regularily drink my face off again.

I didn't automatically go to AA; that came later for me. My focus back then was on my therapy and on getting on an anti-depressant. The therapist I had at the time, for group and individual, would not refer me to a psychiatrist for meds until I could spend a month or two not-drinking. I had tried a few times already with limited results, so I didn’t really expect to quit drinking for very long this time either. I just intended to go as long as possible.

To be clear on one thing; it was not any strength of character or will that got me to dry out long enough to get on medication. And I’m pretty damn sure it wasn’t that kind of character or will that helped me get to this point. If anything, I suspect it's my less impressive attributes such as self-fascination, co-dependency, med-dependency and OCD tendencies. They just were put to better use by a Power-Greater-than-I; like my therapist at that time!

I had been working, really working, in my therapy. There was something important and exciting in challenging myself to be as honest as possible. Becoming aware of and acknowledging things about my past; my behaviour patterns; my feelings, thoughts and in-the-moment condition, was scary as hell. Hell, it was work just learning to identify ‘feelings’! I am not kidding. It was an 'E'-ticket roller coaster, with benefits.

Two of those benefits, I consider gifts. One was finding and honing an internal honesty-meter. Grant it, it often works with a delay (sometimes a big one) but it’s there. I notice an almost physical ‘bing’ in me when I’m close to or avoiding something that is important to be real about. Honest and real.

The other was more of a Stocking-stuffer assortment; a bunch of items that weren’t yet 'big' presents but still valuable. One of those things was an awareness that I couldn’t, and didn't want to, wait any longer to be happy, or healthy, or feel cured somehow. That although I was far from some kind of success, or even on firm ground towards it, I would no longer wait until some kind of conditions were met before I could begin to feel content with my life. That goal became a final push for leaving therapy then, as well as something to work towards in other ways.

My therapist did not agree with my decision to leave. I also suspect she kind of resented it. Yet I committed to and followed through on the therapeutic guidelines set for leaving. I took a six-month sabbatical from both group and individual therapy, followed by a month long closure with the group. I recognize now, how important that process was. It helped build my self-confidence to make an important decision and act on it.
That was back in July of ‘97.

I eventually wound up in AA on April 22nd of 1999.

I had been driven to despair by another failed attempt at romance or more accurately, love. It was as crushing as the first time I had loved-and-lost; but this time was different in that I chose to be as real as possible with the other people involved as well as with myself. I was intensely emotional, suicidal and desperate; but because of the things that I had learned are important for me, I chose to face and stay with the feelings and go through them.

The people and things that I counted on to support me in such endeavors, including my previous therapist, were not available to me anymore for a variety of reasons. Yet, it was in remembering about and reaching towards those resources that I eventually went somewhere else. I found out later, in recovery, that’s called “the gift of desperation”.

I was 7 years dry but the people who met me when I first started coming to the rooms were sure I was a wet drunk. Save for the initial drying out, I felt like one. I had used my self-identified status as an alcoholic to find emotional support. I found that and much, much more; including a belief in recovery, based on how I understand my experience. That, as well as how it is that I didn’t drink or (recreationally) drug in the time before getting into AA, is fodder for another essay.

Just now, I got a clue as to why I spent so much time on this one!

I am currently in another break up, or should I say disassociation? I’m having a difficult time with saying ‘break up’ as it’s also been difficult saying ‘going out with’. She lives in a state literally a thousand miles away, but we both made the effort to span that distance. And, I believe we've put that effort in emotionally as well.

What I find interesting is the amount of noteworthy coincidences. It wasn't like the time I wound up in AA, but it was a break up/disassociation on a New Year/personal Easter, of a long distance relationship, with another Gemini. And ooooh, crap! I see many other WAY-too similar parallels. Looks like I’ve got even more possibilities for Blogger-fodder. (“Be afraid, be very afraid”) Yet the most significant parallel may be that, just as the woman back then had given me some intangible yet very important gifts, so too has this one.
And a couple of tangible ones to boot!

And, as a bonus, I’ve also been proven right yet once again (had you any doubts?); I have excellent taste in friends and lovers. Who knows? If I’m still able to attract them maybe I’ll eventually be able to hang onto them longer!
...
You know, I’ve just decided that’s not as important as what I have right now; another experience with another person who gave her/himself to me as much as possible and accepted the same from me.

Thank you for that T. Happy New Year, with love, Annette