Resentments

"Resentment are like drinking poison and then expecting the other personal to die. "

And they sure are. Yet they seem a bit enjoyable too. When I was drinking I constantly lived in resentments. I resented everyone, all the time and for everything and I drank the poison-alcohol. I mostly drank over boyfriends, bosses and family. But really I could drink over just about anything in the world, and anything could be resented.

AA Big Book, page 66.

Last week, I was resentful that my family did not want to spend as much time with me as I wanted to spend with them. I made up all kinds of things in my head about why they did not, and well, they just didn't love me. It was obvious! (-not) But I never told them how I felt, thinking somehow they should know.

I walked around upset for a week. I shared my feelings with several of my AA friends and my sponsor and I finally realized that I was resentful. I decided to tell my dad that I missed him though this was very hard to do, and I told him that I would really like it if he come over for dinner. He was thrilled and we had a really great Sunday afternoon dinner. I kept thinking about the whole situation and how crazy it was, why couldn't I have told my dad I wanted to spend time with him in the beginning? Maybe it felt good to be mad at him, like when I was drinking. But expecting a certain behavior from someone and not telling them what that behavior is, is definitely a resentment.

And "Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil..." (AA Big Book, pp 58-59.)

In sobriety I have to remember that my old ideas don't work! I have to recognize when I am resentful and start on breaking that resentment right away. Because if I don't I will drink the poison. Both the AA Big Book and 12 and 12 talk about resentments as the number one reason we go back out. Resentments for some reason give us justifiable anger and the permission to drink over things. They don't ever change anything, or solve any problems but oh they sure make for a great excuse to drink!

But today I am staying sober.

The Social Alcohol

I often feel the separation from the people that were once a part of my life and now they are not. The separation is drinking.  This includes some people the I now realize were not really my friends anyway, so I am not too bothered, but the family...

My family for instance is pretty hard to deal with. I never really felt close to them or had many things in common with them. But, I had the drinking/smoking  bond and I miss that a lot. It felt good to sit on the porch, sipping on some wine and chatting up about oh this great world. Why, those were the days! :)

Now that I don't drink or smoke and have kids and a family it seems even more that we are separated. I thought at first this was all in my head, but they seem to keep doing things together and I am not included. These things usually involved travel and drinking.  It really bothered me one day so I shared about it in a meeting and found out that many sober people feel the way I do. Drinking is so social. It is everywhere and if you don't drink you are kinda out. And if people know why then you are even more out sometimes. It becomes this like, oh no, we can't drink around her cause she might start drinking again, thing. And, well, maybe that is ok too. I really do not need to be around drinking anyway and no I don't want to start drinking again.

I do miss the social aspect of drinking at times. Yes it felt like more fun and a "deeper" connection. But I believe it was all an illusion. I mean if alcohol was the only glue than it was definitely an illusion. This is also why I need to stay connected to AA and be involved, so I can experience "deeper" connections sober, with real people who think and feel just like me. 

These connections are much more valuable to me today. And they last forever. 

Alcohol - My Cure All

I find it more and more that I really don't like pain. Any kind of pain, physical or mental; but I guess the mental pain is the worse. My first instinct when I am in pain is to get rid of it. Though you can always take something for the physical pain the mental pain doesn't seem to have a magic pill.

Alcohol used to be my cure all! It was the best. It really SEEMED to cure it all. Headache - gone! Backache - gone! Heartache - gone! It worked wonders on any ache! But now that I am sober, it really is hard to cope with all my aches. I just want them gone as soon as possible! This is one of my biggest challenges in sobriety, learning how to cope.

With the help of steps and AA I have been learning new ways to cope by coming to meetings and sharing, by calling my sponsor and by staying connected. I have also grown to have a new understanding that it is ok to hurt; everyone hurts sometimes. And that the hurt feelings will go away. It also helped to understanding that when I am hurting I am actually growing spiritually. And that I am actually coming to terms with an event and I am processing it. Unlike when I was drinking, I was just drowning all the feelings. I wasn't processing them at all, I was stuffing them down, one on top of another. No matter how much I drank they never went away. They actually got worse.  

So now when I struggle with pain it doesn't last days, weeks or months anymore. I let the feelings just be there and allow myself to process the pain, knowing that the only way to the other side is through.

It Is Not All About Me

It has been a weird week for me. Really rolling in the self pitty! Why you ask? No clue. Nothing is wrong. Except I seem to have these unbelievably high expectations of people and they keep disappointing me by not behaving the way I think they should. So therefore they must not like or care about me, and then one loves me and I suck! Damn head is so screwed up sometimes.

I can't seem to stop making things about me. It's all because of me, to me, for me, not for me, but definitely me,me,me!  I would really like me to stop it. Lol!

I hear in the rooms of AA that this is the alcoholic thinking. I am not sure that a agree, but I definitely am aware of it and how much time I am capable of spending, analyzing things, whether they are about me or not. And of course most of the time they are about me. Lol!

No, they actually are not. I really am not the center of the universe. And others do not do things just to piss me of or hurt me. And there is absolutely no reason to take everything personally. People do things based on their own believes, not mine. What makes sense to me may not and most likely will not make sense to others. Each one of us does in fact live in their own world!

Thank god its not all about me!