Step 3 - the last and first step

Every hour of every day is a battle and you will succeed with love, support and mercy.

This is the ultimate challenge to which you will rise.

Are you a bit competitive? I’m guessing most recently less so because you’ve not been at your best, but I’m guessing you do like to be right, and you do like to win. How can I know this – well because you are a high functioning alcoholic which means 2 very specific things; you excel at drinking, and you excel(ed) at life as well. You cannot be a high functioning alcoholic living on the streets. You cannot be a high functioning alcoholic if you just binge drink at the weekends.

You have been living two lives; your public life and your own personal life. I don’t know if you are drinking in between patients or classes, or at home alone at 10am on a Saturday morning. Only you can know how far down the line you have come but rest assured there is still a long way you could go. My counsellor sent me to an AA meeting during my recovery; honestly it was horrendous. I was not like those people. I still had my house, my family, my life. I didn’t move from Chablis to crack. I could hold down a job and mortgage payments and I could mend myself without a group of strangers. But what I did find there was a certain fear and also comfort. I knew that even with our differences when we walked through that door into that meeting we were all the same; we all had our struggles and were trying to get through. I also knew I could NEVER get to that point. Most of the people in the room had hit rock bottom. Have you?

I suppose my rock bottom might be urinating on myself various times on the commuter train home, or in public places, as towards the end of my drinking I could no longer control my bladder. It might be waking up in beds all across the city and not having a clue where I am or whether or not I’d even had sex the night before. I put myself back on the pill during my mid-20s even though I was not in a relationship but to avoid the worry. It might be lying to my family about my situation so regularly that I began to believe they didn’t know anything about me because the picture of myself I was painting them was so far from the truth. It might be going to at least 5 different shops to buy my drink on the way home so no 1 shop knew the truth. But equally it was none of these – I didn’t hit a point at which things had become so bad I knew something had to change. My friends didn’t stage an intervention, no-one had stopped speaking to me, I hadn’t disgraced myself at a wedding ….And so in attending that AA meeting I knew I had something to be afraid of, because it wasn’t too many steps from me to them and I was not going to let that happen to me.

I sensed I was out of control, and at the time I was beginning a new relationship, which brought with it a step-child. And I feared I could not parent him to the best of my ability as a result of my addiction, at this point I realised that it was just that, an addiction. They would come for the weekend and leave Sunday morning, I would time their departure with the opening of the store around the corner so I could walk them out the house, pretend I was going to get some bread, wave goodbye and load up on wine and fags, be back at home within 10 minutes breathing that long sigh of relief that finally we were alone – my addiction and me. So I had to change something because frankly that wasn’t sustainable.

My GP was amazing, she was the first one to support and challenge me – she bet me I couldn’t go 2 weeks without drinking and told me if I couldn’t she would refer me to the NHS led addiction programme and, (her words) “You don’t want me to make that referral”. So high functioner persona kicked into action – we are good in a pinch, what did I need – a break, support and a plan. I took a break to the seaside alone. I love the sea. I sought external counselling support as I knew I could not wait for the NHS and I devised a plan. I would see how long I could go without drinking.

On my own.

I lasted a week.

I drank on a Sunday night before seeing the GP again, but at least this time I could tell her I had a plan, counselling was due to start that week and I sensed I had a journey in front of me but I was ready for the challenge. I like to prove people wrong you see. I like to defy the odds and show people that I can do things they don’t think I could even be remotely capable of, so not only was I going to fix myself, I was going to do it to the very best of my high-functioning ability.

I had support – I had a new partner, a great manager at work who knew something was going on, (not what) but enough to support, and I had an excellent therapist. I remember those first few sessions as a blur of tears, shame but also such empowerment. Gradually we began to work through what had led me to her door – my life story which I will recount in other blogs but it includes very similar stories; grief, loneliness, isolation and desperation. It became clear during my sessions that this was going to be the making of me, that I was going to learn things about myself that only someone who has glimpsed their rock bottom and clawed their way back up can. It also became clear that I was going to have to begin dealing with emotions. I cried straight for about 3 months – at everything, good stuff, bad stuff, happy stuff, quick stuff, funny stuff, literally anything I just cried. Because I hadn’t for so long. In my stagnated state I had not processed any emotions for many years and now I was making up for lost time.

During counselling we focussed on processing these emotions in real time which involved understanding who I was as a person and how I interacted with the world. If you had not picked it up already I am fiercely independent, highly intelligent and ambitious and full of desire to make the world a better place for the people in it. My hashtag is progress because that’s what I value – progress. And I loved the progress I made. I don’t really remember by first anniversary, or my second, I started celebrating them around 4 or 5 years in because by that point it really began to feel like a battle – before then it was like a honeymoon period with myself. I felt like I was 19 again- fresh out of college, life in front of me and nothing to get in my way.

The battle starts though the day you stop drinking because it will always be there and it will never go away. Every time you have something to celebrate, someone invites you to dinner, round their house, you feel sad, you get a promotion, you get engaged, you get invited for an interview, a friend has something amazing happen to them, a hen party, a Sunday roast, wine at Mass, New Years Eve, your birthday, a sunny day in a beer garden, Christmas party, you move house, you have a great day at work, a bad day at work, a fight, a break up, a make-up, a baby, a new car. Our whole society and how you will have been living it before revolves around drinking. Only now you see it in a way you never saw it before. More on that in another post.

Every single one of these is a battle and every single one will test you and every single time you WILL rise to the challenge and you will win. Because that feeling, that potential, that high functioning part of you will be dialled up so high right now NOTHING will pull you down because you will not want to give up this newfound confidence and ability. Having put in the hard work to learn not only who you are but who you can be why oh why would you want to trade that in for a drink.

The battles will come at you when you least expect it – most recently my husband and I left our son with my Dad for his first sleepover. It was the first time we had left him since his birth around 2.5 years before – I was beside myself in the car when we left, crying my eyes out (I’m not the most maternal so this was a surprise)and totally and utterly overwhelmed with emotions – all of them at once. And do you know what I wanted to do – at 7 years sober, I wanted to down a massive glass of wine. Not just one but about 10. I wanted to drown out those emotions because I had no idea how to process them and they were new – this was a new battle. I told my husband where I was at – he asked me to talk it through, so we did, we talked and as always the strength of my emotions subsided. I remember my counsellor once telling me no matter how huge your emotions feel they will never actually over take you, like a wave they will crest and then hit the beach. It’s an image which I’ve found very useful in my life. By the time we arrived at our hotel I was a little worn out, but I had managed an entirely new set of emotions successfully and not had a drink. Another small victory. And in this way the months and the years will pass – lots of small victories along the way which you must celebrate and which when added all together will show you winning the war. I ate another piece of the elephant that day, and he got smaller and I got stronger and more confident in my ability to operate in the world without anything standing in my way of being entirely myself.

You too can do this, I promise you.