Shit Gets Better, and Other Things With Flies

God,

I cannot believe how quickly time passes.

It wasn’t that long ago that I realized that I was depressed.  I started taking anti-depressants back in early June, and it has been almost a month that I have been on the full dose of my antidepressant.  I will hit the magic ‘six weeks’ date right at the end of July, which means that soon I will find out what it’s like when my medication is fully effective. I haven’t had a bad depression day in at least a week, and maybe my depression will be gone by August.

I’d like that.

It wasn’t that long ago I got my 90 day chip—that lovely green disc that now lives in a happy place in my wallet.  I keep it there so that I can see it every now and then and remember the celebration moments of my sobriety.

I’ll be four months sober in only a few days.  Time really flies!

You know what else has flies?

Shit. Something that I’m having a lot less of in my life these days.

Sorry…bad transition, I know, but I thought you might get a giggle out of it.

I’m starting to work my fourth step with my sponsor, and things are already starting to change, which surprises me. When I say things are starting to change, I mean that I’m starting to look at my shit, the stuff that I’m doing that is mucking up my life…and it’s helping.

I read the directions in the Big Book, and then decided the best way to start my fourth step was to make a list off all my resentments. I actually sat and tried to think of people that piss me off.  A few came to mind almost immediately: my mom, people I work with, a few of my supervisors, some folks who engaged in gender discrimination or sexual harassment in the workplace, my husband (after this many years of marriage, there are bound to be a few things that piss you off.)

I made the list of my resentments as detailed as I could, making sure that I listed every single resentment I could think of, even if they were only mildly annoying.  Afterwards, I felt kind of petty.

I spent a few days dreading giving my sponsor my list of resentments, thinking that she’d point out my (obvious?) character flaws, fearing that I’d go right into defensive mode, worried that I’d be busy trying to protect my fragile ego.

None of that happened.

First off, we spent our entire first meeting talking about my mom. We only met for an hour, and my list of resentments against my mom was really long, and I didn’t want her to think my mom was a train wreck so I spent some time explaining the why behind the resentments, and…

You get the picture.

Anyway, at the end of the first hour, she asked me to think about my expectations of my mom.  In other words, how did my expectations for my mom (i.e. what our relationship should be like, how she should have behaved when I was younger, how she should behave now) have to do with my resentments? Basically, what is my part in the problem?

I went home and thought about it for about a week before I started writing.  I thought it would be harder, but it wasn’t.  Moreover, the first blessings of working my fourth step landed in my lap the day after we started working my fourth step.

So many of the resentments I have against my mom are based in my childhood. Those things cannot be changed.   However, there are a few resentments I have against my mother that are based in current behaviors, and I realized that every single one of them is based in the fear that I will have to make choices about my mom’s care that will cause her to resent me.

Let me say that again: I resent my mom because I am afraid of something that hasn’t happened yet.

I’m afraid of something that hasn’t happened yet…that may never happen. And because I am afraid, I have feelings of resentment that I don’t have to have at all, if I would just stop focusing on my fear and live in the present moment.

In other words, I don’t have to be resentful and I don’t need to be afraid either, at least not when it comes to this specific set of issues dealing with my mom.

Holy crap!

I don’t have to have this resentment.

I don’t have to be afraid.

And I realized all of this, just by talking about the resentments I have against my mom.

God, you amaze me over and over! I had no idea that things could change if I would be willing to examine the reasons behind the emotional stuff that fucks with me, that makes me miserable.

And the good news is that there is more on my list of resentments that my sponsor and I haven’t even gone over yet, and I may find other resentments that simply disappear because you reveal other areas where I am afraid of things that are not happening and may never happen, or that I am afraid of things that happened in the past and may never happen again.

You know, God, I didn’t think I’d get so many blessings this early into my sobriety. I thought I’d have to work much harder, that I’d have to wait much longer, and that sobriety would be more…miserable.

We both know that I miss alcohol. Hell, last night I dreamed of drinking for the first time since I stopped drinking, and I don’t even know why I dreamed of drinking. And I didn’t dream of drinking the stuff that I really liked, the stuff that I actually miss.

I miss cold Sauvignon Blanc.  I miss good Cabernet Sauvignon. I miss cold sparkling Rosé. But mostly, I miss cold Sauvignon Blanc…a tall, cold glass on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, while I read or watched some TV. I also have to admit that I miss drinking myself numb on wine at the end of the day, and it didn’t really matter what type of wine. I just wanted to be numb.

I miss it.  I really do, especially after a rough day at work.

But I don’t miss waking up at 3am, anxious as hell. I don’t miss lying awake for an hour or more, berating myself for drinking too much the night before. I don’t miss realizing that I couldn’t remember anything that happened after 9pm the previous night. I don’t miss coming home after church, wondering if my husband is going to be angry about how much I drank the previous night. Not that he ever was, but I was sure it was coming one day. I don’t miss being anxious about seeing my doctor for my yearly check-up, afraid that she’s going to tell me that she can tell I’m drinking too much just by my blood test results. I don’t miss being afraid that I’m destroying my body one organ at a time. Most of all, I don’t miss hating myself for being an alcoholic.

The funny thing is that I am still an alcoholic, but I don’t hate myself at all anymore, because I am a grateful recovering alcoholic by the grace of a God who decided that I shouldn’t have to wait to start experiencing the blessings that come with sobriety.

And I’ll take a cold glass of that feeling every hour on the hour all day long, and whenever I wake up in the middle of the night as well.

Thanks for listening!