Anniversary
The day after tomorrow will mark 10 years since I stopped drinking, 10 years since I had what I like to call in pleasant company a nervous breakdown, the details of which I'm really not comfortable revealing here. I was just online looking for a meeting to attend, because I feel like that's the right way to mark the day -- I don't think you should necessarily celebrate such an anniversary, because I shouldn't have become an alcoholic in the first place, although, if I'm being honest, I was headed there pretty much from age 2 on.
Anyways. I don't really feel like I need a party. I also don't go to meetings. I haven't in a long time, for a whole host of reasons I, like the details of the aforementioned n.b., am not going to discuss here. I'm a little anxious about whether it's right for me to go to a meeting at all, especially since part of the reason I'm going is because you get a chip for going to meetings, for the first 24 hours, week, month, 3 months, six months, after which it becomes a yearly thing. I have my 24 hour chip on my nightstand. I think I want the 10-year one. But I don't know if I should really get one, seeing as, again, I don't go to meetings. But I don't drink and I do take care of myself spiritually, physically, and mentally. Ah, me. This seems to run deeper than my ability to write it out.
Just as an aside -- people who are alcoholics can't ever drink again. Not one drop, never, never, never. You do not get better. It amazes me how many people in my life don't understand this, and I'm not putting this out there as a judgment but more as a public service announcement: No, I cannot have just a sip of your wine or your beer or your hot toddy or whatever so please don't ask.
Oh, and also, the fact that I don't drink doesn't mean that YOU are an alcoholic for drinking. Trust me on this one when I tell you that when I was drinking it was muuuuuuuuuuuuch different from your drinking.
posted by McPolack at 7:01 PM
4 Comments:
If you want to go to a meeting, I think you should, irrelevant of when the last time you went was. You stopped drinking 10 years ago - if that's not a reason to mark it by going to somewhere I assume helped at the time, I don't know what is.
I cannot believe the amount of blog posts, newspaper articles, radio shows, etc. that have come up in the last couple of weeks on the subject of drinking and alcoholism. I'm sure it's not my imagination or me taking more notice of them for obvious reasons.
Thank you for your comment on my recent post which hit the mark.
Well done you.
5:30 AM, August 08, 2006
If it feels good on that day, go and get your chip. Despite the fact that you haven't regularly attended meetings, you have well earned the chip.
I know you've mentioned your abstinence before, but I just now really got what that means for you when you told us you keep your 24 hour chip at your bedside. I welled up when I read that.
We've never met, but I am so very proud of you. When you catch yourself fretting and spinning about where your life is going, what you want to do, etc. (as we all do), I hope you never ever lose sight of the daily victory of your sobriety.
(((big hug!!!!)))
7:45 AM, August 08, 2006
thursday, you're welcome, I'm glad I was of some help, and thank you.
teri, thank you, too, so much --
: )
mcp
8:22 PM, August 08, 2006
When I quit drinking I chose not to go to meetings. I somehow thought being around so many people who crave a drink would not be very helpful...
Congratulations on your 10-year mark!
Love you! Tons.
11:24 AM, August 16, 2006
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