This sums up my afternoon.  I’m feeling a bit down and I don’t know why.  I suppose it’s just the usual wave of depression that I tend to go through.  But it was compounded in a way when I started to remember my cat Max.  He passed away a while ago and it was not pleasant at all.  This cat was such a strong personality that he will always stick in my mind as one of my best friends.  When I was going through the worst of part of the end of my drinking Max never left my side.  He would always come and sleep with me when I was feeling really sick and stuck in bed.  He was always so good at reading my emotions and he could tell when I needed a friend.  He would nudge his head against mine and meow at me and then curl up on the pillow above my head.  Sadly he developed some truly awful symptoms that the vet felt was related to either a stroke or a brain tumor.  He stopped eating and began pacing the house calling out for help all the time.  He could not find his way to the litter box and then his world became so very limited as he kept himself stuck behind doors or in closets.  He had so many accidents that we eventually had to take him to get checked out.  That’s when we learned the awful truth of his condition.  The vet gave us one more day with him and then I had to take him in.  I stayed with him until the very end; holding his little white paw as he gently went to sleep.  It really broke my heart to have to do that.  I cried the whole drive home.

I miss you Max,

 

 

This has been a pretty enjoyable long weekend so far.  I remember a few years ago that it would have been enjoyable because I would have been drunk for 3 days straight.  Either I would have planned to attend a get together with friends to party or I would have just isolated for 3 days.  Either way it would have been primarily about the drinking.  This wasn’t always the case, this was only really the last 2 years of my drinking.  I mean I was somewhat normal in that I would think of the weekend as an excuse to party, but it in the last years of my drinking it was about not being around people.  I remember there was a certain amount of anxiety around making sure that I had enough booze to last the weekend.  But the problem was that I had that obsession that once the booze was in my system I would just keep going.  I would turn a 3 day supply of alcohol into a 24 hour binge.  Then I would have to go and resupply the next day.  I would have rotate between the different LCBOs in the area. (You know because I really didn’t want someone to think I was an alcoholic)  This cycle would likely repeat the following day.  Then on the actual holiday I would have to hunt down one of those local convenience stores that has a small LCBO franchise in it.  At the end of my drinking there was no such thing as “rationing” or moderate consumption.  I would open a bottle and finish it.

I used to hate standing in those long lines in the liquor store on the long weekends.  It would seem like hours in there just to pick up a bottle of vodka and some beer.  But I did it no problem.  There was no line long enough to get me out of that store.  It is kind of funny now because there is almost NOTHING that I would stand in a super long line for.  If I saw a line as long as some of the ones that I stood in to get booze in the past; I will 99% of the time turn around and leave.  Just NOPE the hell out of there.  My time is too valuable….just kidding I’m just not patient for a lot of things.

Anyway, I’ve been busy in a very nice and productive way.  We went and saw a movie, went out for dinner and today I got a whole bunch of errands done.  So next week should be pretty stress free in the food department.  I marvel at how much I can accomplish in a day without the obsession and anxiety surrounding addiction.  My mind is free to accomplish so much more when it is not obsessed with is there enough booze and if not where can I stock up.

via Daily Prompt: Premature

Premature reactions to situations beyond my control.  When I thought about what this words means to me it occurred to me that it really defines how I deal with life.  I am always reacting to things before I have enough information or evidence to confirm that I even need to bother reacting.  I think that a lot of my anxiety could reside under that umbrella.  I have always had a sense that most situations are going to end up resulting in pain of some variety.  I don’t even stop to consider that perhaps the event or situation could be a profoundly positive thing.  Or sometimes I react before considering how it will impact those in my life.  When I think back to CBT education it reminds me to pause and consider the evidence before reacting.  I should always pause before reacting.  An example of this happened a couple of nights ago.  I was at the gym, which is a bit of a sanctuary for me, I was just wrapping up my run and stretching and I saw some of my friends all socializing with each other and enjoying some Starbucks.  My heart told me that they did not want me there, that I would be intruding and that I was not good enough to be there with them.  I say my heart, because later on when I examined the evidence I realized very quickly that I was not reacting properly.  That I just let myself get worked up needlessly over some people that were socializing together….as we usually do every day.  Why I felt that way I have no idea.  But if I had remembered to pause and examine the evidence I would not have felt like such a dolt..

Once again I have to remind myself that I am a work in progress.  Every small step forward is still a step in the right direction.

This is a motto of the program and the promise is that if you follow the program and do the “do” things then this is going to be your life.  I’m none of these things at the moment.  I am unsure if it’s because I am spending too much time in my head, or too much time listening to my heart.  It’s probably more that my heart is trying to tell me something and I am allowing my brain to misinterpret the message.  They tell me that I have to examine the evidence and process my emotions rationally and without allowing them to control me.  I’m convinced that “they” have never actually tried to do this.

Lately I feel like my heart is beating out of my chest and it’s usually centered around my home life.  I don’t know what to do about this but I know it isn’t good.  My problem is that I have no one to really talk to about this part of my life.  I don’t know anyone who has gone through something similar.  I have lots of friends in the program to reach out to if the issue was that I needed to know how to stay sober in while going through this.  But I don’t currently feel like that is a concern.  I am not worried about allowing myself to slide into that abyss.  It’s more a worry that I am never going to be happy.  I have removed one my tools that I used to use to cope with this feeling.  Now I am really feeling the true weight of this.  Where do I go from here?