Day 18
Fast forward through the last week of work, meetings, parenting, adulting, sleeping, eating and reading every alcoholic to sober memoir I can get my hands on. I've been on the "pink cloud", as they call it in AA. I don't want a drink! I am starting to feel better! I feel free! My skin is less puffy!
Then, on the way to my favorite meeting tonight, the 13yo and I have to stop for her Spanish class parent-teacher conference. I get the news: she's failing the class. Oh. In her defense, she struggles with learning and this is an advanced class. But as I sit there, listening to her kind teacher show me homework assignment after assignment that she simply has not completed and therefore has thwarted her ability to pass the class, I feel the old twinge rising. Twinge isn't the right word. Rage. Teeth-clenching, chest-tightening, eye-twitching rage. Rage at her for telling me she's been doing her homework. Rage at myself for a. believing her and b. being a shitty drunk mom who didn't really follow up consistently. I glare at her in front of the teacher. I throw her under the bus. I berate her. I see her face and shoulders fall and her wide eyed stare into the distance as she tries desperately not to cry. I shush her when she tries to explain herself. Even as I do it, I cringe inwardly.
Still, I seethe. How is it that I can have spent the last 13 years as a single mom obtaining a associates, bachelors and now master's degree in an elite field, all the while sacrificing my own life to raise her ungrateful ass? How can she not see how important education is? How can she be more concerned about losing her iPhone privileges than FAILING A FUCKING CLASS?
We get in the car so I can drive her to youth group. I'm now 10 minutes late for my favorite meeting. I've been looking forward to it all week. Tomorrow is my birthday and I literally planned to celebrate it by going to this meeting. I'm resentful and embarrassed and angry. I unloaded on her. She shut down then started crying as we pulled up. I told her I loved her and made her say it back and then I drove off. As soon as I pulled out of the parking lot, it all came crashing into me. I did the exact thing to my young teenage daughter that would have (and did) knocked me down so hard I would do anything to not feel that pain. (Beginnings of my alcoholism, much?) I texted her with a sincere apology and loving encouragement. I hugged her hard tonight and told her the truth: Life is hard right now. Mistakes are painful and uncomfortable, but they are what we learn from. I tell her that she's not the only one to learn the hard way, myself included. And then I make her look me in the eye and tell her that we. are. going. to. be. okay. and that there is nothing she can do to make me stop loving her. It doesn't feel like enough, but it's what I can do tonight. I resolve to make tomorrow better.
The meeting was really good and insightful. We read from the NA book about being openminded and what our Higher Power (HP) means to us. I realized (and spoke!) that even if I don't have a designated one, I find meaning in caring for addicts and alcoholics in my practice, for advocating for humane treatment of their withdrawal and pain and for being with them during their dark times and final days. This greater call to empathy and humanity for society's shunned and forgotten brings me to a centered place where I see a greater good that comes from. Several other physicians in the room took the time to thank me for my contribution and that while they have struggled with this concept for years, they had never thought about it that way. Those moments were the most validated that I've felt in weeks. Several of them came up afterward to ask about my techniques. Me! I know its a small victory, but I will take any victories I can these days.
But I really, really, really wanted to come home and drink. I thought about it all the way to the meeting. And then on the way home from the meeting. I could. There's no one here tonight. But I won't. And now, as I sit here in bed, sipping on my sleepy time tea and chiefing on my Juul as I write this and listen to The Sober Diaries ebook, I am reminded that this journey is going to be the hardest thing I am ever going to do. That drinking myself numb tonight will do nothing but take me back to square one. And I never want to go back to square one. I never want to go back to drinking so much that I fall down and piss the bed, wake up at 3 am in a panic, wondering what I did after I blacked out last night and can barely drag myself to work in the morning. Even if I have to sit here in bed and drink tea until midnight, it has to be better than that.
Then, on the way to my favorite meeting tonight, the 13yo and I have to stop for her Spanish class parent-teacher conference. I get the news: she's failing the class. Oh. In her defense, she struggles with learning and this is an advanced class. But as I sit there, listening to her kind teacher show me homework assignment after assignment that she simply has not completed and therefore has thwarted her ability to pass the class, I feel the old twinge rising. Twinge isn't the right word. Rage. Teeth-clenching, chest-tightening, eye-twitching rage. Rage at her for telling me she's been doing her homework. Rage at myself for a. believing her and b. being a shitty drunk mom who didn't really follow up consistently. I glare at her in front of the teacher. I throw her under the bus. I berate her. I see her face and shoulders fall and her wide eyed stare into the distance as she tries desperately not to cry. I shush her when she tries to explain herself. Even as I do it, I cringe inwardly.
Still, I seethe. How is it that I can have spent the last 13 years as a single mom obtaining a associates, bachelors and now master's degree in an elite field, all the while sacrificing my own life to raise her ungrateful ass? How can she not see how important education is? How can she be more concerned about losing her iPhone privileges than FAILING A FUCKING CLASS?
We get in the car so I can drive her to youth group. I'm now 10 minutes late for my favorite meeting. I've been looking forward to it all week. Tomorrow is my birthday and I literally planned to celebrate it by going to this meeting. I'm resentful and embarrassed and angry. I unloaded on her. She shut down then started crying as we pulled up. I told her I loved her and made her say it back and then I drove off. As soon as I pulled out of the parking lot, it all came crashing into me. I did the exact thing to my young teenage daughter that would have (and did) knocked me down so hard I would do anything to not feel that pain. (Beginnings of my alcoholism, much?) I texted her with a sincere apology and loving encouragement. I hugged her hard tonight and told her the truth: Life is hard right now. Mistakes are painful and uncomfortable, but they are what we learn from. I tell her that she's not the only one to learn the hard way, myself included. And then I make her look me in the eye and tell her that we. are. going. to. be. okay. and that there is nothing she can do to make me stop loving her. It doesn't feel like enough, but it's what I can do tonight. I resolve to make tomorrow better.
The meeting was really good and insightful. We read from the NA book about being openminded and what our Higher Power (HP) means to us. I realized (and spoke!) that even if I don't have a designated one, I find meaning in caring for addicts and alcoholics in my practice, for advocating for humane treatment of their withdrawal and pain and for being with them during their dark times and final days. This greater call to empathy and humanity for society's shunned and forgotten brings me to a centered place where I see a greater good that comes from. Several other physicians in the room took the time to thank me for my contribution and that while they have struggled with this concept for years, they had never thought about it that way. Those moments were the most validated that I've felt in weeks. Several of them came up afterward to ask about my techniques. Me! I know its a small victory, but I will take any victories I can these days.
But I really, really, really wanted to come home and drink. I thought about it all the way to the meeting. And then on the way home from the meeting. I could. There's no one here tonight. But I won't. And now, as I sit here in bed, sipping on my sleepy time tea and chiefing on my Juul as I write this and listen to The Sober Diaries ebook, I am reminded that this journey is going to be the hardest thing I am ever going to do. That drinking myself numb tonight will do nothing but take me back to square one. And I never want to go back to square one. I never want to go back to drinking so much that I fall down and piss the bed, wake up at 3 am in a panic, wondering what I did after I blacked out last night and can barely drag myself to work in the morning. Even if I have to sit here in bed and drink tea until midnight, it has to be better than that.
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