It was strange. In the dream, I met up with an internet friend. Someone I only know online. And she had a beautiful cake that was made to look like a doll. And I ate a huge portion of the “hair” of this cake. It upset her. And I kept trying to make amends and figure where I went wrong. I kept thinking “but I am sober! How am I still screwing up?”
Then somehow later, or another time plane, I received coupons for an Irish bar. This friend either gave me the coupons or she was there and excited to use them with me. The storyline was blurry. But I kept thinking “maybe I can restart the sober clock after using these coupons? I shouldn’t waste free drinks” Then I would get mad at myself for feeling that weak. I kept wondering “am I really don’t this again? Complete sobriety?”
I’ve been depressed last few days and a messed up sleep schedule. Both can be due to the fact I work night shift. But I am wondering if it due to the fact booze have been out of my system a full week? Since I haven’t been keeping track of sober days vs drinking days for years now, I don’t know when was the last time I went a full week without alcohol? Definitely not in Saudi. I guess my 10 days COVID quarantine when I returned to the US? I slept a lot that week and blamed it on jetlag.
if I could only always remember how much it sucks to go through this process of cleaning out my system. Can I have a good sleep/awake rotation while working night shift?
I have been fully vaccinated from COVID for over a month. And since the CDC said fully vaccinated people can travel at no risk to themselves now, I decided to take a short roadtrip to the mountains.
Once again, work has made keeping away from alcohol easy the past few days. And when I arrived at my hotel, I was very tired. But as I now have coffee in the lobby and see the beer bottles lined up behind the bar, my first thought it “would be nice to have one tonight.”
My dark roast
But maybe if I return to blogging almost daily, (I am not gonna commit to daily), I can be accountable to something to remain sober.
I need to reread my drunk mistakes that I started blogging about 7 years ago so I know what one’s I wrote about already. But for now, I will post a more recent one.
I was living in Saudi Arabia. I thought it would be easy to keep sober in a country where alcohol was illegal, but no. Almost every expat has easy access to alcohol.
I went away for a night to visit another city a few hours away. A guy I met on Tinder, another expat, offered to allow me to stay in his guestroom. It was not smart but I was depressed and lonely. Those two combined leads to desperation.
When I arrived, he gave me a tour of the city in his car. He seemed like a nice guy. He was living in Saudi for several years. We did not talk about our lives back home. Only talked about our experiences in the Kingdom.
That evening at his place, he made us pork ribs. Yes, another thing illegal in that country. Enjoying the forbidden was a special high. With dinner, he served us gin and tonics with Tanqueray that he smuggled in. He made me drinks very strong.
After dinner, we kept alternating sharing music we liked via YouTube videos on his television. At some point after many drinks, we began kissing.
Let me back up though to the times his phone rang. He would answer it and leave the room. He would go to the kitchen or down the hall to chat. This happened twice. He spoke in his language but I understood when he said “I love you” before hanging up.
During out makeout session, as the clothes were starting to come off, he confessed. He said he was married. A smarter woman, or a sober woman, would have stopped there. But alcohol was clouding my mind. I just yelled at him for telling me. Then we had sex. I don’t remember much of it except it wasn’t good. Then I passed out asleep.
Then next day, I had a wicked hangover. He tried to wake me up for morning sex and I just growled “I need water.” He got me water, and then kept trying to kiss my shoulder. I kept pushing him away. The regret was worse than the hangover. I kept scolding myself “he told you he was married and YOU STILL had sex with him! You are a horrible person!”
I kept pushing him away. “I need sleep!” He finally got out of the bed and let me sleep in. When I did wake up hours later, I noticed all the crosses and religious icons in the room. I then remember a bit of the conversation of him being a devout Catholic. This was making me mad cause not only did I have sex with a married man, I had sex with a hypocrite!
I emerged from the guestroom and entered the living room. I said I needed to have lunch. The previous day he did mention a restaurant in town I wanted to try. He began saying lunch could wait and started to try to kiss me. I kept pushing him away. I was so disgusted with myself and him.
I began texting my friend back in the USA. She told me to just leave. But his home was on a military base. Uber was not allowed on the base. So I couod leave until he drove me somewhere. I wanted to return to a tourist site where I could request a taxi or Uber home.
He began to say “I want to do what we did last night.” He wouldn’t say sex. Just kept saying those words like it was something pre-pubescent game where you couldn’t say that 3-letter word. I kept pushing him away and moving couches or room.
I finally said “what would your wife say about it?” This upset him.
“Why would you say that? Don’t say that.”
Phone rang. Maybe she sensed it.
I went to grab my bag. I also put on my abaya. (Abayas are the robes women wear over their clothes in public. Abayas are not mandatory in Saudi anymore, but many places it felt uncomfortable to not wear one so I had to always carry one.) When I returned to the living room wearing the abaya and my overnight bag in my hand, he got the point.
We left and went to the restaurant. I needed a greasy burger and fries. Since public displays of affection are taboo in Saudi, I did not have to worry about him attempting to kiss me.
After lunch, he dropped me at the taxi stand. He helped me negotiate a price with a taxi driver. Then I was gone. No hug. Just waved and I hopped in the car.
He kept texting me afterwards. He said he wanted to see me again. I finally blocked him.
Before moving to Saudi, I was worried about getting involved with a married man. I heard too often about the men that go there to work and conduct affairs. It happened to a friend of mine and ruined her marriage.
I was lonely, so I wondered if I did not drink gin that night, would I still have had sex with him? Probably not, cause he was about 4 inches shorter than me. I didn’t know beer goggles also added height.
My last post was February 2019. It is now almost April 2021. I have not blogged when the COVID19 Pandemic started, even though I should have. It could have helped. Instead, my stress and anxiety of the unknown of this new virus made me turn to alcohol. And even though bars and liquor stores were closed, take out was available and I was able to pick up bottles of wine to drink at home. Alone.
I ended my happy relationship the day after our 3 year anniversary in October 2020. I was sort of glad when lockdown happened because I thought “no stress of us not being able to see each other” but I was still depressed at another failed relationship. Also I wondered “would the lockdown have gotten him to agree to live together briefly?” A DJ on a radio station I listened to did that. Moved in with her boyfriend during lockdown since they got to work from home. But my boyfriend and I weren’t working from home. Sorry, my ex-boyfriend. He and I both needed to keep working through the lockdown. I was scared and stressed and used the pandemic as an excuse to order wine from the liquor store one block away.
I never mentioned this before in my blog because I was always worried about my license, but I am a nurse. I am “essential worker”. So an unknown virus rampaging through my area and hospital, making me think everyone I knew and loved was gonna die, seemed like a good enough reason to give up sobriety. I wanted to give up everything. I felt so hopeless. I watched as the number of positive COVID patients increased in my hospital in March 2020. I felt it was only time until I caught the virus. Two coworkers soon lost their husbands to it. A friend lost her lover. The nurse who retired and I took her day position died from it. A bunch of our respiratory therapists soon fell ill and were out sick from out. A huge portion of housekeeping began calling out sick from fear of getting it. I started wearing a mask at work before it was mandated and I was called “paranoid’. A week later, the hospital told everyone to start wearing one at all times.
March to May 2020 was my worst two months of my career.
At the same time, I was dealing with attempts to secure a job overseas. I was to move in either March or April 2020. It was delayed due to the pandemic. I actually tried to tell my assistant manager to not put me on April’s schedule when the agency recruiter called to say “the borders closed. We don’t know when you can start now.” Then my visa paperwork has issues but could not be addressed because the embassy in DC was closed due to the lockdown. When everything switched to working from home, it created unforeseen clusterfucks and delays.
Also, I was worried about my elderly mother a few hours away. She was still working when lockdown started because she was a cashier at an essential place. I would text her horror stories of the hospital and how many people were dying until she agreed to take a medical leave from work. Not only is she over 70 but she has hypertension. I was reading reports that patients with cardiac or blood pressure problems were doing worse with the new virus. I wanted her to stay home and away from people. I warned her to keep her grandkids and visitors away. The stress of worrying about my mom just added to the weight on my shoulders.
I had friends that called me to check in on me. Most were worried about me being exposed to COVID and a few were worried if I would start drinking. My one friend called as I was opening a 2nd bottle of wine one night. But after a few nights of drinking home alone as my way to cope, I did quit again. I went sober for the next few months. Until I tried working overseas in Saudi Arabia.
I do not want to go into my abroad experience much. But I became very depressed there. Even though I have extensive travel experience around the world to many countries, I found it hard to adjust to the culture, of both the country and work. It was a very conservative place where alcohol was illegal. Before going, I thought it was a perfect place to be sober. But even the threat of jail time or deportation, simply for drinking booze, was not enough to keep me sober. I discovered a lot of foreigners made their own alcohol, which ranged from bland more-like-juice-than-wine concoctions, to very good whiskey-like beverages. And I ever liked whiskey! But I was so depressed and unhappy I took almost any alcohol that was offered to try to forget where I was. A few times I was offered real alcohol, both rum and gin, that were smuggled into the country. The pleasure of feeling risky and doing something illegal-there-but legal elsewhere made me feel like a teenager.
Then I spent a few weeks in Dubai before returning home. Since it felt like I was released from the oppression of Saudi, I drank almost anytime I could But not all the time because alcohol is not available everywhere. I am not sure if that made it worse or not, because I had to seek it out to drink it. It is not available in all restaurants. It is available at most hotels but then some hotels are dry establishments. My first hotel said alcohol was not allowed on the premises. My second hotel had a rooftop bar, but I avoided it because this hotel was not very strict on mask mandates and pandemic restrictions. The one time I peeked at it, it was way too crowded. But at the 3rd hotel I stayed, I easily spent $15 to $20 per cocktail. Oh, that’s another thing. You need to seek out the alcohol and it is very expensive there! But I kept making excuses like “I deserve it after surviving living in Saudi!” But that is one thing alcoholics are great at: making excuses.
And since returning to the USA, I have felt like a fraud. I stayed with 1 friend for a week where he drank but I did not because he thinks I have been sober since 2014. I met up with a new friend and when she suggested we meet at wine bars, I told her I do not drink alcohol so I suggested coffee. But I have been ordering wine when alone at outdoor dining. I kept telling myself “you will stop again. You are just stressed out and deserve this!”
Today, I drank. I had 2 glasses of wine at lunch and then 2 glasses a few hours later at dinner. I walked home (at least I am wise enough not to drink when driving now!). I got home and seriously thought of seeing if I could have wine delivered. But I started reading a new book. The Year of Less by Cait Flaunders. I started it cause I thought it would inspire me to buy less and save money. But it is also about her sobriety and drinking problem. She mentions all the money and time she wasted on alcohol. It got me thinking that I need to get serious again about sobriety. And not just to save money. I need to reread this blog and start it again. I need to remind myself of the problems alcohol created in my life.
In the time it took me to write this post, I also stopped a few times to make dinner. The time sobered me up to where I did not want to order more wine. That is a start. Can I find my old list of the 365 reasons I was trying to write about to keep my sober? I have made a few mistakes the few times I drank since starting this blog. Should I rejoin the 100 day challenge?
In the book, she mentioned one thing that helped her stay sober (and spend less) was being accountable to someone. I have no one with whom to be accountable. I am single now. I am far from friends and family (and I have been bad with being honest to them about my sobriety!) But I have this blog that I can be honest in because I am hiding behind a screen.
So maybe I can mark March 31, 2021 as my sober date.
All year-long when my friends got upset about a celebrity dying, I did not understand. I was not empathetic. I was saddened by Prince’s death in May, but I was also upset that people were blaming the calendar year and not focusing on the problem of addiction that caused the death. A lot of other celebrities that died I either was not a huge fan or thought they were quite old and it was inevitable.
But when George Michael died on Christmas Day, I felt part of my childhood died. I loved his music when I was a teenager. I now realize I didn’t understand the meaning to so many of the lyrics as a kid, like I did not know his song “Monkey” was about a lover with a drug addiction. I have not followed his career or life the past decade, but after his death I read about his DUIs and arrests for drugs. I guess the monkey followed him to death, or at least destroyed his body enough that he died young.
Interesting the “monkey on your back” is a metaphor for addiction and so many celebrities died from complications of addiction during the Chinese Year of the Monkey.
Carrie Fisher’s death was extremely difficult for me to handle. She was so an inspiration to women from my generation. And a role model for people suffering mental disorders and addiction. I watched Postcards from the Edge last night after not having seen it for about 20 years. I cried a lot because I pictured Carrie Fisher as Meryl Streep’s character and Debbie Reynolds as Shirley MacLaine. I also saw similarities between my myself and my mother. While my mother is not an alcoholic, I was jealous every time she drank a beer around me because I wish I was able to handle a beer. After a long letter I sent to her last May about things I was upset about, she quite drinking alcohol around me. Now I feel guilty! But also secretly happy.
I cried a lot on Wednesday. Then I cried some more the next day when her mom died. After I got done crying and feeling bad for myself, I thought of how I can use this to make my life improve. I thought of how this could be a warning to everyone that is struggling to stay sober of the damage alcohol and drugs do to the body. If I return to a life of booze, I might have a heart attack at the age of 60 on an airplane. Even though Carrie Fisher was sober for many years, the damage to her heart was already done. I had cardiomegaly on a chest x-ray 6 years ago so I was on my way to destroying my heart also.
I am hoping 2017 will be my first year with NO ALCOHOL ingestion. It was a few weeks into 2014 when I first quit, and a few months into 2015 when I first slipped, and I had a few times this past year that I drank. It had been a long hike through different terrains. Maybe 2017 will finally be the year I walk across the flat surface of sobriety.
“Happy is one of the many things I’m likely to be over the course of a day and certainly over the course of a lifetime. But I think if you have the expectation that you’re going to be happy throughout your life–more to the point, if you have a need to be comfortable all the time–well, among other things, you have the makings of a classic drug addict or alcoholic.”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking
Hi all. I know I haven’t been posting for months but I think that happens to a lot of people who are trying to get sober but not really bloggers.
Since my last post, I did get drunk once. I was at a small, local Burner regional and I got drunk one night on cheap wine. I wasn’t sure why I did it but I think it was related to 1) feeling lonely 2) had a crush on the guy who offered the wine. I had fun but ended up going to my tent for something and passed out early. I wasted one night of a 3 day festival and regretted it the next morning when I had a hangover.
And I survived another Burning Man year with ALMOST no alcohol. I told several people in my camp I do not drink but I was still offered booze in some form all week. I did take a few sips of champagne as it was passed around during volunteer shifts. And I had some champagne at a camp that has champagne parties at sunrise everyday, but it is small amount they give and the 2 cups I had were maybe 3/4 of a measuring cup. Then there was one drink I had on the last day as I passed a camp as my sort of farewell toast to Burning Man.
I sit here now a week later and think about what that means for my sobriety. To myself, I remained sober. I had a tiny bit of alcohol but avoided the amount that would cause me to crave. (Last year when I sipped the passing champagne, I gulped it down and realized I was keeping my eye on the bottle as it got passed around to figure when it would get back to me.) No, I do not think this means I can moderate. But I also don’t think I need to start to recount my sobriety. This is one reason I do not subject to the AA club nor the philosophies there. If I went to an AA meeting now, they would consider me newly sober and I would have to wait for 30 days since that last drink to get a new chip. It sort of erases all the things I learned the last 2 and a half years.
So I’ve decided to think of my sobriety in percents. I would estimate I have been sober 95% of the time since January 2014. I plan to sit down and actually calculate the percentage out when I have time. I can remember everyday I had a drink since I first slip in May 2015. The more as time goes on and I do not drink, that percentage will go higher. I think that is more important than chips or resetting my sobriety clock. I will never get a cake at an AA meeting with this belief but it will keep me sober to the best of my ability.
I am in school now so don’t really think I will have time for blogging. But I feel confident I can have that percent up to 99% by January 21, 2017.
It is Alcohol Awareness Week. At least according to all the flyers posted all over my school’s campus, with photos and a stories of a victim from boozing too much. When I google the event, I find that April is actually Alcohol Awareness Month. Is my school getting a early start? Or is there a separate week or month to focus on alcohol abuse on college campuses? Either way, it is sobering to read those stories.
There was a different one posted in each bathroom stall and on almost every door to each building. A 20 year old fell off a balcony while intoxicated at one school and died. At another school, a guy passed out in the road walking home from a party and was killed when a car drove over him. 18 year old girl was found dead in her dorm room from alcohol poisoning on a different campus. All young people who probably thought they were just having fun, just fitting in, just partying, and not realizing the dangers of getting drunk. It took me two decades to learn for myself.
I have to keep reminding myself I was lucky. Even with all the dumbshit I did or horrible things that happened to me when I was actively drinking, I am alive. I survived. I am here to tell my own stories and not have them plastered on a wall for people to contemplate while they are peeing. (Unless you are reading my blog on a laptop on the toilet.)
I have started to read Sarah Hepola’s Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget. I am only on page 12 and so far I love it. It is me. It is my story. It is about my life! Well, it is Sarah’s story but so far I relate to so much of it. I have to force myself to put it down and finish my school work first. But a quote that sounds as if it came out of my own personal journal is this:
I think I knew I was in trouble. The small, still voice inside me always knew. I didn’t hide the drinking but I hid how much it hurt.
I have been making new friends that seem to accept that I do not drink. It is the old friends that have been irritating me lately. The ones that say they are proud of me, but continue to overindulge in bottles of wine. The ones that parade photos of being plastered online. The ones that perpetuate the glamour of getting shit-faced. The ones bragging about all the green beer they will chug this Thursday, as if that is the more important event in the world. I don’t know if I am jealous, concerned, or lonely. But all three feelings make me annoyed.
I am working Thursday night. I wonder how many years it will be that I volunteer to work St Patrick’s night to avoid the parties and Jamesons.
I went to an Oscars party last night. Well, actually, only a gathering with two new friends watching the awards on television. I texted my friend to see what I should bring. She said she was headed to the store to get chips, hummus and wine. I decided I would bring something to contribute and counterbalance the wine. I brought some yerba mate ice teas, a large vegetable platter, and ginger hummus.
The host offered me a glass of wine after I took my coat off. She listed all the choices of reds and whites, and then added she also had beers. I said I will keep to the ice tea. But once my tea was finished, she was a great host and jumped to offer me wine . I declined and asked for water. Sparkling or plain filtered?
No questions until the other friend, who had a few too many glasses of wine, asked “Do you not drink?” I did not bother with jokes that I was drinking plenty, just all alcohol-free. I said no, I quit. They asked if it was a diet or something temporary. I explained that I quit two years ago, with a few slips starting last summer, but I have been completely sober almost 3 months. The host seemed impressed. But the drunk friend asked the questions I might have asked if I was the drunk girl. “Can’t you even have a little bit? Don’t you know how to stop when it gets too much? Are you gonna try again after sometime sober?” She told me how she can’t drink too much and I thought her current state of inebriation was obvious. I do not know how many glasses she had before I arrived, but she was matching her glasses of wine with my glasses of filtered water. She even began adding sparkling water to her wine to make spritzers and slow down the buzz.
I explained to her my slips last summer proved I could not have a little bit, nor should I try to go back to drinking anytime. I can not moderate. I was fine sitting there with my water but I know if I had one glass of wine, I would want the rest of the bottle. I would use too much mental energy telling myself to sip rather than chug and it was a lot easier to just avoid the taste to my tongue. And when the awards ended and she passed out on the couch, I was very glad I quit drinking. The host and I chatted a little bit more about our lives and I was able to drive home.
When I first quit drinking, I don’t know if sitting there avoiding their offers of wine would have been so easy. But I feel I have learned a lot since January 2014 about myself and what alcohol does to my body. I felt I honestly did not want to drink alcohol last night. No acting. No need for award for me.
Here is an example of some of the work SMART recovery has us do. Fill it the pros and cons of both drinking and staying sober. Then mark whether they are long term or short term results.
Copy it yourself and share you answers. I will edit this post to include my answers when I finish filling it out.
Even when you are not sure about a relationship, it still hurts when it ends.
And I am not even sure it was a relationship.
I met a guy back in August. We had a date for coffee the night before I left for Burning Man. He was cute. Nice. We had a great time talking. When the coffee shop closed, we went across the street to a park to keep talking. I actually did most of the talking. I apologized for monopolizing the conversation and he waved me off. He said that I was the first date he has been on in a long time that was interesting and he was enjoying my stories. I told him about my struggle with sobriety. He told me he was never much of a drinker, but he does smoke pot. I thought I could be okay with that because pot never tempted me. We talked about our families. He talked about his ex-wife and said they split up two years ago. He talked about his two boys and I talked about my job.
He offered me a ride to the airport the next day. I told him that was crazy. I was not giving him my home address after just meeting him. But an hour later, I changed my mind. He gave me a ride home. We had our first kiss. He was back 8 hours later to give me a ride to the airport. I joked that it was our 2nd date.
I spent that afternoon and the next morning in Reno getting ready for Burning Man. Both days were full of a lot of text messages with this guy. We both kept responding back and forth with sarcasm. Then he said he really liked me, was worried how much he liked me, and was willing to let us go as slow as I wanted. I responded that I really liked him too. He said these feeling scared him. He wanted to make sure we were on the same page. It all sounded very promising.
I did not text with him the 11 days I was at Burning Man. When I got back to the real world, we started the sarcastic banter again. He offered to pick me up at the airport when I got home. But I missed my flight and he was not available the time I did arrive. Then I was busy working every night. I asked if he wanted to come up to my job for my dinner break one night. He agreed but canceled a few hours before because he forgot he had to watch his sons. I wasn’t sure if that was made up or not. I decided I would not pursue him much. Let him make the next move. And he did a few days later by asking if I needed another ride to the airport. He knew I was taking a trip to Florida.
So we had another date as a 20 minute ride to the airport. This time we had a passionate kiss after he helped me with my bags. We spent the next few days texting again. More jokes and some “getting to know you” messages. I thought we were back on track to something developing. He offered to pick me up at the airport when I returned from Florida. We had plans for dinner that night and made plans for a movie the next night. Then the morning I was flying back, I got an invite from some of my Burning Man friends for a costumed pub crawl the next night. I asked the guy if he would rather do that instead going to the movie. His response was “it was not really his thing” but I should go. I told him I would rather spend time with him to get to know him. He told me I should go spend time with my Burner friends. I got upset and asked “so it went from us having a date, to me suggesting an alternative, to you canceling the date?” He said we can discuss it at dinner after the airport.
The dinner went great. Again, we had great conversations. I told him that I would rather go to the movies with him if he was not into a pub crawl or costumes. Besides, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be in pubs with Burner friends after relapsing at Burning Man. He drove me home and we ended the evening with a lovely kiss. I texted him later to thank him for the night.
The next morning, he told me he didn’t think things would work out between us. He is too much of a introvert for this to go very far. He could keep pretending to be interesting until we had sex but he doesn’t think anything besides a great sex life would be achieved. I was hurt and confused. Everything seemed to be back on track the previous night. Now the pages were all mixed up. What did I do to make him change his mind? Was inviting him to a pub crawl with friends too soon? Or the idea of costumed Burners too much? I started to doubt myself and get upset.
I did not respond to his message. I went to the pub crawl. I told my friends about it and they assured me I was better off without him. We joked that I should dress up in costume for all my first dates now. And I got drunk. I decided I would just continue my Burning Man relapse since I could still smell playa dust on my costume. I made out with some Irish bartender that I barely remember. I remember giving him my number. He never called.
Next day, I jumped back onto sobriety. I swore up and down that I “am serious” now. I am avoiding the Burning Man parties until I get more sobriety under my belt. But I did something lower than drinking. I texted the guy saying maybe we could just start to get together for sex. I have not had good sober sex since I first quit drinking January 2014. I had bad sober sex and some good drunk sex when I relapsed. (Or I think it was good?) But kissing this guy turned me on so I threw away my dignity and offered to have sex with this guy, who basically just told me he didn’t think we should see each other. We set up a sex date for a week later on my next night off work.
We did not even text each other that week. I am not gonna go into much details, but we did have sex the night as planned. It was okay. I returned to my old way of thinking: the thoughts of “he will like me more after we have sex.” It was like my pussy was some man-trap. “Once he gets some of this, he will want to be my boyfriend.” I even had sex with him in my brand-new bed that I was keeping “virginal” until I was in a relationship. We discussed getting STD tested. I went to Planned Parenthood and got myself tested. He said he would too. I took that promise as a sign and stopped using condoms. (It helped the sex go from okay to great.) I started thinking of vacations together and when I would meet his kids. I started to mentally build this into something serious when I was the one that agreed to having him come over for just sex.
A few days later, I asked him to come over to help me move some furniture. I bought a desk from Ikea but the box was too heavy to get up to my apartment. He helped one morning and as soon as we got it inside my place, we started pawing at each other. We had sex again. Afterwards, he offered to build the desk for me. I made him lunch to thank him. I remember sitting in my kitchen with this guy, in an after-sex glow, feeling lucky. I felt I found a real relationship finally. Then he had to go help someone else move furniture that evening. I did not pry or ask. I did not want to be a nag. We had a great kiss as he left.
I did not hear from him for 4 days. (And that was a response to something funny I texted him.) Then tonight, I texted him after meeting an author at a book signing. I wanted to share my excitement because I was reading her book when I first met him. Two hours later he responded “i love you too. hard to keep my hands off of you.”
First, I thought he was moving too fast. We don’t know each other enough to be in love. Then I realized he meant that text for someone else. I asked if he was seeing someone else. No response. I asked if he even had his boys tonight or was that lie. He responded asking me to come over.
I did not know where he lived at this point. I wasn’t sure if I should or not. Was that “i love you” actually meant for me? Does he want me to come over to say that to my face? How would I respond? I asked if he was sure he wanted me over. He said yes, his boys were in bed. OHMYGOD he is having me over while his boys are there? What if they wake up and see me? I thought that was a good sign. He texted me his address.
He answered the door in a t-shirt and underwear. He looked good. We talked in the kitchen for thirty minutes about the author and my meeting her. Then we moved to the bedroom to keep our conversation from waking the boys in the next room. After more small talk, I finally asked him about the text message. He and the boys were out earlier and ran into someone and yes, that text message was meant for her. I asked if he was seeing someone else. He said he isn’t really seeing anyone. I felt sick and stupid. Why did I push for this to be something? I told him when we talked about getting STD testing, I thought it meant something. Then I even took the blame saying “I guess I should have asked you then if you were seeing someone else.” I told him I felt dumb for not using a condom the last few times. He said he knows he is safe and the “others” are safe. I did not want to fight with him that there is no way to know if others are safe unless you are committed. I asked him if there are a lot others and his response was “not a handful.” So at least 2 or 3 other women is what I guess. And I wonder if one is his “ex-wife”. Perhaps she is the one he meant to send that text. I asked about her and what happened. They are still married but separated. He was miserable when they were together but they get along fine now that he moved out. Maybe he is just taking a break from the marriage and I was one of the pawns he wanted to play with.
I keep thinking back to those texts messages when I was in Reno. All that talk about how much he liked me and wanted to know if we were on the same page. I should have let it all go after he told me it wasn’t going to work. I can not force someone to feel something for me. I was fantasizing about this turning into something but I let sexual desire drive me to make mistakes. I still want to insist that he get HIV tested. But as soon as I left his house, I deleted his number and texts. He doesn’t seem ready for the same thing I am wanting. And we are not on the same page. Not even the same chapter.
Since this is a blog about my sobriety, I guess I need to add that none of this makes me want to drink. I just feel sad and stupid. I also think I need to start going to meetings more and really try to meet people. I need to dedicate myself to meditation. On that note, I bought a tranquility fountain of a Buddha tonight after I got his text message but before going to his house.
I am sharing this to read later. But Buddhism has helped me with sobriety more than AA. And it has also been helping with ny depression. I quit taking Prozac more than a month ago and doing okay so far. I have read most of the Kevin Griffin books. I think this is a good perspective for people uncomfortable with the Bible and Christian roots of AA.
There are thousands of people over at Soberistas.com supporting one another in achieving a happy and healthy alcohol-free life. You can find out more about joining our online community at soberistas.com
365reasons2sober 