I made it home from the festival without drinking alcohol! It wasn’t that difficult. There were only a few times that I craved an alcoholic beverage. Like when standing in line for breakfast and someone offered me a Bloody Mary. Or when I saw some bottles of champagne, I fancied a mimosa. But I found it easy to turn down beer and shots. Even the wine did not look appealing.

I cried a few tears of happiness while driving home. I did it! I survived and even had some fun. It was a huge accomplishment. I prove I do not break out in alcoholic hives just being around booze. I need to actually ingest that crap for it to mess me up.

The hardest part was meeting people. But my friends’ friends were very friendly and accepting. They kept offering me food and juice. A few guys talked to me but I did not think to ask for names or numbers. I had no game and acted shy.

Watching drunk people make fools of themselves was helpful. I watched people falling over or being loud and obnoxious. I kept thinking “thank god I am not one of them!” The last night, my friends found a strange guy passed out in their camp. Everyone kept giggling about the sleeping stranger. They let him sleep. I said something about having been the “sleeping stranger” many times. I usually spent my last night at festivals drinking a lot and waking up anywhere. I was happy not to be target of their mocking.

I did approach W, the guy I mentioned in my mistake yesterday. I saw him cutting across a field ahead of me. In my alcoholic, selfish mind, I thought he was doing that to avoid me. “He must have saw me walking down the road so trying to rush ahead!” I called his name he turned around, looked at me, and slowly said my name with a doubtful tone. When I acknowledge it was me, we hugged.

I started with “I owe you and apology” and he responded “no, I owe you an apology.” I was not expecting that. He started to explain there were problems with his family that last weekend we saw each other that he couldn’t explain. There was miscommunication between us. He doesn’t know what went wrong and he wished things did not end bad like they did. I told him that he did not deserve the nasty, drunk email I sent. I said I was sorry for the things I said. We agreed to be friends again. It was all short and quick.

I felt better after I walked away. I felt it lifted some guilt of my drunken bevaviour from the past. But I did not mention the drunk night nor when he asked my friend if I was an alcoholic. I did not tell him he was right about that. I did not get a chance to tell him I quit drinking nor that I was 4 months sober. Then I thought 4 months does not seem like much compared to my twenty years of drinking. Maybe the next time I run into him, I will have a longer milestone to share with him.

Mistake 125- I had a guy friend that I used to like a lot. We met at a festival. I saw him again a year later and he looked really good. He quit drinking and lost weight. He and I spent some time together at this event and I developed a crush on him. After the festival, I went out of my way to visit him. We spent a few great days together filled with conversation and sex.

A year later, I was living in his area. He started to act like an asshole and not the sweet guy I thought he was. We had sex a few times because I still had feelings for him. But he always acted like a jerk afterwards. He was demeaning and said things to make me feel stupid. I started to avoid him.

One night, while drunk, I confessed my feelings for him to a mutual friend. The next morning, she asked me of I knew about his STD. What? No! He never told me! She told me he has herpes. She even showed me an email where he confessed to her.

I was mad because he and I talked about STDs. We talked about being tested and we were lucky to be clean. He never mentioned herpes. I felt he lied. I brought up STD testing the next time I saw him. He texted me 3 days later to say he got tested again and was clean. I responded “including herpes?”.
No response.

I stopped talking to him for a few months. I avoided him at parties. Then I finally decided we could at least be friends. His lying, on top of degrading behaviour, cured my crush. A year later, I got blood tested for herpes and was clean. Then last summer, he asked me to share a hotel together after a festival to save money. Sounded okay to me.

It was going okay. We had separate beds. We met up with other friends that were staying at the hotel. I ignored his derogatory remarks. Then I spent a day at the hotel pool sipping cocktails. (He quit drinking 3 years before this.) I got drunk. That evening in the hotel room, I was drinking some more, and watching a movie. Not sure how or what happened, but I ended up having sex with the friend.

The next day, I was so disgusted with myself. I swore I would not have done that again. I did not find him attractive anymore. I thought he was a conniving creep now. But I was blacked out. I got drunk and vulnerable. I put my health at risk. And as usual, he was a jerk the next day. He left the hotel without saying bye.

I texted him later bitching at him. He was a recovering alcoholic and took advantage of me when I was drunk. He never responded.

I know I will still encounter lying jerks in sobriety. I just want to develop the self-confidence to know when to chose not to keep them in my life.