November 2026
My behavior has been ridiculous. My addiction to alcohol has been getting more and more out of control. I have desperately wanted to quit drinking for the past year. I have seen and experienced the writing on the wall, and it has felt like being on a high-speed train, watching a bridge collapse just ahead and being unable to do anything about it.
I constantly have these dreams that I am driving off a bridge. Not on purpose, but I see it coming and can't stop it.
My behavior has become more dangerous, more promiscuous, more thoughtless, more selfish, and more harmful. I manage to get sober for three days and never make it past that. I think part of my struggle is that I don't have any close, intimate friendships or family relationships. I destroyed some of them. Many of the others I lost when I first got sober a few years ago. It turned out that if I wasn't doing the activities my life had previously centered around, I wasn't someone those people wanted to spend time with.
Some of it is simply life circumstances beyond my control. The other part is that the friendships I have made in my local neighborhood revolve around hanging out at the bar and drinking. By the third day, I can't stand the emptiness, the anhedonia. In my desire for connection, I return to the bar to be in a familiar place with familiar people so I can soothe myself.
But I still feel incredibly lonely. Existentially lonely.
Some of that is the PTSD and my fucked-up childhood. Some of it, though, might be because by day we all live separate lives that we do not share, and by night we come together to drink and forget. Coming together to drink and truly connect isn't really a thing.
I crave deep connection, both platonic and romantic. I have been using this local barfly community as an excuse not to quit drinking, telling myself that if I have to choose between sobriety and loneliness or alcoholism and friendship, then I have to choose alcoholism.
Of course, those options are a lie.
I have not tried replacing that place and those people with recovery meetings, time in nature, spiritual services, helping others, working, or volunteering part-time.
I have gained a couple of friends. Though we aren't particularly close, I know they have my back. I am disgusted that I have become a person who is always thinking about what I want, what I don't get, and what I don't have enough of, while rarely thinking about what I have to offer.
I know part of this is self-esteem. I don't believe I have anything to offer. The other reason is that I am not a functional alcoholic. I spend so many hours obliterated that I have no vitality left for myself, let alone anyone else.
I beg people to stay as much as I push them away.
And I always run.
I don't know if I'm running this time. Probably. Yes. I am always running away, at least on the inside.
But I don't like this person. I don't want to be this person, and I don't want to attract people like me.
I want to be kind, compassionate, unselfish, and always looking for opportunities to help. I want to show up consistently for myself and for others, never scheming or manipulating. I want to do what I say I'm going to do. I want to make commitments and follow through on them.
I want a life partner who cherishes me and whom I cherish. I want at least one best friend for most of my remaining days. I want a family I choose and that chooses me. And I want to BE who I WANT. Kind, strong, competent, courageous, open-hearted, responsible and respectful.
I have always valued integrity, and I always wanted to be someone worthy of respect.
Right now, I don't feel like I am any of those things.
I don't know if I can be. Or if I ever will be.
I don't know if I can ever really be free of this parasite called alcoholism.
I watched the Matthew Perry documentary last night. It was heavy because every single thing he said about his experience felt like my experience. I haven't been in and out of rehab or sober houses. Yet. Maybe that is my future. The long stint I spent in rehab and sober housing taught me a lot, and I carry it’s tools now, despite not using them.
But the emptiness, the relationship with addiction, the soothing relief of alcohol that takes away all the bad feelings and makes me feel confident, that is exactly what it is for me.
What do they say? It works until it doesn't.
Because alcohol does make me feel good for those first couple of drinks. Then I can't stop. The more I drink, the more emotionally dysregulated and destructive I become.
I am on day four of sobriety now. It’s the first day I feel a little better, the last three were withdrawal: tremors, anxiety, nausea, long hours of sleep, wildly different intense emotions every few minutes. I have cut out a community of friends I made over the past year because that community revolves around drinking. I know I have to cut out the people, places, and things that trigger drinking until I feel safe in my sobriety.
That is always the danger.
I have felt safe in my sobriety before.
It is insidious, that lie of feeling safe.
All I know is that I am scared enough, and disgusted with myself enough, to actually go to a fucking meeting and get a fucking sponsor. To leave behind what is familiar and replace it with what I fear most: vulnerability, connection, and commitment.
Maybe once I figure out where I am going to live, I can go to rehab and get thirty days in.
Right now, seven days would be a huge win.