In search of metaphor …

Metaphors & strategies from counselling session the other day. Still trying to come up with a metaphor that works for me. These seemed to strike a chord:

Desire/need/compulsion is this big thing right now, like a giant banner right in your face all the time. I can shrink the banner down to the size of a post-it note that I can put in my pocket. It’s there, I can take it out and look at it, but then I can put it back in my pocket.

Alcohol is a guest who’s overstayed its welcome. You’ve invited her in but now it’s time to go to bed and she won’t leave. I can take control. I don’t have to let her stay. I can open the door and tell her to get out of my house.

I’m stuck-stuck-stuck on one track in my head, one voice saying the same thing over and over again, drink-drink-drink, need-need-need, must have now, and so forth. When I ignore it, it just gets louder. But I can turn down the volume. I can even change the radio station if I choose to.

There’s part of me that says “I don’t care” even when I haven’t touched the bottle yet. But there’s another part that says “Yes I do”. They need to talk to each other.

There are days when I seem to be able to get past the compulsion, when there are other priorities. The other night we did a recording session, and I didn’t drink. I had a Kahlua and milk at bedtime but that was it. So the recording session was a priority. And there were other days in the past couple of weeks when something else was more important, and I didn’t drink at all. So what’s the difference between the days when I have this compulsion and days when I don’t? When does the compulsion kick in? Why? Can I catch it when it’s happening and nip it in the bud?

What if I bought a tiny 1/2 bottle of wine? One that has only 2 1/2 glasses in it? I wasn’t ready to entertain that — why, that would mean going to the liquor store every day … or restraining myself from opening more than one little bottle a day. Or, what if I bought just one bottle at a time instead of 3? So there would only be one bottle in the house at a time? What if I bought white instead of red, so I wouldn’t like it as much?

The thought of actually doing any of that threw me into a panic, and I immediately went to the liquor store on the way home, bought two bottles of wine — one white, one red — and drank them both, almost singlehandedly. Same thing the next day. But today was better.

I’m told the urge passes if you can keep yourself from drinking for 20 minutes at a time. Just 20 minutes. My counsellor also said alcohol physically clears out your system in 3 days. I found myself saying, “I can do anything for 3 days”. So that’s what I’m doing. I’ve gotten through day 1. Onward ho.

And finally, I’ve started reading about the neurological aspects of addiction.

Betrayal

I was off alcohol altogether — not a drop — for over a year, a few years ago. So, knowing what I know, why on earth did I start again?

Because my abstinence buddy fell off the wagon. I felt so betrayed. I was hurt and angry — we had a deal, dammit. We had a deal and he broke it! And what made it worse is that he didn’t even tell me himself. I found out entirely by accident, and by the time that happened, he’d been using again for months. Months. I was devastated. The rug had been pulled out from under me, the wind was taken out of my sails, I was knocked flat. I tried to forgive him. I thought I had. But I really couldn’t.

You see, when I found out he wasn’t with me, really, and hadn’t been for months — that we’d been living a lie — well, something broke inside me. Somehow abstaining just didn’t matter to me anymore. And then all hell broke loose. I felt that if he wasn’t going to honour our agreement, I sure wasn’t going to. In fact, there wasn’t even an agreement anymore.

So, I started drinking again, slowly at first, but catching up pretty quickly to where I’d left off. At first it was just a glass of wine with dinner at a restaurant, but no booze in the house. Then it was just a glass or two with dinner at home a couple of times a week … and next thing you know, I was right back to square one. Hurtling down the mountainside with a maniacal bus driver with a death wish. And I blamed him. If he hadn’t broken our deal, I thought, I would never have started drinking again. And so I held onto the pain of the betrayal, clung to the disappointment, unable to let it go, for years.

Now I think I might finally be able to set it free.

All this time, I’ve been completely fixated on the fact that he lied and on how betrayed I felt and on how that reflected on our relationship and on and on and on. My obsession has been stopping me from seeing the obvious: maybe the lying wasn’t because he doesn’t love me or doesn’t respect me or our relationship. Maybe he lied because he was ashamed. Because his own self-respect had taken a big hit and he didn’t want to admit it to me because I was being strong about abstaining and he wasn’t. And what if he was afraid that if he told me I’d start drinking again? And he would have been right. What if his withholding the information from me wasn’t about me at all, but about him?

That something in me that broke so many years ago finally seems ready to heal. The hard little shell that’s formed around the broken bits finally seems to be melting, softening, giving way to something else, something greater than anger or fear. I am beginning to be able to yield to compassion rather than standing in judgement and blame. I’m feeling like I’m truly opening to love again, after ever so long, after way too long.

And where is this coming from?

I mentioned the event in counselling the other day, and I think just talking about it crystallized things for me. My counsellor observed that while a buddy system makes sense for going to the gym, an abstinence buddy hardly ever works out, for exactly the reason that it didn’t work for me. If one or the other of you falls off the wagon, chances are you’ll drag the other guy off with you.

Perhaps the realization that I’m not alone in this and that others have had the same experience is what has shifted my perspective. Perhaps my perspective has shifted just because we talked about it at all, regardless of the content of the talk. Talking about it has moved this story out of my dark little heart into the light of day, where I can see it more clearly because now it’s outside of me.

Now that I can see it from a different angle, now that it’s outside of me, now that I’ve written about it, and I’m revising the story, suddenly it’s not eating me up inside anymore. I’m humbled, but I’m grateful and I’m done here. Finished. Moving on.

Thank you. Namaste. Gassho. Blessed Be.

Thinking new thoughts about “habit”

Some new thoughts from last counselling session: I’ve been finding I’m not getting my head around hitting the pause button. I just don’t remember to do it when I’ve already had a few drinks. So my counsellor suggested “playing it through” instead: how does the movie end? (Hugh Grant at the beginning of Four Weddings and a Funeral comes to mind.) What’s the sequel? Play it through to tomorrow morning, go through all the steps on the way, from the “whoopsie, had too much” moment to the 4am, aw shit, can’t believe I did it again, and now I can’t sleep, all the way through to sleeping in past 9:00 and the prospect of yet another ruined day. How does that feel?

Delayed gratification and changing my thinking about “habit”: I know that sometimes only alcohol will do. Nothing else will, not tea, not distractions, nothing. And I need to know that and accept it: nothing else will ever be as good initially. My brain-paths have been structured over the years to accept alcohol like nothing else, to respond to alcohol like nothing else. The receptors are primed to grab the alcoholic high. So, nothing will ever be as good initially, but it will be better in the long run if I don’t take that drink, if I distract myself with a cuppa tea, with exercising, with playing some guitar. I know in my head that it will be better in the long run — even while I’m drinking some part of me is in there somewhere, knowing full well exactly what I’m doing, exactly what the consequences are, and knowing as well that almost anything I could do would be a million times better than drinking. And yet, the compulsion remains.

There are two things that feed this compulsion: habit and triggers. The triggers are these big emotional walls — I drink to ease and soothe frustration, anxiety, and fear. But I also drink out of habit. I love to have a glass of wine when I’m cooking, and I practically feel like I have to. This is partly habit and partly cultural construct. It may go back to … what was his name? The Galloping Gourmet or something like that. It just seems “cool” to have a glass of wine while cooking. This seems programmed into me. I also reach for a glass of wine when I’m winding down from the day. Again, there’s a kind of cultural construct there, something from movies and TV that tells me alcohol will be a nice thing to have while I’m watching TV in the evenings. Then I get into this vicious circle where I have to have a glass of something to relax, and then I have to have some food with it to absorb the alcohol somewhat, and then the food and alcohol are never in sync, so I get another drink, then I finish the food so I need more food, then my glass is empty so I need another drink, and on and on it goes till I get to that “whoopsie, think I’ve had too much” moment.

It’s this habit we’re focusing on, the habit of staying up after everybody else goes to bed and watching the things only I enjoy watching on the TV, and having a nice little drinky-poo while I’m doing it.

So, how do I re-wire the pathways, re-train the receptors, so they’ll accept some substitute for the alcohol? How do I think new thoughts, create new behaviours?

And then, how do I make them stick? I’m having to remind myself of thoughts I’ve had before, because I’ve forgotten thoughts that have been successful in the past. I’d completely forgotten my “potato chips” strategy (what’s the difference between potato chips and alcohol — addicted to both, so why can’t I make my strategy for chips also work for alcohol?) till I re-read the post about the night I came up with it. How dumb is that? It’s as if a big part of me wants me to be asleep all the time. Dammit, it’s getting crowded in here!

Whacky dream

Talk about not driving my own bus! I dreamed I was in a small car with a friend who doesn’t really drive anymore — her sister tells me she’s actually nearly blind and shouldn’t drive … and here she was driving me around in my own dream! There was also the usual kind of dream confusion, things like having trouble getting to my destination and finding my way around when I did get there — mazes and things like that. My husband was there, but he kept disappearing (he does that in waking life too) and then he’d pop up somewhere unexpectedly.

The interesting and cool thing is that the dream landscape was a new one for me. A metaphor for the new path I’m going down?