Evening Four

By the time I get this posted, I'll be pushing 96 hours since my last drink. Today was the hardest day thus far. Days one through three featured so much drama of various kinds that I was continually distracted from cravings. Not so today. I started longing for wine around midday in a rather serious way.

In AA I've heard people say that alcohol was not the problem; it was a (terrible) solution we chose to other problems, ones that we already had before we became alcoholics. That rings true. The problems of today--loneliness, grief, depression, boredom--are among the many I used to try to solve by having drinks. That strategy never worked beyond the buzz of the moment, of course, but since I'm only at the very beginning of coming up with a new way of living, I don't yet have a functional substitute. Hence cravings and little to be done about it other than to distract myself with reading or walking the dog or what have you. None of which come close to liquor.

Another way today felt different was physically. I felt like shit all day: nausea, a weird light feeling in my head, exhaustion. There was a point at which I started to think I might need to see a doctor, but the worst of it let up as the day went on. I don't think I'm in any danger from withdrawal; these are minor symptoms.

Not the emotions, though. By the time I made it to a meeting at 6:00, I was a bit of a wreck. I'm going to need to make the meetings my addiction substitute for a while, as I've heard several people describe doing. They are safe, and I feel genuinely comforted by them. Tomorrow I'm going to try to attend a meeting before lunchtime in the hopes of averting the kind of emotional crash I experienced today. Then I can go again in the evening if I feel the need. Probably will.

The primary theme of AA is spiritual growth; now that I've gone to 4 meetings and started reading the Big Book, I'm ready to concede that I've lived a spiritually empty life for a very long time. But as I noted a few days ago, the Higher Power question is a major challenge for me. For a person at the very beginning of the program, though, all that is asked is a willingness to be open to the possibility that there exists a power greater than oneself. That dovetails reasonably well with my agnosticism, I guess, so I'm going to roll with it for a while and see where the program takes me. For years I've made fun of the idea of having a personal relationship with a god, so I'm already feeling a bit hypocritical. (Talk about a foxhole conversion, jeepers.) But the important thing right now is not to drink, and these people are not-drinking people. They clearly know a hell of lot more about recovery than I do. So I'm listening to them. And if an HP wants to show up in my life, I will try to pay attention.