Emotionally tough day.
Meeting at work which included an individual I find exceedingly frustrating. Also spent a big chunk of the day dealing with a supremely upset and difficult family member. Had SO much anger today. Great huge waves of the stuff bad enough I had to go walk around outside for a while after the first difficult-family-member phone call and slammed the back door three or four times after a later phone call.
Did not, however, escalate the family-member interactions into a full blown fight even though part of me really wanted to respond in kind and treat like with like. I wish I felt more satisfied and accomplished about that but mostly I feel drained...with side dishes of self-pity and frustration.
Didn't have any urges to drink. Intellectually I can appreciate how much progress that represents as interactions similar to these in the recent past would have led to intense cravings and in the more distant past would have been an excuse to drink at least my usual nightly amount (half pint and one mini of vodka plus a mini of Kaluha for flavoring) but likely a bit more (add another mini, possibly two if I started early or could go in late the next day.) Emotionally, however, the progress doesn't provide much comfort.
Well, no, I suppose that's not quite true. I can feel that I'm starting to bounce back from the day and it's much faster than I would have done (weebles wobble but they don't fall down) in early sobriety. That's somewhat of a comfort. If I'd still been drinking I'd be an emotional train wreck right now and probably having a terrible argument or crying or vomiting or some combination thereof which means not-drinking is clearly a much better choice. It's just that sobriety is a staircase for dealing with life, not an escalator and damn I wish I had an escalator right about now. Also a better metaphor.
Robin Williams once said about sobering up "I'm still the same asshole; I just have fewer dents in my car." I always loved that because it's so freaking true. I still have the same holes in my life; I'm just not constantly making them bigger.
A staircase indeed, because, damnitall, if it was easy, we wouldn't feel as powerful when we get to the top. You're still in early sobriety-it gets better, although never perfect. I still fly off the handle on days, but more often I'm aware that I have time to think about how I'm going to react to high pressure situations, even better, sometimes I find I no longer need to react at all, most of the things I fret about work themselves out on their own without any help from me.
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