RECOVERY AND BALANCE

I first questioned my drinking in the second year of graduate school when I noticed I wasn’t progressing on my thesis. When the one glass of wine I had intended to have before beginning my nightly studies was leading to an entire bottle and then some, I decided that I was reacting to the stress of graduate school and tried to control my drinking. I then quit drinking under the umbrella of “getting healthy”. Of course, I wouldn’t admit, to myself or anyone else, that it was out of hand, so I methodically eliminated from my diet one item a month: first alcohol, then caffeine, then fats, etc. By the time I graduated I was living on fish, broccoli and water!

I obtained my M.S.W. and went on to a new job. Within three months I was drinking again. What was most frightening to me was that it was now on a daily basis. I blamed it on the relationship I was in at the time, broke up with him and quit drinking again – for “health reasons”, I told myself. I set one year as a timeframe for no drinking, and after eleven months dry, I decided that was enough to prove I was in control. I resumed drinking and this time became a wine connoisseur, not only a “legitimate” reason to drink, but an elite one!

Meanwhile, I had moved from San Diego to Palm Springs to San Francisco and then to Los Angeles within a period of sixteen months. Ostensibly my moves were always for a better job, but I realized later that I was on the run – from myself, from my feelings and from the inescapable emptiness within me that no job, no man and no amount of drinking could fill. In Los Angeles I applied for a counseling job and was hired with the understanding that I would learn to counsel alcoholics. My new boss, a recovering alcoholic therapist himself, advised me to attend at least twenty AA meetings and to familiarize myself with the book Alcoholics Anonymous. Wanting to be a shining star, I dutifully attended several meetings a week and I studied the books Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions and Alcoholics Anonymous as if they were textbooks.

As I did this, something inside me began to respond to the stories I heard in meetings that sounded like me, to the wisdom in the pages of the literature, and especially to the joy, love and laughter of the people in AA. Finally, after six months of attending meetings, I raised my hand when the question was asked, “Are there any other alcoholics here tonight?” The relief I felt was tremendous, as was the shame and defeat. Here was I, who had pushed herself through school, pridefully earning her own way and never asking anyone for a dime, now weeping and admitting she couldn’t go it alone any more. At that very meeting, a woman employed by the same company for which I worked was in attendance. She came over to me, offered comfort and strength, and subsequently become my first sponsor.

That was 34 years ago. My life has since changed in ways I never imagined! I own a consulting business, I am married to another member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I have a balanced life of friendships, work, play and recovery. Best of all, I no longer have that aching emptiness that followed me wherever I went. Now I can sit still and enjoy the pleasure of my own company. I can set limits on the number of hours I work without panicking that I won’t have enough. I can allow love in my life, and look at myself honestly within a relationship and admit my shortcomings without melting into a pool of self-loathing at my lack of perfection.

Today I am a fellow among fellows, and it is a comfort to know that there are other therapists who have gone through what I have and who now share a common solution with me, through Alcoholics Anonymous and through the added support of Therapists In Recovery. By working an ongoing program, attending AA meetings weekly, sponsoring, reading and writing about the Twelve Steps regularly, and through the shared experience of my peers, I am finding a new happiness and a new freedom, just as the book Alcoholics Anonymous promises.