My Slip (my story continued)

I was in college, I think it was mid way through my first year. But I’m not 100% sure. I did stop going to meetings. I sort of remember losing frequent touch with my sponsor, Elli. I have no memory of my second sponsor, Ann, from that time.

I had moved out of my mother’s house and in with the guy. Yes, he left his wife and kids, albeit shortly. The only good thing that happened from that time was I acquired cat. She was the first pet that was “mine,” and she stayed with me through all that was to come over the next 18 years. It shows where my heart was. I was heavily into nesting. He was not.

This actually brings up one point about how very fortunate I have been. I knew then that what I wanted most out of life was to be a mom. I wanted lots of children, and I wanted to stay home and raise them. I knew I had to go to college, though. Not going was really not an option for me from the fortunate way I had been raised. My parents were both first in their families to go to college, and it was understood from before I was born that I was going, also.

So here’s another truism from AA that my experience proved to me to be true.

If you put something before your sobriety, you will either drink and lose it, or lose it and drink.

And I will, I must, come back and write about the whole aspect of the “selfish” program that drives me nuts.

So, I lost it, and I drank.

I do remember this part clearly. He left me, and I sat in my car, and I thought about killing myself. The pain was that bad. I felt that I just couldn’t stand the pain of being left by him. I thought about it. I knew lots of the risks of drinking, and I knew it could end with my death or my disability. I thought that if I didn’t drink, I would just have to die.

So I drove from where I was to a few towns over to a liquor store I knew. I believe that since I had been sober, my 18th birthday had passed, and I’m pretty sure this was the first time I ever bought alcohol legally. I think I probably stuck to the Rye my dear mother had started me on, but details of fuzzy to me after that.

Now I know. My foundation in AA, really in life, was shaky and insecure. I had lost touch with the people and so it would have been very difficult for me to reach out to someone at the point. They had all also told me this would happen to me if I continued on with that guy. But really, I didn’t want to be spared at that time. I needed to end that pain quickly and I knew only one way.

That started five more years of drinking for me. As time went on, I got much, much worse. It is by luck that I am here to write about it at the age of 46.