Just because I no longer drink doesn’t mean I don’t have an anti-Lisa still living within me. My god, she can be unbearable too. Her bright idea today was to not post. It’s been so long anyway, another week won’t matter. 

I used to think it was the alcohol that was out to destroy me. But the older I get, the more recovery I get, the more I realize that the enemy is within.

I read all these platitudes on Facebook (I re-post these platitudes) but I post them when I’m on the beam. When I’m getting sucked into the event horizon of blackness there are no sweet words available. There is darkness.

I never knew what to do with the darkness. I used to drink at the darkness. But when you’re in recovery, drinking is no longer an option. It can’t be. Drinking is a spiritual, and possibly physical, death, if acted upon.

Yes, I have engraved the “Just don’t drink today” mantra in my little head. I’m good for the next 24-hours.

So why the struggle some days? I wrote a blog on this a while back. Is it my humanness or is there something wrong with me?

Today, I am feeling there is something wrong with me.

I have everything, and I mean everything, to be grateful for: My recovery, my family, my business, education, counseling credentials, a home, food, etc. What is wrong with me?

Is my mind so warped from the past that I cannot enjoy the fruits of my journey? It would just be so nice if this thing in me that wants to destroy me would go away.

I thought when the drinking stopped so would the anti-Lisa. It did not happen that way. I was (and am) forced to have a relationship with a part of myself that I would rather not have to deal with. It’s been eleven years since I stopped drinking, and honestly, I’m still not entirely clear on this part of me, this anti-me.

Why won’t I allow my achievements and my efforts be enough? I don’t have a good answer. It is my “thing” to keep working on healing, I suppose.

The good news: I’m not a quitter. For every down moment there are a million beautiful ones. I remember that feelings pass.

It’s easy when it’s someone else going through the tough moments. It’s easy to have the words of encouragement to help carry them through. It’s confrontation and blackness and it’s right up next to me. It’s so close I breathe it.

All I know to do is to feel it and journal (today’s blog).  I needn’t fight the darkness. I simply need to love it until it releases.

I can do this—today.

To-do list today: 

  • Don’t drink
  • Be kind to yourself until the false sense of ‘not-enough-ness’ passes