Happy

Sometimes, you don't realize anything is wrong until you take a step away and acknowledge the possibility.

I will admit, it is the weekend and I've kept myself particularly busy, but I am happier than I've been in quite a while. With P, I was always sacrificing something, compromising more than I intended, and working my already overworked self to death to keep things in line. Expending enough effort for the both of us wore me the hell out and I lost myself and my sense of independence completely. Now, I'm forced to keep myself accountable and make my decisions for myself and only myself. Now, I understand just how much I'd abandoned myself.

I am looking forward to my new freedom, and taking care of myself with the same intensity I put into my relationship. One must put themselves first or else nothing else matters.

I am proud

Its Monday again already and a lot of significant things happened this weekend. First, P came home on Friday from being out of town and he actually wanted to go out for dinner! I expected him to want to do a whole bunch of nothing since he'd been working across the country all week, but he brought up going out.

We went to a nice brewery/restaurant that I've always loved for the food and beer, but haven't been to sober. Everything was great at the start - P felt comfortable drinking which I was more than fine with, and I ordered a virgin sparkling grapefruit cocktail. It was delicious and gave me courage to order a seitan pita for my entree.

Unfortunately, I am in recovery from an eating disorder and alcoholism. The waiter brought a surprise third drink to our table about halfway through and set it right in front of me. I still had half a mocktail left and P had finished his same drink (with booze) ages ago. As that drink sat there and stared me in the face, it hit me how damn easily I could lose my sobriety - how available and willing alcohol is for me to consume. I could have easily sipped on this mystery drink, omitting it was clearly alcoholic to P, and gone (downhill) from there. Instead, I gathered my wits and excused myself as P began drilling me about who I knew in the bar that bought me this drink, not even acknowledging the alcohol sitting right by my left hand.

This did not sit well with me, so I told him i was struggling. He reacted by becoming angry and indicating it was such a nice dinner until I ruined it. Showing, again, so that, as I'm using my voice more and more, P will have to accept I'm not always okay. We collected ourselves and went home and I did something I've never done - texted my sponsor. Even though it was pushing 11:30, she sent me a perfect response, giving me the courage to realize it's okay to struggle, to need help, and to need.

Saturday was a great day from the get-go, it was only during the evening when I returned to P's after AA, room cleaning, and laundry that things deteriorated. I won't go into details, but I'll tell you it was a struggle. I am so, so proud to say though, around 1am, after using every tool and strategy I've learned through AA and Renfrew, I couldn't lay in bed and listen to P and his friend playing video games and taking shots any longer than the 7 hours I'd already done so. Somehow, I found the courage to go home, despite the fact that I would have had a 100% chance of binging and purging for the rest of the night at any other time in my life. P walked me outside and I was able to clearly express my frustration and worry that perhaps we don't work when I'm sober. We hugged and I left and I did not even have the urge to binge, purge, or do anything but treat myself to a nights sleep in my own awesome bed!

This is tremendous progress for me and I'm ecstatic to find myself succeeding more on my own than through my codependency with P. This is recovery.

Bring it on new week!

Productive days are good days

I never imagined how, as a hyperproductive person during the week, unproductive I became on the weekends with my eating disorder and drinking. Days were spent sleeping off hangovers, taking walks for hours, eating and throwing up. It was certainly better in the summer when I could distract myself from hunger and exhaustion by being outside, but I think it's safe to say most weekends from age 19-25 were spent like this.

Today, sober but still teetering on the edge of an eating disorder, I can still experience what weekends are supposed to be like. It's one of the most difficult things I've ever had to attempt, but leaving alcohol and restricting in the past has made me realize how much time, money, and energy I've wasted. It does no good to focus on regrets and wishes about the past, though, so I've made an effort to live in the present.

Which, despite the eating disorder remnants, is pretty damn good. I hope you all choose the present over the past and future, and put yourself and your recovery before everything else!

As usual, I blog while I walk and today, that happens to be in my hood. I went to a new all women AA meeting this morning and it was just what I needed before spending the day cleaning my room for my sister to move in tomorrow. Particularly because I may not have been able to handle the amount of alcohol bottles and food wrappers and containers I've tossed out.

I'll leave you with a picture of a landmark establishment down the skreet from my cozy little apartment. Note to self, come home more and relish in the non-codependent lifestlye of freedom and successful accountability.