Status Quo

I left Status Quo 504 days ago, when I quit drinking.  Booze is what kept me there so long. At first I loved Status Quo, it was so neighborly and comfy.  If I was unhappy, I just drank until I convinced myself I was happy.  If I was angry, I drank until the anger floated away.  If I felt like leaving, I drank until I convinced myself that Status Quo was where I wanted to be.

Then the booze would wear off and I'd wake up and I'd still be unhappy, angry, lost, depressed, guilty... so....you guessed it, I drank some more.

Too much pain on this side? Better add more booze to the other side of the scale.  Stress tipping the scales too much?  Better even it out with booze, and maybe just add a touch more, just in case.

Until, as you all know, there was all booze and no feelings.

Drunk and sick.  That was where I lived. My little haven, Status Quo, had gone to shit. And for a long time nothing changed.

But here is the thing about feelings, they're stubborn little sonsofbitches.  No matter how hard you try to drown them, they finally manage to swim their way up to the surface and break through, coughing and sputtering.

And it's all those tough as nails, ugly as a mud fence feelings that managed to fight their way to the surface first. Fear. Shame. Self-Loathing. Defeat.  It was so tempting to try again to drown them, to send them back to depths but when I looked down into the murkiness that had become my soul, I could catch faint glimpses of light in the darkness trying to make their way to the surface too.  Happiness, Pride. Contentment. Faith.

If I kept trying to drown the bad feelings, I was going to sacrifice all the good ones, too.  I had to save them.  I had to save me.

So I quit drinking, and pretty soon the feelings started jumping back on the scale, some days were great, but some days the ugly, bully feelings beat up on all the good ones.  So I went back to Status Quo for a visit a time or two, but nothing had changed there, except now it seemed even shittier than I remembered, so I finally left for good. (I pray!)

So now there is no booze left to counter balance the feelings.  There's just....feelings balancing each other.

Sometimes, most of the time, the good outweighs the bad, but sometimes I let the bad ones pin the good ones to the ground and twist their arms behind their back until the cry, "Uncle!". That's what I did last weekend.

It is constantly changing and shifting.  And I feel it.  All of it.

Wow!

Sometimes I need to remember how much change has come, and not just to me, but to those around me. It's been a lot of change.  But I want and need more.

I need to remember that more change will come, and it's all those shifting, changing feelings, sometimes damn hard feelings, that will bring it as long as I don't give up.

I want to feel. I want to keep moving forward. I want to keep changing.

I don't want to go back to Status Quo.

P.S. So where did this rambling mess of a blog come from?  Well, a friend that was privy to my meltdown last weekend wrote and asked me how things were going and I replied, "The cap'n has promised that he'll try to do better, so it's back to status quo.  Meaning, nothing is going to change, but then I sat down and thought about how much really has changed in the last two years in regards to our drinking, and the change has been monumental for both of us.  Is it perfect? No.  Will it ever be perfect? Probably not, but it can keep getting better.  Can I accept this?  I don't know, I don't want to settle or adapt when I know things can be so much better.

And yes, I did look into some Alanon sites and was comforted to hear that I'm not alone in my feelings ( I knew I wasn't) but I really don't want to dedicate even more of my time to message boards and support groups...I want him to fix his problem, as he so often told me to do, so we can get on with our lives.