Realization

This morning I was walking to a 7:15 a.m. AA meeting. Dutifully, not joyfully. As I am walking, nursing an emotional hangover (I broke-up with my boyfriend last night), I made a realization.

I met my boyfriend one year ago. I was black-out drunk, so I remember only snippets of the night. It would have been a one night stand. But he remembered me. And was mad persistent. So it went.

As I got to know this man, I realized there was something in him that I needed. On another level, I realized that I needed to deal with my drinking problem. When I was in AA my first time around, in 2002, I learned that you have to give your will over to a higher power. This morning I realized that at that pivotal moment in time, I made the unconscious decision to turn my will over to this man.

I realized this in part because after a meeting on Tuesday, an old-timer I had known from my first time in the rooms told me (after I had confessed I have trouble with the whole higher power concept) that I can pick anything, just don't pick a moving target.

What a revelation I have made. Because all of the feelings I have about the program, I have about my boyfriend. My ex-boyfriend. I love him and want what I see in him. Just like I want what I see and feel in the rooms. But I loathe having to do the work to get it. Just like I get selfish and want to quit on our relationship half the time. Mostly after he points out some character defect I don't want to face. And there are days I am so resentful that I have to be a part of it. But then I have immense gratitude.

For a while there was even a sweet spot where we both stopped drinking for more than a month. It felt good and we got really close. But when I started drinking again after that, things were worse than ever. When I got blackout drunk or close to that, I would break-up with him. And I didn't have any understanding of it at the time, but now I see it's because I wanted him to keep me sober, or help me keep my drinking under control anyway. And when he didn't, my brain said there was no point.

Of course this was all terribly unfair. I didn't know my brain had done this, so there was no way for me to tell him anything I was feeling or thinking. I basically was just impossible to love. And this crazy, wonderful man did the impossible. For a whole year. It's kind of mind boggling.

I still feel like I have done the right thing. Because I am impossible to love right now. I have a long road of recovery ahead of me. But, wow, my brain can do some crazy shit, right?