Drinking Diaries: The Conflict

Drinking Diaries: no one can see the conflict, feel it or know it’s there under a skin tight, slightly expensive, tone-showing Saturday night outfit. I would have never suspected a conflict in ME (just looking at me from the outside)… if i didn’t know me, personally or hell, even if I did know me personally, intimately, even. No one sees the conflict that is in there. i can’t see yours either. so, for you to say to me “dang, Nicole I had no idea you were struggling so much with alcohol” is like you saying “Nicole I should have used my superhero vision with my night goggles, looked in my crystal ball, read your mind and your palm and seen that you were holding a secret deep inside safe so no one would find you out”. of course you didn’t know. I didn’t want you to know that i was sick inside. thinking about stinking drinking. I didn’t want to say “i think i gots myself a problem with the sauce” OUTLOUD cuz someone might just hear me and offer me some help, in which case I may take it, in which case i might just have to do something about my conflict, in which case i would most definitely be freaking out-in a bad way, turned good way but, still, uncertain way. (and that unknowing is the rub). I was just remembering an acquaintance of mine–she died Nov 2015. I really didn’t know her that well. I saw her probably 10 times and all I really know for sure is that I thought she was cool. like, cooler than me. I mean, I just was intimidated a bit. She was confident and groovy (and i felt dorky in her presence). She was a musician, a yoga instructor and, like a sex coach (or someone who knows a shit ton about orgasms), a mom, a wife, a badass vintage dresser, an artist–lets just she had “it” going on, i couldn’t compete, ya know, i just wasn’t her level of cool and it made me back off. I liked her but i didn’t get close. i watched her from a distance. she committed suicide. and when i heard how and why, i felt like I knew her better than I would know most people. In her death, i understood her. we had this secret in common. we hated our relationship to alcohol. we could do cool shit and be successful and look like we had this all figured out but we were both tragically hating ourselves because of THIS stupid, innocent liquid we could not FUCKING get a handle on. and why not….? everything else is doable. she had two kids, she gave birth. that is an accomplishment, she did lot’s of cool things, so did i. but this wine, this cocktail, this alcohol drinking (moderately) or not at all thing was so elusive. i kept thinking i could do this controlled drinking thing that others seem to do with ease. it was like trying to pluck a tiny fruit fly out of a glass of wine… it’s right there… shit, well it moved and it’s right there and i just stick my finger in and tilt the glass and hang on i got it, well, hell i had it, there it is, fuck it i will just drink the damn fly. (thats how it is, seems simple but i can’t get it).

People attending AA or NA or any other recovery program, treatment, rehab, group meeting, etc are kinda “out”. The jig is up. i mean, the cat is out of the bag.

I was not that. I was not going to go to AA or anything like that. I wanted to just kick this habit on my own.

that was the plan, well that didn’t work and brothers and sisters out there (getting sweaty reading this) It doesn’t work that way (sorry, well rarely does it).

I hate asking for help, i hated doing group stuff, i liked doing things myself. well, that was one of the problems. i couldn’t fix this by myself. It took me talking to someone who already walked the path i wanted on. It took me telling people, and letting them in on my ways. it took sharing my secret to save me.

my poor acquaintance…. who in her death showed me the way out. For all those who don’t know. RAVEN YOGA ISDEDICATED TO THIS GIRL WHO DIED WITH HER CONFLICT.

We don’t have to live (die) this way. There is a way to the light. If you are burying your secret, sabotaging yourself day after day, ask for help. Get help. don’t die living, or live dying with your conflict. Your conflict is real, though no one may know about it. so was mine, even though it was hidden. Bring it into the light. Let love in. Let your tribe help you. Life is abundance and short, so short. I only write in hopes of helping anyone with the conflict. If you are good, be good!

Share the goodness! Namaste!

Raven Yoga is forever dedicated to Katrina Etta Morrison, I love you girl.