Now playing: Jimmy Eat World The Middle.
Have you ever felt like a plastic bag? Or rather like your friends are actively ignoring you? Dialectical behavioral therapy’s been trying to get me to combat those feelings and to acknowledge that it probably is all in my head. But some times maybe they are. In the adult world, ignoring someone doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. Other people are draining and require expendable energy that one might not have in that moment. But in this specific blog post, I’m feeling really nervous about a particularly important friendship because I can’t quite help feeling that it’s over. Sure, I’ve felt it was over about a million times before but in this moment in time, it’d make a lot more sense. It’d probably benefit them, since they’re growing and bettering themselves and like, I’m not there (yet).
So it sucks and my feelings are kind of hurt because my messages have kind of gone unanswered. Maybe I’m completely wrong and they just need space. Maybe this person’s just like “see you, bitch.” Either way, I’m not really going to ask. I’m going to let this build up, ruminate, and if they ghost me then that’ll answer my question. If they start talking to me again and not mention the distance, neither will I. Because I’m scared nobody wants to talk to me.
The tone of this post is entirely different than others, I can tell it is. Loneliness is a big part of why I use. The first time I picked up an alcoholic beverage was due to my father berating me and my wanting to quell the sadness and separation from the rest of my family that was arising within me. The first time I popped a pill was when I was in a high school with teens who saw me as nothing but a brown kid who hopped the border. And when I relapsed in Fall 2016, it was because I was close to finishing my undergraduate career, which meant I’d be leaving behind the only place where I’d ever felt like I belonged.
So right now, I’m here trying not to overreact to losing a friend, because I’ve gotten by before and I’ll still have AJ and TJ and they’re mostly there for me. Even though the distance between SL and EA and others whom I love has widened to the point where I know nothing about their lives and they know nothing about mine beyond drugs (do I even have a life?) It hurts and I feel like it’s something that I’ve caused for myself.
Part of me wants to call up my other friends, hit up a bar and drink while talking shit. I mean, I’m absolutely fabulous, who wouldn’t want to be my friend? Four vodka redbulls in, though, I’d be even more depressed and nobody wants that. Loneliness is intertwined with my using, and I don’t know what to do. Loneliness leads to drinking/using, using/drinking leads to loneliness, and the world of alcohol and other drugs that I once found as fun and social has turned into me locking myself in my room but unable to look in the mirror because I can’t recognize myself.
My friends who support my Road to Joy told me that I might need to change my friends to get better and I fervently proclaimed that no, I didn’t. How could I, when everyone drinks anyway? But I didn’t consider that maybe my friends in recovery would change their friends and that would include me. One called me a drinking trigger, and that hurt, more than anything because it was true. The name could go both ways, but it didn’t because I wouldn’t have said that to anyone’s face.
Who am I left with if I change my friends? What am I left with? Starting over doesn’t even seem possible at this point. Yesterday’s validation seems so far away, almost like it didn’t even happen, and I’m brought back to reality. Reality meaning that this is something that is one day at a time and one day’s success won’t be enough for every day.
I should have expected things to change. There was a tweet that fucked me up once, about recovering, that said something like recovering wasn’t going back to how things were but rather moving forward to something new. And maybe that’s what I need to see. I don’t need to go back to before. Because then I’d have to go back to being what, 12? I’m 27. I can fucking deal with shit now. I just gotta deal with it without drugs.
And if my friend, even my best one, has to cut me out their life to move forward, I have to be okay with that. The loneliness won’t go away overnight but adding shame from a night’s bender won’t make anything better. I use motivational interviewing with my clients at work all the time to find the motivation behind their actions all the time.
Why can’t I do that for me?
If I’m honest, this friend is why I started going to the meetings. This friend said we’d be recovery buddies. This friend said they’d be there for me. They probably meant it then. But now is a different moment and I’m a (slightly) different person. Now I do it for me.
Now I get my ass up and make it to that damn 9:45 am talking group and sit my ass down and talk about how damn much I want a line but it’s officially day 14 without it. And no friendship loss or loneliness can outweigh that.
The Sun Came Up 