Redefining My Blog

I really need to pray about what this blog is going to be about now. Clearly it cannot be about alcoholism, an incurable disease that none of my readers can even begin to understand. It cannot be about abuse, which I've actually experienced very little of. I tried to make my abuse bigger than it was, cause I needed an explanation for why I was so messed up inside. I was too crazy for someone who'd only been hit a couple of times by her dad and been exposed to porn as a child and had an attempted rape on her as a teenager. That's it. That's all I've experienced, truthfully. What I was dealing with was untreated alcoholism. It is a mental, emotional, and spiritual disease and alcohol is only a symptom. The rest of it is a lot of depression and anxiety. Most alcoholics have had multiple other diagnoses before finding out that all they really are is an untreated alcoholic. Some alcoholics do have those other issues. Most find they don't. They find the depression and anxiety disappear as the affects of alcohol start to leave their brain and they learn to behave and think differently. And yes, the behavior does have to come before the thinking. I never believed that, but the 12 steps have been based on that idea and have worked for longer than I've been alive! It may be backwards from other issues, but that's the way it is for alcoholics. We have to act our way into a new way of thinking, not think our way into a new way of acting. I tried it the other way and it didn't work. The acting my way into a new way of thinking was working until I decided to give up on myself. If it's worked for longer than I've been alive, who am I to argue?

Anyway, I went off on that, but I'm telling you, most of you are going to find you cannot relate to me at all, now that I know what my real problem is. When I wasn't drinking I didn't think my problem could possibly be alcoholism, because the church did not teach me anything about alcoholism other than alcoholics drink too much. That is an extremely inadequate description of an alcoholic. Lots of people drink too much who aren't alcoholics. That does not define our disease and I can't use this as a platform to explain to non-alcoholics what does define our disease. I have to find something else to write about and I'm sure I will when I'm not so tired as I am tonight.