Lazy Spider

To answer Aravis, I'm definitely a lazy spider. I actually don't think any of my spiders are lazy, since their webs are just so neat. But I just don't get to see them move often. They had to retreat to the plants below them this a.m. because of the rain today.

I've been pretty impressed with myself this week, though. I tend to clean my house on the weekend and by the next weekend it's trashed. This week has not been too bad. Except for the kitchen, which I tend to ignore in an awful way, I have been pretty much keeping things neat. I'm very proud of myself.

Earlier this week, I was looking back in my blog and realizing just how horribly unhappy I was last year. I didn't realize at the time that I was so deeply in depression. I was also doing something really unhealthy to try to cope with it...I was drinking pretty regularly and with the sole purpose of getting drunk. I don't think I've put it this baldly before for anyone, as it's something that I knew was not smart and I was, for the most part, aware of the deliberateness of what I was doing.

What I find amazing is that I would choose to do that rather than seek out medication to stop the depression. Especially, given the fact that it made me feel more depressed and more anxious.

Technically, if you go by the DSM-IV anyway, my behavior falls under the category of substance abuse, not dependence. But my subconscious is telling me something else. I keep having dreams of being at AA meetings. And this, of course, fits my conscious experience of being in that time and feeling compelled...like nothing else would kill the pain.

I have, for the most part, stopped drinking, but given my recurrent dream and the way it feels when I have even a beer or a glass of wine that I am flirting with a deep darkness inside me, I have decided that I need to follow a path of abstinence. Being a lazy spider, I am resistant to the idea of AA, but we'll see.

I haven't talked much about this with most of my friends. I haven't mentioned it at all to my therapist or to S. I know what S would say. I'm not sure how my therapist would react.

So, wow, I didn't really expect to talk about this on my blog today. But it feels like something that I need to do today. It sets this resolve that I came to only last week, I guess, that I wouldn't drink anymore.

Throughout this post and throughout all my behavior, I've struggled with naming myself as an alcoholic. I don't know that that's a label I can use for myself. I think that might be something for me to take to therapy.

Okay, then, you can all pick yourselves off the floor, and comment away.