I have been spending the last few months, if not the last few years, claiming that I’m ready to stop drinking, or at least ready to start drinking less.
But…let’s just change it up here for a second. Let’s, for arguments sake, say what if I’m not ready?
Can we just play the other side of the field here? Let’s say I’m not ready. What does that mean, what does that look like?
If I’m not ready, that means I’m letting the addiction win. It means I’m choosing it over everything and everyone else. And that’s rough.
It means that I’m stuck, succumbing to a beast that exists purely to kill me.
It means that things will definitely get worse, and that I’m allowing it to. I’m in a place right now that’s nowhere near where my bottom was a few years ago, but I’m on a slippery slope and I can feel myself heading in the wrong direction.
It means giving up on myself, and the possibility of others giving up on me too.
If I’m not ready, that means that I’m stuck in a really bad place, and that I’m knowingly allowing myself to head to the place that I desperately don’t want to see ever again.
I have spent so long wanting to be ready to change, trying to convince myself and others that I am ready. But what if I’m not?
What does that say about me?
I think it says that I’m a horrible person. And that, once again, I’m willing to choose alcohol over anything and anyone else. And I just don’t want that to be true.
When my drinking was really bad, worse than it is now, I would say all the time that I want to want to be ready. But I just wasn’t. And somehow, somewhere along the line, that turned into me saying that I wanted to be ready. And now I’m claiming that I’m ready.
But what if that just isn’t true, and I’m not. Will I ever actually be ready?
Because at this point, I’m starting to sincerely doubt that. If I’m not ready now, that means that things will get worse. Without a doubt.
And that scares me. It scares me a lot, because my drinking is already getting pretty bad. And I desperately want to be ready. So I’m going to keep telling myself that I am, and hope that I’ll get there. Even if I’m lying to myself about it. Lying to myself is better than allowing myself to admit that I’m not ready, and that I might not ever be.
If I’m not ready now, could I really ever be?
(She says at 8am while drinking a drink she didn’t finish from the night before. Helloooo big screaming red flag.)