Clean Living on The Straight Edge

I had to let my thoughts collect before I could figure out why I was bothered so much. The argumentative behavior. The borderline abusive manipulation of random aggressive negative emotions. It became clear quickly that I had been riding shotgun (literally in most cases) to someone's own losing battle with sobriety, and I didn't like what that ultimately meant for me. I found myself being berated at an alarming rate in an even more alarming way. The things said didn't just ding my sense of overall accomplishment having just completed another hard working week at my job. They hurt my sense of well-being. The image I had felt all week dealing with coworkers, not to mention the energy transferred back and forth over the phone interacting with customers was being ceremoniously torn down. That would be something I could handle just fine in most cases, but this time it was coming from someone I was truly excited to see. Truly excited to just be around and have a good time and a few laughs with. My wife. It's no wonder that by the end of the night she would turn me standing up for myself and the sober way of living she said she wanted implemented would see her announcing herself to "feel like a single woman now". I barely registered this statement with a response other than, "okay" but it hurt man. This was normally the type of thing that would have me turn to some kind of substance to drown out that kind of pain. I spent all week fighting my brain and realizing that me not being sober wasn't good for me, nor was it good for her. and my continued path down a selfish self-medicating road needed to stop. I did this while battling withdrawals and the obligatory blanket of depression that follows after a good binge. I was done, in my head at least. No longer chasing that feeling. No longer expecting the scoring of drugs to provide some unknown adventure. I guess I grew up. So when I was picked up and in a few short minutes of confusion realized my wife was drunk (though she would never admit it. The slurring of words and wobbly driving were all-- and always are a dead giveaway) I was upset. Disappointed more like. I came to realize I didn't want to be around or associated with that version of her or anyone else for that matter because the truth of the matter is I'm extremely weak to fight against it. I kept asking myself if it was so important and if all the things she's said about me not being sober were true, then why was she sitting here after having had who knows how many drinks (the contents of the plastic to-go cup from the family restaurant were filled with a whisky coke she made for herself and snuck out of work upon leaving) asking me if I wanted to go to the bar. Long before I wanted to start being sober, I wanted to stop drinking. I realized I had only kept that habit going as a last resort of not staying in my own right mind, and as a way to partake in something that she loved or at least gravitated towards. So I guess I'm saying I feel betrayed being shown what I've known for awhile now. She didn't get high or drunk because I wanted to. She did because she couldn't control or stop herself from doing it anyway. It was my own decision to tag along or have my own desires to score some drugs that were zeroed in on and then later used as the cause of the problem to give her an easy out. And maybe that's why I had this feeling of sadness and anger in me. I don't like who she is when she drinks. She's curt. She's insensitive, and normally I'm right there with her responding with defensive fury. Tonight was different for me. I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of being fought with. I'm tired of being abandoned. I'm tired of being blamed. The world won't know because I'd never purposefully try to put her in a bad light, or expose her for others to pile on with their negative opinions, but damn that sucks man. I wish I had someone to speak to. I just know I've seen the world one way for my own reasons and I lost control in front of people I thought I could trust to protect me at the very least. It hasn't been about that for awhile now, and I've just only began to smarten up. I can be such an intelligent dumb person sometimes and I'm ready to take steps to redesign the person I am fully. I have to be careful knowing how fragile everything can be. I can't ruffle any feathers or speak to earnestly because I'm not in control of anything here. I want to return home, maybe not physically but be present in a way I used to be. I have to first become someone I'm a little less ashamed of, and I won't let her gas lighting prevent me from that any longer. I owe that to myself at the very least.


This is a promise to myself. Hopefully I don't break it, but if I should sometime in the near or distant future, I'll be here to update the journey.


Yours forever,


RDH The...























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    -/Rebel2Society\-v(**)