A Sobriety Update By Debbie – Keeping It Real

As of August 10, 2009 I will have been sober for 70 days. It doesn’t seem like such a long time, but it’s the longest I’ve been sober in about 6 years. The cravings have settled down for the most part. I still struggle on Saturdays but the intensity and duration of the cravings is slowly but surely easing.

 When I was drinking I was in denial about a lot of the things in my life. This issue has been smacked in my face just recently due to a failed exam. I failed. I failed an exam that I needed to take in order to become a designated accountant. The required score to pass is 65%, and I got 50%. I am so disappointed, so so disappointed. I want to lie on the floor in a fetal position with my arms wrapped around my knees and cry. I could potentially be kicked out of my designation course. It hurts even more because, as part of my great plan to get my life back on track, I had decided to start putting some serious effort into my designation course. Even though I wasn’t planning to stay in finance, I was going to finish what I started. I still want to if I haven’t been kicked out. Did I mention I want to cry? (For some reason I cannot cry about things as they are happening, I can only cry after about 8oz of brandy or when I make myself think about something else that’s really sad like mass rape in Congo.) 

In Finance, after submitting a big report or after month end, we always have a post mortem, like let’s figure out where we could have done better and what not. So I’m going to do a post mortem of what happened.

 What I want to Believe:

I came home early at least 3 nights out of every work week and studied. I also put in serious study time over the weekends at least 8 hours on Saturday and 6 on Sunday. I reviewed old exams and my notes and aspired for the highest marks on the weekly quizzes.

 What Really Happened.

You are only supposed to take one class at a time. I had deferred a finance exam from a previous semester that I had pending and then deferred another class. So I had two challenging exams to study for, scheduled back to back. My rationale? I’m going to do these two grueling exams back to back and I’m going to pass because I’m a friggen’s superstar. At the time, I couldn’t see or refused to see that I just didn’t have the discipline and clarity of thought to learn this much material.

 I tried to study. I honestly did. I tried to go over old exams but I need to be brutally honest with myself. A lot of the time that I meant to study either I just couldn’t focus or I was too drunk. When I wasn’t drunk I had to deal with the after effects of drinking so much for so long: a super short attention span, difficulty remembering information, inability to be consistent and trouble forming coherent thoughts. Also, when I wasn’t drinking, I was thinking about drinking a lot.

 A lot of times, when I’d sit down with my books, that’s all I’d do. I’d sit with my books (and a tall drink) and stare at the same page for 2 hours.

 Since the quizzes were open book, I didn’t take care to keep up with the scheduled readings and as a result I fell so far behind that I couldn’t catch up. I literally had 100 pages of reading to do with about one month to the exam and it just didn’t happen.

Who did I think I was fooling? I felt that if I pretended that I had studied, if I went through the motions, then that was just as good as actually studying.

I was hoping for good news as encouragement but I guess this is the kick in the pants that I need to keep on the straight and narrow.

 By Debbie

Tags: Alcoholism and denial, Drinking Too Much Alcohol, Get Sober, Personal Alcohol Recovery Stories, Recovery Story, Sober For 70 Days, Sobriety Experience, Sobriety Story, Sobriety Update, Stay Sober, Staying Sober

This entry was posted on Monday, August 10th, 2009 at 8:14 pm and is filed under Get Sober. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.