2004-04-10 - 4:50 a.m.

that was the closest i've ever come.

i have a nub of a mushroom in my back pocket.

i almost drank. i almost did mushrooms. the only other time i came so close is in vietnam with the rum and coke i put down and was in tears i was so grateful the next morning that i didn't drink.

how do i feel about this?

tonight i felt sick of fighting. i felt sick of feeling different and slightly outkasted. i felt sick of not having the option to balance it. i felt the fire inside to make it *all* work. i want to try again. i want to give it a real chance at balance.

the last time, five years ago, before i started this journal, i "slipped" off the wagon and drank for broke. every day. it was like a punishment because i felt guilty for drinking and "ruining" it. so i hurt myself. rapidly. and infused it with as much drugs as i could possibly shovel down. i'm not sure if i was trying to kill myself. i certainly wasn't stopping myself. and i'll never forget that day, i was leaving san diego and saying goodbye to my then panicked family, knowing i wouldn't stop drinking. thinking about drinking on the way home. i forgot something inside the house and it was jsut my grandpa there, he slipped me a twenty. and it nearly killed me.

i know somewhere inside, to some degree, drinking again would nearly kill a part of me.

i ache to just fit it all in, back in. have the martini. i hate denying myself. and everyone's been so prowd of me. like i've been the token they've all dangled in front, while sipping wine. 'isn't she amazing'.

yes. i have a light inside that burns bright. and i also have a mind that ddoesn't let up and i just need a liquifying silence.

but i remember those nights. those nights where the lonliness engulfed me. a man could be sleeping in my bed. dreaming of saving me, and i was in my lawnchair, staring out the window until morning. vacant. and cold. and devastated. i devastated myself. i'm sensitive. and i knew i was killing myself. but there is this effervescent fantasy that i could reverse time before i got all these all-or-nothing idea's in my head and just found the grey inbetween again. i'm just so afraid that if i have one, i won't ever be able to stop at let's say two. that i'll try to kill myself again with the pounding of it down.

i want to drink at busy's cocktail party saturday night. i want to drink at sundown with him and his elegant, professional friends. i want to betray a piece of myself and i'm asking myself to stop and wonder why. and i'm not coming up with much.

am i on the brink of a breakthrough, the birthing canal being so painful? should i just wait it out, like always? does it really matter? why does it have to matter? why would it have to lead me back to rehab and ruin? could i just do it well this time?

the only hesitation is the money for my business. i don't want to blow it.

is it the pressure? the four bounced checks today? the bills? the constant barrage of self implications of wrongness? the social dis-ease. the consistent feeling of less than?

what they say is it is a disease of the mind. then most all of us are very sick.

would it make it any better? probably not. i'm terrified of the guilt, of the next morning. of the feeling of loss. of the terror. the lonliness and possible depression. the loss of work and the hangovers. the throwing up at the toilet crying to trista that we are just a bunch of alcoholics. but right now, i hate the "solution" to not drinking. i hate not drinking in this world of drinking. and i do like feeling in control when i don't drink. i like the power and assertion. i guess it's tripped me out to be with busy who is so checked out by it. it burns a particular craving into me. i can't believe i didn't drink thro the x, when i started this journal. i didn't drink thro him breaking my heart. or my grandma who is like a mother dying. that i've just sat thro it all this long. over five years. and six with the relapse. i had to go away to the get well camp. it was a long climb back from only a month off. i just don't want to ruin myself. the only reason i'd want to do it, is to fully balance it. cuz i hate what "they" talk about in program and i don't want that to be the only way to live life. it had helped. it had healed me. i've met incredible people and i 'm sick of the repetition and the joining everyone compulsively does in there. the sameness. the have to's. the you betters. the talk of god. the 'right" way sensation. i am my way. i am the only way i'll live my life.

ps. i gave a goregous, well known man my digits tonight. i wonder if he'll call. *what* a trip that would be. he was hot. really better looking in person. and well mannered. it was an interesting party and night. and next week there are some insane and delicious parties i'd like to really enjoy. ya know exactly what i mean. i'm sick of having to enjoy myself with adventures with humans. i want to roll myself a little inebriated.

a little further away. just a little controlled breather. just a little break, i will still love myself. i will still be confident and in my skin and controlled. and self confident and driven with my business and i'll do yoga still and meditate and feel the pulse of the universe. i will just live life.