anonymous confession booth: things we can’t control

Belle accountability, anonymous confession booth, the good sober life, thinking

step right up. for one day only, i’m creating an anonymous sober confession booth on the subject of “things we can’t control”.

I want to focus on things we need to let go of. Like crazy in-laws, compulsive behaviours, and those people you are forced to visit where you’re afraid to eat in their homes because you’re not sure if you’ll get food poisoning or not. “I just scraped off the mould, they say.”

This came to me because of a one-on-one call i had with a sober penpal this week. We are all carrying around this backpack of rocks of things we just need to let go of.

i personally hate dwelling in the past — unnecessarily. Yes, sometimes we have to excavate. But i don’t want to wallow. And there’s a very fine line between the two. And then there’s the shame. and the guilt. yeah.

So here’s the deal.

  1. Post a comment below.
  2. For this to work you MUST leave your name and your email and your website address BLANK in the comments form (if you forget, i’ll go in and delete that info manually). all comments are to be anonymous. one of the comments will be from me, you just won’t know which one.
  3. I have no way of personally knowing who posts what. Promise.
  4. In your comment, write two or three sentences (max.) about something that you’d like to stop in your life, some weight you’ve been carrying around, that being sober is going to help you let go of. For example, i’ll make one up: “I’d like to step out of the way of my crazy MIL and just recognize that she’s a flawed human and it’s my job to remove myself from her reach.” OR “I have been a compulsive laundry freak, the clothes I wore today must be clean and folded every night when I go to bed. Now that i’m sober I’m going to let that go. I don’t need to be in control of my laundry anymore. I’m going to let it go.”
  5. Then take a second and post an anonymous ‘reply’ to ONE of the other comments already posted, and say something comforting, consoling, forgiving, kind. Pick a comment where someone hasn’t replied to them yet.

i have a feeling that this will unfold in a lovely way. because you’re all lovely people. and we all have a backpack of rocks that we’d like to put down, right? What’s in your backpack?

PS. if your name/email automatically shows up when you start to enter a comment, you can manually delete them OR you can ‘log out’ of your blogging profile.

Belle

I want to put this online, to hold myself accountable. I want to document the noise in my head. I'm tired of thinking about drinking. date of last drink: june 30, 2012

  • I need to let go of resenting my father’s dementia and it’s impact on my mother. His dementia is his reality and my mother has to process her own grief, and I need to limit my role to doing the next right thing.

  • I’d like to stop being such a people pleaser toward my husband that I allow him to cross boundaries that make me really uncomfortable. In general, I want to stop caring so much about what kind of mood he’s in and whether he’s happy with me. Tired of the knot in my stomach.

    • I spent way too many years in a marriage like this and drowned it all out with booze just so I could cope with all the stuff I allowed him to do and the things I did just to please him…and it never worked! He still blamed me for all his unhappiness. It was irreparable damage to our marriage. I’d like to stop obsessing over him and his new girlfriend’s life and how her kids have become more important than his own. All I can control is MY life and strengthening the bonds I have with MY kids.

  • I am learning that it’s okay to NOT have every moment of my life planned out. Learning to just stop my mind (yank the hamster off the wheel) and enjoy the moment.

    I’m liking it.

  • I need to let my headstrong daughter make her own mistakes. She needs to run her own life, even if it hurts me.

  • I need to let go of the strangling fear of everything that holds me back from living. I have been gripped with this fear almost my whole life and it is taking my ability to function as a human being from me.

    • Giving up your association with ethanol will give you the ability to deal with your fear and rebuild your ability to function as a human being. Sobriety brings emotional health.

      Hugs xx

  • I would like to step away from my husband that continues to drink and use. Even though he’s cut back, he’s still doing it. I want to be at peace with my own self and not let his behavior affect my clear and sober life. I can’t control his actions and just so my own thing. I want to still be close and affectionate with him but sometimes I feel like “he” is already checked out into his own drinking and driving world.

    JB