i posted this on a myspace blog earlier and thought i'd go ahead and post it here as well. "you are smack in the middle of the dance of addiction and you can't find your way off the floor" with most books i read i like to post my favorite quotes...so yeah that's what i'm doing here. lately i've been reading memoirs written by recovering alcoholics. i've cut way back on my drinking and haven't been drunk in almost a month. anyways, here are the quotes that i could relate to...and also an explaination as to why i no longer want to drink so much. Drinking: A love story by caroline knapp "it's about saying good-bye to something you can't fathom living without." "I loved the rituals, the camaraderie of drinking with others, the warming, melting feelings of ease and courage it gave me." "a messy drunk's an ugly thing." "many of us drink in order to take that flight, in order to pour ourselves, literally, into new personalities: uncap the bottle, pop the cork, slide into someone else's skin. A liquid makeover, from the inside out." "alcohol makes everything better until it makes everything worse." "drinking was the best way i knew, the fastest and simplest, to let my feelings out and to connect, just sit there and connect, with another human being." "when the feelings of shyness washed away my voice, there it was, the liquid solution, and there i was beside it, ready to reach for another one. connect the dots: shy to less shy." "fear+drink=bravery" "drunken, anonymous sex gave her the illusion of intimacy with none of the attendant risks, none of the aching vulnerability of sober sex." "we are uncomfortable, often desperately uncomfortable, with closeness, and alcohol has the insidious dual effect of deadening the discomfort and also preventing us from ever really overcoming it." "alcohol put syou in such a box, leaves you with such an impossible equation: you have to sexualize the relationship in order to feel powerful, and you have to drink in order to feel sexual, and on some level you understand it's all fake, that the power is chemical, that it doesn't come from within you." "i drank because i didn't know what else to do." "booze: the liquid security blanket" "perhaps the shyness, so acute for so many years, persisted because i hid my real self behind the liquor, because i never let anyone get to know me unless i flooded my system with severalgallons of champagne." "bad things didn't happen every time i drank, but every time something bad did happen, drinking was involved" "i felt ok the next day so i kept drinking" "you wake up after another night of heavy drinking and you can't put the pieces back together, can't figure out what that fight was about or why you ended up in the bed you're in or what happened the night before, and you don't understand-you simply do not understand-why you're so miserable, so fucking depressed and full of hate." "you are smack in the middle of the dance of addiction and you can't find your way off the floor." "but one of the sick things about being drunk and confused all the time is that a good thing can be staring you straight in the face and you really can't see it. so many other things cloud the picture." "alcohol is what protected me from growing up." "if i'm an alcoholic, i shouldn't drink and if i'm not an alcoholic, i don't need to." "i relish the understanding that i'll drive home safely, and wake up remembering where my car is, how i got from the driveway to my bed." so those are the quotes i related to the most. i've quit drinking before and failed at it, but this time feels different. i can be around people while they are drinking and not feel any urge to join in...it's weird. i don't like who i used to be. it would be great to never have another blackout. to never wake up again wondering if i did anything i should regret the night before. and it's really nice to not have to wake up and go through my cell phone to see who i called/texted. over the years i've sabotaged friendships and could-be relationships through my drinking. i didn't drink alone or out of depression, i drank because i'm shy. i used alcohol as a crutch. alcohol was my liquid courage. i guess at some point i had to realize that i didn't like being so dependent on something. i'll most likely still have the occasional beer or mixed drink, but it's nice to no longer feel the need to go to a bar or get raging drunk on weekends. and i'll no longer wake up and forget where i left my car, ha ha. i can't believe i lost my car (a few months ago)...seriously, who does that? anyways, i like the new me. i don't want people to think i can't hang out anymore or go to parties, i'm capable of being around alcohol without drinking it. just felt like explaining myself because people have been asking me why i haven't been drinking lately. there are more specific reasons and events, final straws so to speak, that led me to this but i think my point has gotten across. if you actually read this, you're awesome. thanks.