Hi. My (nick)name's Bella, and I'm a 31-year-old from the Boston area. I haven't had a drink since 2001.
I started drinking at the age of 15 and, at around 25, I entered therapy for an eating disorder. It was at that point that my therapist at the time -- who ran some sort of national alcohol prevention program -- informed me that I was also an alcoholic. I laughed it off, because I didn't think my behavior related to what I had always heard about alcoholism. I was under the mistaken impression that I was too young, that since I didn't drink every day, and I hadn't lost my job or ruined anyone else's life, then certainly I couldn't be an alcoholic. But I started reading up on the different types of substance abuse and alcoholism and finally realized that, yeah, I fit the bill.
At my therapist's behest, I attended an A.A. meeting. I felt completely out of place because everyone there was so much older than me, that I never went again. Sometime, later that year, I "stopped" on my own when I moved back home to deal with my eating disorder with the support of family. What I really did was shift my focus from one addiction to the next.
About six months after moving home, I met a guy who became the next addiction. I started working hard at my ED recovery using him as the brass ring -- I wanted to be healthy for him. Being with him also made it easier to stay sober because he was against drinking or drugs in any form. So, since I wanted him to perceive me as being as "pure" as he was, I bent myself backward trying to conform to that ideal. (I've since been told that A.A. would consider me a "dry drunk," because I was sober but not for the right reasons.)
That was four years ago. Six months ago, my relationship ended in spectacular fashion (after slowly imploding over the six months leading up to the end). Then I was laid off from work (due to the company's own internal troubles) and my health took a nosedive (emergency gallbladder surgery, following my lingering pain, etc). Thanks to all the stress and the loss of my relationship, which I now see was an addiction itself, I've become preoccupied with thoughts of drinking again -- and my mom recently told me that she feels like she's seeing subtle signs of my ED relapsing.
I've got an awesome therapist that I've been seeing weekly for about three years, and he thinks that I need to seek some sort of treatment for the alcohol as I never actually got any for it -- I simply moved from it to the next addiction (the ED, which is widely considered an addiction). I'm wondering if anyone knows of any decent OP programs in the Boston area. My therapist gave me the phone number of an outpatient addiction services program that's affiliated with the hospital where I see him, and my mom -- an R.N. case manager for the HMO I have -- is going to ask around at work and see if she can come up with any. But I figured I'd also reach out here and ask.
For the record, I'm NOT interested in A.A. at all. It's just not for me.
Thanks. :)