I am as sick as my secrets

March 31, 2010 was my sobriety date. But the truth is, it isn't.

After years of a heavy wine habit, ending at 2+ bottles a night, I knew I was
done drinking. My relapse lasted 11 years. For the last years, I waited every
day to wake up and know that the pain of continuing to drink was more than I
could pay to drink. When that day came, I tried to quit. The shakes, sweats,
and insomnia were more than I could take. If I could have ripped off my skin, I
would have. All I needed was a few days, 3 or so, and I knew I could go from
there. I had done it before, but the first time I quit, I hadn't drunk as much
for as long.

After confessing to my doctor, he gave me 5 days of librium. I took it for 4
days and got my few days. On Day 6, with my husband traveling, I slipped. 
There was a bottle of scotch I intended to take to my mother's house, and
despite loathing scotch, I drank myself stupid. I may have puked. We were
having our house painted, and I awoke the next morning, more hungover than I had
been in years. It was all I could do to open the door, mumble I was sick, and
go upstairs to pass out in the guest room for another six hours. When I awoke,
still miserable, they were gone. I was mortified. I was supposed to be working
from home, but I hadn't even logged in or checked on my team all day. As we
all do, I felt shame and guilt and sick. Librium is supposed to pass out of
your body pretty quickly (it was no accident that it was two whole days after
I'd stopped taking it that I drank), but there still must have been some in me. 
I felt like a walking corpse.

And since I had 5 days of sobriety on April 6th, I did what I have always done:
rationalize, minimize, deny, and tell no one. I took that slip and buried it
deep away, put my happy AA face on and stuck with my original sobriety date
story. And while I didn't completely forget it, I didn't take that secret out
and examine it either.

My drinking was hidden in a cupboard, that is my go to position: hide, lie by
omission, and never waver from the original story. I'm just starting to
understand how deep and old and reflexive that habit is. It's so deep it
doesn't feel like a habit, it feels like a Prime Directive.

That shit will kill me one way or another. One day this month, while working on
my fourth step, I went on the back deck to smoke. As I sat looking over the
ridge, anticipating a sober spring and my AA birthday on 3/31, I realized I have
a huge lie hanging over my sobriety. As my marriage knits back together, as my
HP links me into a sober community that helps me see the folly in my mantra of
self-reliance, I risk it with a lie. I had a moment of clarity: Your sobriety
date is not March 31st; you have to tell the truth.

Suddenly, I knew I had to tell my sponsor, then, everyone else. The fear of
everyone's disappointment was nothing to the fear that keeping my secret could
lead me back to drinking.

It took me another 2 weeks to actually tell my sponsor. But I did. Of course,
she understood, it is what people in early sobriety often do. Then I changed my
sobriety date in our home group directory. Then I told my husband, then our
therapist, and now you.

My progress is in confessing my secret. I refuse to allow it and that bitch Ism
to have this power over me. I bought her story for the last time on April 6,
2010. I thought I knew I was done on March, 31st. Apparently, I had to
research one more night. I never, ever, EVER want to feel that way again.

I am an alcoholic, and my sobriety date is April 7, 2010.