its a ridiculous fucking cycle. i go to 10 meetings this week and my outpatient group once, again tomorrow.... and she's on my ass to clean my room? fuck you. theres a fucking blanket on the floor but im so fucking SICK of doing everything on everyone elses terms when i'm trying to do this for me.

and then, i go out for a cigarette after exchanging words in a screaming match and my first thought is fuck i really want some fucking vodka right now, fuck her, fuck this, why am i doing this just let me fucking get drunk. years of begging me for sobriety and i'm working on it and she has to bitch about a clean fucking room? i do my best to communicate with her, tell her everything about me and what i'm feeling and going through and how i'm loving life and i fucking wish she'd just go to al-anon and give me the time to get my shit together. i'm working on getting a job, im working on my steps, im FUCKING WORKING ON MYSELF. you want to drop a carton of eggs on a marble floor and expect them all to not be broken, just pick them back up and go on your merry way? you can't fix a goddamn broken egg but if it's all you have you'll figure out how to fucking use it to the best of your ability. "When is it my turn" she says - well if she went to al-anon she'd realize that this is a SELFISH program, this is about me doing for ME first and foremost... and al-anon would be the same for her, but i'm sure she'd use the excuse that its never about her and never will be about her and this and that... well guess what, WHAT DO YOU THINK THESE THINGS TEACH YOU TO DO. GET OFF MY ASS AND TALK TO SOMEONE WHO UNDERSTANDS YOU. I DON'T WANT TO BE IN THIS FUCKING WORLD THE WAY I WAS BUT MOTHERFUCKER IT WOULD BE THE EASIEST THING FOR ME TO DO. EASIER THAN CLEANING A BARELY MESSY FUCKING ROOM.

2 weeks of sobriety. Amazing feeling. I can't go to group tonight, and I keep thinking about how apprehensive I was at my first meeting at the center. Now that I can't make it tonight, I'm overwhelmingly disappointed and I'm finding myself wondering what I'm going to miss in the 4 hours I'm not in attendance.

Though it's discouraging that in my 5 sessions I've witnessed 3 relapses, I have also witnessed 3 graduations. I want to be a graduate, holding that token and being proud. I want to go tonight... I want to spend my Friday night with my fellow recovering addicts instead of at a bar, and 2 and a half weeks ago you would have my foot up your ass if you had dared suggest that to me.

So, my first entry was pretty pessimistic. Though I knew that I had it in me to get through this, I didn't realize how eye opening rehab would be. My first day was actually on family night, so my mother was there. We were the "newbies", but we both left with smiles on our faces. I was the only one who didn't know the serenity prayer. My mother knew it because her father was an alcoholic. But, in my moment of weakness yesterday, I read it and I thought about the words and I felt good about it.

My sister doesn't know yet. My brother does, and he hasn't judged me. Maybe because part of him may think he's got some demons to face as well. I've been doing a lot of reading, and a lot of sharing. I've spent some time with my mom and I haven't forgotten to say "i love you" to her every day. I'm sure she feels a weight lifted off of her shoulders, but I know in the back of her mind she's always got that fear that the monster in her baby girl is going to come back out in a bottle of smirnoff and a moment of weakness. I just have to keep telling myself that if I let my mouth touch the edge of that bottle ever again, the shame and guilt I will feel in myself for letting my parents down again will be more unbearable than it was to initially admit that I have a problem; I am an alcoholic.

The chat rooms, the support out there from people who have been sober years upon years, it's the most welcoming community in the world. We all go into this knowing we share this common link, this addiction to something. We're addicted to a substance, and we're addicted to the jealousy of the people who can control their consumption. However, we do have one thing that someday all of us are going to be able to say - we are overcoming an obstacle that people will never understand, and we hope they never have to, and with the strength these lessons teach us, we will have the ability to change other peoples lives someday, the way other recovering addicts are saving ours. That's always been my life long goal - to change somebody else's life for the better, so that they remember me forever... but I know I can't do that until I fix myself, so here goes.

My name is Ashley, and I am an alcoholic.

Today was my initial evaluation to determine my treatment plan. I will be going 4 days a week for 3 weeks and 2 days a week for 8 weeks after that. All I want is my life back. I hate feeling like a prisoner in my own body, like I'm obligated to express every thought in my head to my mother even if it's hate towards her for taking away the phones. I don't even want them to get alcohol as she fears, I want to text, I want to see what time it is when I wake up, I want to play games on it. She doesn't understand that my weakness didn't come from me holding a phone, it came from me holding a bottle. I know she doesn't want me seeing my ex because he enables me to drink. I understand this, and unless I've been drunk as well I've kicked him off of the property if he's shown up high or drunk. I need to tell him that I can't see him if he's going to be like that, because I know he'd do that for me if it's me who asked him not to. I miss him, and I'm sick of my mother being a dictator with every aspect of my life from when I go to bed, who I talk to on the phone, when I wake up, etc. I'm a prisoner. I have nothing of my own anymore. No privacy, no individuality... and this gives me absolutely no sense of self worth. But if I told her this, I know what she would say. She would say I needed to be dry longer, I'd need to prove it to her longer. I wish she understood that the wrench in my stomach to tell someone to bring me a drink when she dictates the way she does just turns harder and harder with every new rule that she makes and every new thing that she takes away and every question she asks that I don't feel like I should have to answer. I took the leap, I went and I called rehab and made the appointment myself. I got myself ready, got my shoes on and got in the car. No one had to drag me kicking and screaming. I was ready. I am ready. So why, why do I feel like my life is limited to a step outside onto a porch, or a seat on a couch, or a head on a pillow? Because it is.

Does anyone understand how hard it is? Losing a best friend, going to rehab, and being forced to break up with your boyfriend against your will all within a month and a half? And the only people I'm allowed to talk to about this are my mother and one friend? ONE friend? I don't want that. But, I'm sure my mother will give me the whole "don't give me the 'woe is me' thing again, Dear"... this isn't crying wolf, this is just my insides being torn out of me with such complete force that I don't even feel human anymore.

It snowed last night. I never needed a phone for snow to bring Joel to me, he would always just show up. I would put on my jacket and we would go outside. No one understands how hard it was for me to sit at home all night with that snow and know he wasn't going to come, especially with me knowing what the next day held; day 1 of rehab. This is something he would have held my hand on every step of the way. I know, I know, "He's still with you"... but no, not the way he was. The snow last night made that perfectly clear. I don't have Joel. I don't have Chris. I don't have my other Chris. I don't have any of the arms that held me so tight and made me feel so safe... or any of their lips, or any of their words - because two of them are dead and one of them is gone by everyone else's decisions but our own.

So, here I am, alone and crying because I don't want to hear my mother say that I have her to get me through this. I know I have her... but this is still the loneliest path I've ever walked, and fuck does it suck and shit am I scared.