I feel like such a pathetic loser. My sobriety date is 12/24/02. I attend at least 6 meetings a week, I have worked the steps numerous times, I sponsor other alcoholics, perform service work through chairing meetings and bringing the message to the DuPage County jail. I have been freed from the obsession to drink and find joy in helping others in the A.A. program but feel miserable in my personal and professional life.
I used to make a lot of money where I owned my own business and employed 21 people. I was married and my wife and 3 sons had everything money could buy. We took nice vacations whenever and wherever we wanted to go. I owned a yacht that I kept on Lake Michigan where I could spend weeks on end going from harbor to harbor. We could take in the Chicago shows or travel up the lake to enjoy Mackinaw Island or the fish boils in Door County. I owned nice vehicles: a Hummer, a lexus, and 2 Harleys. I had a beautiful home in a good neighborhood on an acre lot with fruit trees and a scenic pond.
I had it all but I was miserable and unhappy. I have always felt disconnected from the people around me. I feel like the person looking at everyone else enjoying life wondering why I can never be part of the group. No matter how much I made or what I had it was never enough to feel good enough to be included in the lives of those people I envied around me. I seek out someone who needs me so I can feel important and of value. Eventually the relationship would deteriorate where I would be embarrassed because I was not all I would pretend to be in the eyes of the person I was trying to impress and I would get angry with them and cut off the relationship. Alternatively, the person would become more and more dependent upon me and I would feel used and put upon to the point of getting angry and ending the relationship. Time after time I would end up alone and unhappy. I could always justify myself in the belief that I was important because of the business I owned, the money I made, and the family I supported.
The problem was that I was a dishonest person who was constantly chasing after something or someone to make me happy. I lied to myself saying that I didn’t need anyone or anything but lived opposite of this premise. I spent myself into oblivion and ignored my business to the point of bankruptcy. I had to sell my business to settle up with my creditors and my wife divorced me during the financial crisis and the revelation of my inappropriate alcoholic behaviors. I had to sell all of my stuff and wound up divorced, alone and broke. I lost my business, the yacht, my house, and my family to live in the alcoholic selfish pursuit of happiness that I could never find.
Now I try to trudge the road to happy destiny but sometimes the light ahead seems very dim. I am lonely and feel sorry for myself that I do not have the things that I used to have and that I do not have anyone to share my life with. My ex-wife actually invited me to live with her and my youngest son and I had hopes of a reconciliation and moved into the house with her and have pretended to be married to our 3 sons and our families. We remain together in appearances but live separately in different rooms. I work for the company I once owned and my paycheck goes entirely to my ex-wife and I live on an allowance of $300 per month. I feel like a prisoner to guilt from my past because I have been unwilling to be honest in my personal life today out of fear. Fear over what would happen to Joanne and my youngest son if I were to leave. Fear of being alone. Fear of being despised by my sons and Joanne for leaving them. Fear of not having enough money to support the existing household and myself.
