Dear afaidofeveryone:

As to your second post, regarding your resolution about drinking, I would like to suggest an adjustment to it: no going out at all without your boyfriend to a bar or an establishment where alcohol is served and where hookup possibilities exist.

It is a good thing your boyfriend forgave you and trusts you. It is not your fault that you kissed a man that night, if you did. It is your fault that you drank that night in a place where hookups are part of the scene, knowing you have blackout experiences where in the past you were not aware of what happened.

Your resolution to limit your drinking wouldn’t satisfy me, if I was your boyfriend.

anita

Hey afraidofeveryone

Making mistakes is part of life and doing things you regret is part of living. Feeling bad about them is good to a certain extent – to stop you from continuing to make those mistakes and continuing to do the same things that you regret. It is only not learning and stopping those behaviors that is the real failure.

If when you drink you have blackouts and do things you wouldn’t consider doing as a ‘normal drunk person’ then that is really unsafe and scary. And you are realizing you just aren’t able to drink like some other people. Its just something that makes you uniquely you, a part of your make up, like having an allergy or an intolerance, that you have to work with in order to have a great life.

Congrats on your relationship, he sounds like a balanced guy not freaking out about something you may or may not have done and well done for being honest with him about it. That cant have been easy.

Forgive yourself for getting into that situation (which I think might be why you can’t get over it because its not about the maybe kissing someone) and don’t put yourself in that situation again, which I recognise might be hard if there is a big drinking culture where you are but for your own safety and your relationship its not worth it for a night you can’t even remember!

hugs
Eris

Dear afraidofeveryone:

I read your reply to me, seems like I misunderstood you in my first post to you: I wrongly assumed your resolution following your predicament was to continue to go to bars/ pick up or hookup places like bars without your boyfriend but to drink there less or more slowly. So my response was: not a good idea. But now I understand I assumed wrong. Well, then, your resolution is fine and dandy, I believe and I hope too that indeed you forgive yourself for what was a mistake. You may not repeat this exact mistakes but there will be other mistakes.

We all make mistakes and we never stop making mistakes. Same for your boyfriend. So when he makes a mistake (not an act of cruelty, just a ..mistake) you will pay his generosity back and forgive him.

Learn to live with the reality that there will be more mistakes on your part and on his… and on my part (my very misunderstanding of your post).

anita

Hi, afraid–rather than keep beating yourself up about your “drunk mistake” (can’t change the past), I think it might be a better use of your energy to get some help for the drinking problem. Blackouts are NOT normal. Whether you are small or not, it is NOT normal to drink to blackout–and it sounds as if you’ve pretty much convinced yourself that it IS normal, or at least not that big a deal.

I suspect this may not be your first go-round with trying to control your alcohol intake via “missing rounds” and so on. From where I stand, this looks like alcoholism, or at the very least, alcoholism in the making.

You can easily find more info about alcoholism on line, and I hope you do look into it. Getting help now will save you a lifetime of pain and regrets.

My wishes for strength and clarity.