First Real Test of Strength
Just need a place to vent this
Been sober now three weeks. Of course it was difficult but up until today I’d been having relatively limited bouts of depression/anxiety which were a big trigger to start drinking. As a teacher we always get end of semester reviews from students - in hindsight I should’ve never read them but I did and I spiraled.
Even though the majority were positive, there was one that quite frankly I’ve never seen before. It was rude, it created fabrications about how I teach (saying I called students “stupid” - a word I’ve never uttered once when talking to a student or their work), and it made statements that I favored students without taking into account the nuance or personal circumstances of these situations.
I know I’m a good teacher and my heart is in the right place. Even though I can objectively note that this student is probably just really annoyed with their situation and venting about it through the evaluation form, and even though I know they’re creating fabrications for what I assume is to cope with their own difficulties in this course it still got to me. I’m here feeling like I didn’t do my job like I should have, questioning my abilities/capabilities, and just wanting to find a way to make it fade away.
In the past it was these moments that I immediately stopped at the nearest liquor store, and it’s taking so much to not do that again. But now that I’ve been sober these last three weeks (longer than I’ve ever been in years) I don’t want all that hard work to be wasted. I want to be able to keep going to my weekly AA meeting and say I’m still sober.
I’m really lucky to have a family friend I trust who has gone through this process for nearly a decade so I have some connections to fall back on but man… right now fucking sucks.
I barely proofread this because like I said I just needed to vent about it quickly but if you read it all thanks. Here’s to getting through another night sober