Stages of change

Last week my therapist brought up the stages of change and asked if I had heard of it. After she listed them I remembered hearing them somewhere. I can't remember what hospital or rehab or wherever I heard it, but that's not really relevant.

If you've never heard them, these are the stages
Pre-contemplatio- not really acknowledging the problem exists
Contemplation- acknowledging the problem and thinking of overcoming it or changing
Preparation- Intending to change and overcome the problem
Action- change behavior or environment to deal with the problem
Maintenance- doing what behavior is necessary to not go back to the problem

She gave me some copies of pages from a book about recovery from eating disorders, although really we are talking about drinking. For some reason, I left the pages in my car. I think I didn't want to deal with it tonight.

What I am supposed to be thinking about is that I don't want change, so I am supposed to think about what makes me not want change (in this case sobriety). I am supposed to write about it this week. So I thought I'd start here.

The most obvious is that I just don't like change. I don't like the unknown. This came up when doing my 4th step. My fear list contained a lot of things that really when I read them had to deal with not liking the unknown. I feel like any change involves accepting the unknown. Any change can succeed or fail. It can be helpful or not. It can make things better, the same, or worse.. and I can't know which beforehand.

I was diagnosed with depression at 15, so this is over 12 years ago. I have prayed for it to be removed from me. I have done therapy, the majority of medications that exist, hospital stays, and whatever else. If I were to give up drinking, would I go back to that deep depression or would I feel better?

When I was diagnosed at 15, I was already cutting or scratching or whatever self harm. This eventually got better. Then at 20, bulimia took over. I was binging and purging multiple times a day everyday. I was calling in sick to work because I had constant headaches. I was skipping class to binge and purge because it was all I could think about. I started cutting again and worse than before. 

I was restricting and purging and went to a residential treatment facility for my bulimia. While there, I started self harming again. I would pull staples off the wall. I would find nails in the wall. I would steal plastic forks and break them in half to get a semi-sharp edge. I went home and this didn't stop.

I started grad school and the bulimia returned. I would skip meals. I would purge meals. When I lost my teaching job, I would stop eating for days. Then the drinking took over.

So the fear there is that if I give up drinking, I will go back to the bulimia or cutting. I have purged a few times in the past 2 weeks. I have cut off and on. This is a very real obstacle or fear because it is based on experience. I mean I guess with therapy and support I should get over whatever makes me do these things. The problem is that it's not that simple.. I have no trauma to deal with. I am aware of my self esteem problems. I do acknowledge some things that have happened with friends that screwed up my thinking. None of that knowledge has fixed it. So why would sobriety fix this shit?

If I quit drinking and somehow the rest is fixed, what the hell will happen? I haven't known any real periods of recovery from all 3 addictions. Will the depression be there? Will I be able to handle it? Or will I go to the state I have been in hospital where I am behaving myself but crying randomly. Will I go to the state where I am sober but scared that I actually might kill myself?

I was talking about in a meeting yesterday that the 2nd step says "We came to believe in a power greater than ourselves that could restore us to sanity." I have no problem with believing in a higher power. My problem is believing that he will ever restore me to sanity (whatever that is) because I have prayed so many times for the depression to be removed. I have prayed for the bulimia to be removed. I have prayed for the desire to drink to be removed. None of that has happened. I understand that believing in a God who is all powerful means that this God could restore me to sanity. I just have trouble reading the step as a power that would restore me to sanity. I know that's not how it's meant to be read, but I get stuck on this. If I change, how will I know that God will remove everything? Will he just remove the desire to drink since that's what I go to AA for. What on earth is sanity anyways?

So yes.. there are many obstacles between the contemplation stage and action. Based on past experience, I honestly have reason to doubt that I will be happy and healthy. I don't know.. maybe I'll sort through this if I stop drinking. I do acknowledge my fucked up thinking. I just never had moved past it. And now I am mostly trying to function.. this means managing to go to school/work and not have anyone realize how bad things are. I seem to be successful with this because nobody has said anything about me being upset or ok or stressed. At meetings, nobody seems to mention if I am sober or not. I don't know there if they're trying not to make me uncomfortable or if (and I have reason to believe this with a lot of people) they think I am doing well.

So I may write more about this, but this is a start.