You know that moment your therapist tells you to start drinking every day? No? Me neither, because it is insane! Until it happened to me and I followed orders. Sort of.

First of all, I’ve got a “new” therapist. The “old” one was pregnant and had to go on leave, so me and all my mental baggage, were assigned to yet another lucky therapist. Talking to a new one always brings on a mix of intense annoyance about having to explain from the beginning what is wrong with me, but also the feeling of possible solutions because someone new got assigned to the case. You never know what they will come up with.

First impression of the new Therapist Woman: Very forward thinking in directions I do not want to go to. Usually when you fear things you tend to avoid them. I happily avoid loads of things, from using heavy cleaning products, eating anything with peanuts (who knows I could have a never discovered allergy) or Ikea. Basically everything that makes me panic. She told me that even though I seem to be doing better this avoidance is not going to work forever.  Great, just when you think you’re moving forward, turns out you’re just moving sideways with your eyes closed. Crablike.

Therapist Woman pushed my face right in it, reality, and told me it’s time for some exposure therapy. Basically, meaning that I have to do the things I am scared of and see what happens. Bring on the unbridled anxiety! She took a marker and started to write everything I avoid on a whiteboard. Officelife meets TherapyLife. I felt exposed and manhandled. I fear she will ask me to deliver some KPI’s* on my progress soon…

Anyway, here the alcohol problem reared its ugly head again. It must be what bothers me most, my fear of drinking. I miss my daily glasses of wine and my Friday beers and everything that comes with it. Somehow the Therapist must have picked up on that (maybe because of my endless moaning about it) and thought it would be the task I would work at with most enthusiasm.

I ended up with an actual drinking schedule. Monday half a glass, Tuesday one glass, Wednesday break, Thursday two glasses, etc etc. She actually smirked while she made it. Sadism. So, on my way home I bought a nice bottle of red wine, better get a good one when you’re on a drinking schedule, and that evening I had half a glass of wine. Crazy how familiar it was, sort of homecoming, nothing to fear. Except for the fact that I have no tolerance whatsoever and got quite unstable. No freak outs though.

After this I thought it would be easy going. Unfortunately, I ran into some unrelated trouble the next day, got all worked up, extremely close to an anxiety attack, and then used that as an excuse to abort the drinking mission for that day. In the end, I did half the schedule and avoided half, with lame ass excuses, then totally stopped again as soon as the challenge was over. Therapy Woman thought I did quite well, but I was pretty disappointed.

I have however, graduated to stage 2. The peanut butter challenge. Next Monday I have to bring a peanut butter sandwich to our session, and eat it. Awkward on soo many levels. Already thinking of ways to get out of it.

She is right though, I have become a master avoider. This basically means I am living half the life I want to live. I feel a depression coming on. Time for some heavy drinking.

*Key Performance Indicators