See Jane Sober

Living over here has been revealing certainly. Frustrating, definitely.
I don't know if it is the crowd I've met, or the mindset here, but people are DEFINED by what they do when they're drunk.
Him? He was making out with some girl and puked all over her and the bed.
Her? She's psycho. Stay away from her...::insert typical drunk story here::

A good friend of mine tells me every time that she talks to me that we are not defined by what we did in our past or even what we do when we're drunk.

I mean, what do they say here about the people that DON'T drink?

It seems sometimes that the general consensus here is to sit around and get fucked up.

When advised what to do here, one of the first comments was, "Become an alcoholic." Uhh, don't need any help in that area, thanks.

Another girl here says that I am the most neurotic person she knows because 1.) I am worried about what people think about me, and 2.) That's one of the reasons that I don't want to drink.

For me, these are reasons good enough. I know what I'm like what I'm drunk. Granted, she's 21, and a new legal drinker, but...it's kind of a Catch 22. I shouldn't care what people think, but I care what she thinks? Thank GOD I got a job, because I seriously need something to do with my time.

I have been not drinking, mostly. I had several beers when we went out on a day trip later on in the day, and then a couple when we went to the boathouse. Other than that, I've just been my usual charming non-alcoholic self. I want to be defined by my work ethic and WHO I AM, not what I drink or what I do when I drink.

Seems like that's going to be an uphill battle.

Jane Says: You've got to come original.

Today, as Dick and I sat watching the channels, an advertisement for the local AA group came up.
"You could go," he suggested. "It's tomorrow night."
"You want me to go?"
"You could. If you want. They have a very good group."
"How do you know?"
Turns out his friend from the other night told him the day after we had been out. Said I was mean. That he didn't want to ever go out drinking with me again. That I started out sweet and innocent and then just got mean. Said whatever I wanted.
I'd say that's a pretty fair assessment. Accurate.
Should be, since it's coming from a psychologist.
Still, that didn't stop the sting. The heat that came up my cheeks and made me want to disappear under the floor.
"Do you think I'm an alcoholic?"
"You said you needed help. That you couldn't do it by yourself."
My own words, back at me. Damn he's good.
He reaches for my hand, but I shy away, feeling sick. Instead of talking I busy myself with the little things: stuffing my mouth with edamame, readying for bed, removing my makeup.
"What did you say?" I ask him, some small part of me hoping that he would explain away my faults. Make it OBVIOUS to everyone else why I am THIS FUCKED UP. Or maybe I'm not, I just need an excuse for being mean.
"I said, 'oh.'"
Oh. Which really makes me wish my plane were leaving tomorrow. Even though I know you can't run away. But you CAN go where NOBODY knows your name.
When I told him that I wanted help, I meant that I wanted his help.
Dick, I want YOUR HELP.
It hurts my feelings that someone whom I barely know made this assessment and he listened.
He went through hurtful situation after hurtful situation with me, watched me drink myself into the toilet more times than I can count, and ask him for help and it was NEVER a problem.
Now he asks me what's wrong and I shut the computer, because I don't want him to read this.
I want a conversation to happen but I feel like I should just let him watch the Simpsons.
I want to go home.
He said that this was my home the other day. I don't feel like that.

Sometimes, not drinking really sucks.
But it is always less traumatic than drinking.
After two days of saying, "No." When I really wanted to scream, "Fuck OFF!", Dick asked me if it would be okay if he got some wine with dinner. I said, "Okay," but felt really uncomfortable. Really.
I had a couple glasses - against my better judgment and completely ignoring the guilty feeling in the pit of my stomach and we went out.
I had a glass there.
We came home. Which would've been okay, except that I decided I was going to go back out without Dick.
And I didn't come home until he came and found me at 6:30.
I lost his keys. And my sweatshirt.
I got in a fight.
I was flirting with another guy. Inappropriate, I'm sure. I told Dick that I kissed him. And I don't think there was making out, but it was certainly close enough to be dangerous. I told him that I do what I want.
I told him that I hate him. And that he won't help me. And that I wanted to kill myself. He took my sleeping pills with him. He knows better.
I can't figure out what the FUCK I am doing. Why I am sabotaging this. I was doing so well back in the States. SO WELL. And now I'm just watching it all go down the toilet.
He said he would help me out with this.
But I should be able to do it by myself.
But I think that we've seen that I can't.
A friend of mine mentioned that I should go to AA. But I don't want to. I don't think that I would be strong enough to deal with the repercussions and labels of a small island.
I told Dick that I wanted to go home. He said that I was home.
Sometimes I don't feel like I can make it here.
A lot of times I feel like that.
I cancelled our plans for this weekend. I don't want to get out of bed.
If I go anywhere, I just want to get on the plane and go home.
I know you can't run away, but you can be anonymous.
Which is something that I will never, ever be here.

Jane Says: Fill In the Blank.

I decided I would give myself a little break when I got here, have a few drinks.
I was drunk all weekend.
So sick, in fact, that it took me three days to get over it.
One for the hangover and two for the days that I wouldn't come out of the room because I was mortified at what I had done. Even though there is a large contingent of drinkers here, I was convinced that I had been the worst. The most obnoxious, the most drunk, the most obvious.
I wasn't.
Dick knows that. He kicked me out of the room yesterday so I could get some fresh air (because let me tell you, the smokers' dorm? Yeah, the air is just not so fresh and so clean!) and I peddled around , headed for the beach but actually ran into one of the girls that I had been out with Saturday night.

She wanted me to drink with her.
I said No.
She said "Why?"
I said, "I'm Done."
She told me she was disappointed in me.
I said that she was just going to have to be.
She inquired if I was done drinking for the rest of the time I was here.
I said yup, that that had been my one big bang and that was it for me.
She said, "I thought we were BFF!"
I said that I was the enabling kind and that I'd go anywhere or do anything with her, but that I wasn't going to drink.
Some of the company said "Why don't you drink?"
I said, "I'm on a break. Haven't had a drink since May, except for last weekend."
Why? Are you an alcoholic?
I said,"No, worked long hours with people who drank, didn't have any money, and, I needed a break."
Everyone regarded me with a kind of,"hunh."
And she kept trying to get me to drink.
We're going to a different island this weekend. She said, "Are you really not going to drink?"
"Probably not."
"We'll go to the beach tomorrow. I'll bring a cooler."
"We'll see." But I'm turning Japanese, and I really mean "No."

If I continued to drink here, I wouldn't be able to put my best foot forward. The one that I WANT to put forward. And this place is so small. I really don't want to fuck that up. If people say, "Wow she celebrated her first weekend and then we haven't seen a peep out of her since," that's okay. But I do not want to be associated with "crazy, drunk," or "wild". Been there, done that. Took the trophy home.

However, if people are only speculating about what they think they know? I can deal with that.

Jane Says, "You put your BEST foot in, you put your BEST foot out. You put your BEST foot in, and you shake it all about..."