Dear Carolyn: I'm a late-40s professional woman with a drinking problem. I keep a job and have a successful career and happy family, but I drink too much and have for some time. Corona lockdown really made things worse. I struggled with quitting and with shame, and I'm now 23 days sober.
I haven't told any of my friends or family — except my husband — because of shame, the worry that it will alter all of my relationships, and that certain folks won't choose to spend time with me anymore. At this point, my plan is to just tell them I'm doing a Sober [month] and kick the talk down the road a bit.
How do I deal with this? I don't want to be an object of pity and I don't want to be a killjoy.
Carolyn says: You want to be sober, so just be sober.
It's a two-part process and you're well into the harder of the two. Good for you.
Now let yourself off all the various hooks you think you're on with the second part.
First, urgently, the shame. You have a problem, and all people have one or many. No shame there.
You are working on your problem, certainly no shame in that. What you're doing takes courage and discipline.