Photo courtesy of Tigerfish Rain

Hey Heartun~

I’m struggling with Covid Isolation in real life, and that’s spilling into my Second Life. I’ve been on unemployment for months (with a false-start return to work for a couple weeks, then sent home again because… you know… more Covid!) I live alone with my beautiful Newfoundland/Spaniel mix pup, Spankie, but other than that I’m all alone in my small apartment. My parents live nearby, but they’re old an at risk, so I don’t see them. Talking on the phone isn’t the same.

I’ve always liked drinking while I play Second Life, but the last few months my anxiety has been so high I find myself drinking so much I black out and pick fights with friends and strangers! I put my microphone away, in an attempt to cut that out, but “Black-Out Me” gets it out some times. Even when she doesn’t, I’m looking at chat logs when I wake up and they’re horrible!

I’ve lost friends. I’ve been blocked. I’m full of shame, and I don’t know how to stop this mess.

~Both Lives Spiraling

Dear Spiraling~

First off, you are not alone. In fact, you sound a lot like me when I joined Second Life. I was hot off a divorce, drinking to beat the band, and was an angry – mean – argumentative drunk! Also, even though I was working IRL, and there was no Covid, my world had gotten really small. No one wanted to be around me in either life, and I don’t blame them.

If you are enjoying your drinking, that’s your business. I wasn’t, and I needed help getting away from it so I joined a well known 12 Step fellowship and did all the stuff they said to do, even though none of it felt like it was a good idea to me. I was desperate to not live the way I had been living.

I’m a member, but not a spokesperson, for this anonymous fellowship – and I don’t push it on anyone, because it is not the only way to fix what is broken. It just worked for me, and still does. If you are looking for them, you can find any and all of these 12 Step fellowships online. During Covid, most of the meetings are on Zoom too. Try them all. Find one that speaks to you, if you can. Find someone who suffered like you, but is now happy. Ask them what they did, and do it.

Recovery is as easy as “Monkey see; monkey do.” The only hard thing is to never forget you are a monkey.

~Heartun