I found this site a few days ago - I was in a really tough place and desperately needed someone to talk to. Yesterday I went into the chat room - I was tearful and over-emotional after a very rough night. Thank you to everyone that was around and just listened to me. I know I left abruptly - I'm so sorry about that - but I had to clear my thoughts.

So, a little about me and where I'm at, if that's okay? If not, please tell me.

First and foremost, I'm a lebsian. That's not all that I am, but I wanted to be upfront about that because it's a big part of my identity. I also suffer with an eating disorder - EDNOS. I display characteristics from both anorexia and bulimia - no-one would know to look at me, I'm a little overweight, but my behaviour and attitudes around food are far from normal. I'm seeing a counsellor at the moment, she's helping me with the eating stuff, and also helping me to come to terms with a very dysfunctional relationship with my mum, and childhood abuse. So I'm recovering. I have good days and bad days.

Now, my A (I think that's the term you use, please correct me if I get any of this wrong). We met last year, and fell pretty much instantly in love. It was sudden, intense and made more complicated by the fact that I live in the UK and she is now in the US. I spent time with her over there and we were making plans for regular trips back and forth, and eventually for us to be together. She's an amazing, intelligent, beautiful person. Back in January of this year though, she ended things between us - basically she said was scared of the distance (and let me be honest, I'm scared of it too). But I guess things only ended between us in name only - we still continued to talk on the phone for hours every day - and we both freely admitted how much we loved each other. She told me to move on though, to get on with my life and find someone to make me happy. I tried to date, have made a bit of a mess of that (that's a whole other story). She has tried to rekindle things with an ex, and that didn't work out for her either.

At the start of February she admitted she was an alcoholic. I knew anyway, the signs were there. She's a self-medicator - doesn't drink to get drunk, instead she drinks to numb her emotions. She admitted that her drinking was the real reason she had called things off between us. After a couple of weeks of trying to get sober alone, she finally started AA meetings and on Friday of last week she got her 30 days sober. I am so proud of her and I do tell her this. She has a great sponsor and is working her steps.

And she loves me.

A couple of weeks ago she asked if she could fly out to see me for a few days. No promises between us, no committments, just a visit to someone that she loves and wants to spend some time with. I said yes, because I love her, because I want to spend some time with her. When we are together, even when we just talk, things are so much easier for both of us, things seem so much more manageable. She said she was coming, gave me the dates so that I could organise my schedule.

Then, last Monday, she hit a really black spell. She was depressed, lying in bed all day, not eating, crying a lot. It affected me really badly. Thankfully she was still going to her meetings and she was still talking to her sponsor, and she stayed sober. But it affected me really badly - I put my needs right behind hers and ended up in a really vulnerable place. I started starving myself, I wasn't sleeping - everything I did was punctuated by anxiety about her. I know this wasn't healthy.

On Friday she got her 30 days. It affected her badly. She said that instead of feeling pride, she felt ashamed. Not ashamed of her sobriety, but ashamed of the fact that for her, sobriety was highlighted rather than something that she could take for granted. She was resentful of people that could have a drink without even thinking about it and without having a problem and angry with herself for feeling that way. She spoke to her sponsor, arranged to spend some time with her that evening.

When she got back she called me and told me that her sponsor was concerned about our relationship taking the focus of her sobriety and that she had to rethink her trip out here. Can I just emphasise that I completely understand that for her, her sobriety HAS to be the absolute priority. I've never questioned that for a second. And I understand her sponsors concerns and I understand that she has to listen to her sponsor. But it plunged me into a horrible space. I felt rejected, and so very hurt. I cried and cried. I didn't try to change her mind, I didn't beg her to come here anyway - I would never do that. Friday night was awful. We talked and cried pretty much all night - I'd only had an hours sleep and I know I wasn't in a very rational place. She was actually incredibly rational. She reassured me of her love for me - in fact she says that with every day that she stays sober she becomes even more clear of just how much she loves me, and how much she wants me in her life - but that can only happen when she is fully sober and can be her sober self. One of the really positive things that we have between us is an ability to really communicate with honesty - especially since she has been working her programme.

So now, two days later. We didn't speak for a lot of yesterday - both of us having external commitments. But we spoke for 6 hours last night about whether or not a trip out here would be good for either of us. She wanted to book a flight, but had told herself that she needed the full weekend to think about it and that she was really going to take the full weekend to think about it. And that she was going to talk to her sponsor some more about it - her sponsor doesn't really know much about our relationship. I really want her to come, but I'm trying really really hard not to get my hopes raised. That's difficult, I'm struggling to tell myself that she really might not come. I know very clearly though that even if she does come, it is just as friends and not as lovers. That's okay with me. We are both hoping that when we're both recovered more, that we might be able to be lovers, even partners, once again - but that's a way off in the future.

So in the meantime, I'm recognising that I need to learn how to protect myself and continue to work on my recovery rather than throw all my energy at her. I need to do that for me. So, I've found this place and tonight I'm going to my first Al-Anon meeting. I'm scared. But it feels like the right thing to do, and I need to do it.

I feel, in many ways, like I'm a fraud and have no right to be here, or to be at the Al-Anon meetings. I don't live with her and we're not lovers or partners. But she is perhaps one of the most significant people in my life and she would say that the same about me. So her drinking affected me - when she drank she broke my heart. And her sobriety - along with all the emotions that evokes in her - affects me too. I can't put my recovery behind hers. Does that mean it's okay for me to be here? For me to come here for support? I hope so, I really do.

This is a journey - for me and for her. Right now, we're journeying side by side. Hopefully, in the future we might be together again, we both really want that but we both know that it has to be taken so slowly. But we might not be together again either.

I guess all I can really do is take each day at a time, and focus on me - that's what I'm trying so hard to do. I hope it's okay that I'm here while I learn to do that.