Asking for help

[PaperDolls]

Why do I find it so hard to ask for help.

I'm sitting here angry at myself and feeling sorry for myself because of it.

I'm moving my belongings out of my old house to storage. I didn't ask for any help. I've been procrastinating. Just sitting here looking at all the stuff.

My sister is coming over later to help but not because I asked. She offered.

There were tons of people I could have asked for help at my home group but I didn't want to bother them. Who wants to help move someone on the 4th of July? If I asked someone they would feel obligated and I don't want to do that to someone.

So what am I left with? Sitting here on my pity pot with no help. It's not worth it.

Next time I'll remember this and just swallow my pride and ask for help.

[Katie09]

PaperDolls, It is hard for many people to ask for help, so don't get down on yourself for this. I HATE asking for help and will wait until things are so dire before I'll do so. I am glad that you are letting your sister help you.

[MycoolFitz]

Boy, tell me about it. I could't ask for help even when I was dying. I don't think it was pride or independance, I think it was fear. Fear that I'd be turned down because I wasn't worthy, or, worse yet, fear that I wasn't turned down but I was still unworthy. At some point, I realized even I didn't help myself (ergo 45 years drinking), because, you guessed it, I felt unworthy of my own care and well-being. Well, its Independance Day today and I can be independant of both by addiction and my old destructive thought patterns.

"You can explore the universe looking for somebody who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and you will not find that person anywhere."
Sharon Salzberg

[tyler]

I totally know what you mean. Today I finally asked a fellow SR member for help. It's been offered before from many people here, but today I finally accepted. Shoot, that's not even asking for help, it's just accepting it, asking is even harder!!

Monday I am going to ask for help in the form of a theripist I need to find. I find the whole prospect scary and daunting. I'm going out to try to find a person I can bare my soul to in hopes of them being able to help me, but no guarantee that it will work. I think it is mostly anxiety/fear/lack of self worth. We have little self worth, so we figure why would anyone want to spend the time to help us when we don't even place much value on ourselves. At least I think that's how it is for me.

It sounds like you are active in AA, so I can promise that if you would have asked, you most likely would have mustered up a small army of helpers. You could have turned it into a nice sober 4th of July BBQ or something. I know it's hard to ask for help, but I've found that if you don't ask, you rarely get any. It's not too late to ask someone for some help for tomorrow!! Best of luck to you. Take care.

[paulmh]

Next time I'll remember this and just swallow my pride and ask for help.

Hey, at least you learned something, right? Why is it everything we alkies have to learn, we have to learn the hard way?

[CarolD]

Glad to see your sister is coming over
to both of you.

[PaperDolls]

I picked up my phone and called a friend in the program. After she left we talked and I thanked her again for helping. She then thanked me! She said she would have sat at home all day having her own pity party. She hates holidays. Go figure.

[joedris]

Believe it or not, there are a lot of people out there who actually enjoy helping others. It's called 12th step work. Ring a bell? You're letting your ego get in the way by not asking for help. And I don't mean that in a derogatory way.

The problem here is that, as you've noticed, you start feeling sorry for yourself. Next comes the pity party, and then resentment. And then you end up drinking again.

[keithj]

I remember something my sponsor shared with me when I first got sober. He said that my not asking for help deprived him of an opportunity to be useful. I thought he was full of crap until I found myself on the other side of the coin, trying to be useful to someone else. Then I got it.

I'm actually harming others by not letting them be helpful to me. That artificial separation I place between you and me actually harms you.

[gravity]

I have come to believe that one of the main purposes of life is to help one another. I can scarcely think of one worthwhile thing I have done in my life where someone else did not help me. Being a parent, sobriety, career, physical health, etc. - it all involves the love & caring of other people.

Most people don't mind helping out. We are all in this together.

[Believe808]

PD I know just what you mean, I am going through that right now. There is so much to be done and I just can't ask or accept help. I have all kinds of reasons, but I just suffer from not asking. I'm glad you had your sister and an AA friend help. I will get up enough courage to ask soon. First things first.

[Gypsy Feet]

My not asking for help was linked to my codie issues. Most of my life I surrounded myself with "broken" people, so that I could fix them. I would put their needs in front of mine 99% of the time. So when it came to asking for help, I knew I was entitled, and if they said they were busy, I would be crushed and/or furious. When I quit drinking I lost contact with most of my "friends", and I am slowly but surely building up a new network of sober, healthy people who can actually pitch in and help when needed, most of the time without being asked=)