TheRock

This may sound really stupid, but I figured I would ask since I can't seem to get the thoughts out of my head.

After being Stone Cold sober now for 8 days and FREE from BEER and XANAX, I'm starting to feel old memories from the past in a very different way. I'm guessing the Alcohol had just masked the feelings for many years and was wondering if this is normal?

An example is I lost my mother 5 years ago to MS and Cancer. She was 52 when she passed in my arms. I remember that day like it was yesterday. I know I was drunk 24x7 for the next 2 weeks minimum. I remember blaming the world for allowing someone so young and so good to be taken from me when I needed her the most. She was always there for me and the kids and now I have no family to speak of. No Father, Mother, Grand Parents, Aunts, Uncles of any kind.

No one to really lean on for help or advise that I can trust, except for you guys.

I started having this happen last night about remembering the whole thing again and some memories of what all happened when she died. Certain memories were coming back that seemed to be a little different than I remember.

Again, is this normal? Never really had this happen before.

Thanks,

JD

TheSunAlsoRises

Very normal... Things from the past still strike me in different ways 6 months clean... my advice is too keep it simple... Make sure to have some sort of recovery plan in place, and put your sobriety first...

Clayton

Nevertheless

I"ve came to the reality not too long after sobering up, that anything weird happening is normal.
Here lately, everything that happend to me is dejavoo. I do something and a few minutes later I swear this has happened before.
I could make a big list of things , but I gotta go to work.
Take care.
Fred

Dime

It think it is very normal as we are experiencing our feelings with nothing to snuff them out. Getting high suppresses our feelings and they do get stuck inside us and build up. Experiencing those feelings and having the opportunity to process them is part of the recovery process and the way to inner peace.

endzoner

John .. something I heard at a meeting recently was about the loss of someone we love .. Which we all have including myself .
This was what was said .. God didnt take your loved one he Received him/her .
I got the biggest lump in my throat and how I could accept this for the loss ... Something so simply said made a massive impact on how I thought bout my daughters short life . It still brings tears to my eyes to say that lil sentence .. but how true it is ..
These are natual emotions your going thu , they have after all been covered up with the drink , not feeling them and grieveing over someone so special . This to will pass . you cant forget , but you will in time beable to forgive yourself for past actions . And by the way it dont sound stupid !
Your friend ~Endzy ~

2ndGen

not to be darvinistic, one's brain is going to experience overwhelming effects, lots of chemistry

Effects of Alcohol on GABA production and function

2ndGen

here is more:

Mental and Emotional Stress. Alcohol blocks out emotional pain and is often perceived as a loyal friend when human relationships fail. It is also associated with freedom and with a loss of inhibition that offsets the tedium of daily routines. When the alcoholic tries to quit drinking, the brain seeks to restore what it perceives to be its equilibrium. The brain's best weapons to achieve this are depression, anxiety, and stress (the emotional equivalents of physical pain), which are produced by brain chemical imbalances. These negative moods continue to tempt alcoholics to return to drinking long after physical withdrawal symptoms have abated.

It is important to realize that any life change, even changes for the better, may cause temporary grief and anxiety. With time and the substitution of healthier pleasures, this emotional turmoil weakens and can be overcome.

LBW

I haven't drank in over 4 months (except for 1 slipup night). I find myself remembering the past very frequently... I think while I was in my drinking years I wouldn't ever let myself think of anything in the past.... I even held some kind of resentment for it... My childhood years, my HS years, my college years... basically, all the years BEFORE I was a suffering self-hating alcoholic.

When I first starting having memories come back about different times, it seemed like I was remembering a movie and while I was the lead character, it wasn't actually me... it was someone else. In my memories, I feel disconnected from myself. Like I am a totally different person now. I remembered everything as being bad. Everyone as not liking me and out to get me.

What's weird is I actually had a wonderful childhood. My HS was no worse than anyone else I suppose. My college years were fun and happy for the most part. Other than a couple of broken hearts and a couple friends that betrayed me, I didn't have any tramatic thing happen to me.

I've been forcing myself to think about it all more. To try to remember things more acurately. I'm trying to look at myself in the past and feel connected again.

My current theory is that while I was drinking and feeling so ashamed, I didn't want to remember who I was or where I had been because I felt like I had let myself down... like I wasn't being the person I thought was... Before morphing into an alcoholic, I think I had always believed myself to be a strong and determined person who could do anything I put my mind to. As an alcoholic, I thought of myself as weak and broken.

I don't know. I think this sounds weird... but it's my best theory. I just can't figure out why I feel such pain and resentment toward a past that wasn't that bad.

LBW

You've really got me thinking with this thread... Now that I think about it, I am resentful of every thing in the past. I remember everything as bad. Everything. I didn't do this before I became an alcoholic.

I have another theory... As an alcoholic, I did alot of things I'm ashamed of. I behaved in ways that were inconsistent with my values. I feel just extremely, extremely disgusted when I think of it. I think I've developed some kind of self punishment mechanism in which I just resent EVERYTHING in the past. No matter whether I actually was a drinking, disgusting alcoholic at that time or not - I feel resent and disgust toward myself and the events anyway.

Does any of this make sense?

Timebuster

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

A business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke. Taking commercial inventory is a fact-finding and a fact-facing process. It is an effort to discover the truth about the stock-in-trade. One object is to disclose damaged or unsalable goods, to get rid of them promptly and without regret. If the owner of the business is to be successful, he cannot fool himself about values.

We did exactly the same thing with our lives. We took stock honestly. First, we searched out the flaws in our make-up which caused our failure. Being convinced that self, manifested in various ways, was what had defeated us, we considered its common manifestations.

In Step Four we call it a "moral" inventory because we compile a list of traits and behaviors that have transgressed our highest, or moral, values. We also inventory our "good" traits and the behaviors that represent them. In our life's moral inventory the defects or dysfunctional behaviors might include some that once worked; some dysfunctional behaviors may have saved our lives as children, but they are now out-of-date, self-defeating, and cause us a great deal of trouble when we use them as adults.

The purpose of a searching and fearless moral inventory is to sort through the confusion and the contradiction of our lives so that we can find out who we really are. We are starting a new way of life and need to be rid of the burdens and traps which have controlled us and prevented our growth.

As we approach this step, most of us are afraid that there is a monster inside us that, if released, will destroy us. This fear can cause us to put off our inventory or may even prevent us from taking this crucial step at all. We have found that fear is lack of faith, and we have found a loving, personal God to whom we can turn. We no longer need to be afraid.

Step Four will help us toward our recovery more than we imagine. Most of us find that we were neither as terrible, nor as wonderful, as we supposed. We are surprised to find that we have good points in our inventory. Anyone who has some time in the Program and has worked this step will tell you that the Fourth Step was a turning point in their life. Some of us make the mistake of approaching the Fourth Step as if it were a confession of how horrible we are-what a bad person we have been. In this new way of life, a binge of emotional sorrow can be dangerous. This is not the purpose of the Fourth Step. We are trying to free ourselves of living in old, useless patterns. We take the Fourth Step to gain the necessary strength and insight which enables us to grow.

Peace and serenity

Ivan

TheRock

Just got home and read everyone's comments. Greatly Appreciated. Really did not know what this was. I confirmed exactly what you guys said with my Counselor. The Alcohol was supressing the memories that I did not want to think about. Hense, now that I'm free of the toxins, the memories will start to come back. Could take a while, a very long while. That is OK with me, I just wanted to understand what was going on since I really did not understand it. I do know and it will help me to stay focused at the task at hand. STAY SOBER !!!

Day 8 is almost done, OH YEAH !!!!

Ninsuna

I'm sober a bit over four months and have found my memories of many things from before I started drinking are clearer. I sang in a choir in high school and yesterday in the shower I suddenly remembered a song we sang in latin for a christmas concert. I found I could sing the entire alto part from memory- where did that come from? I attributed it to the brain healing, firing up unused parts, something like that. With something so emotional I am not surprised that your drinking brain altered your memory of the event.

barb dwyer

Rock -

Yes. I think I understand what you're talking about.

Nothing like YOUR example but -

I was sober maybe .. a year or so, and had the Movie 'Shrek' on while I was cleaning in the kitchen.
Suddenly -
I hear dialog ... I've never heard in that movie before.
I used to come home and put that movie on just for the noise.
\No way to count how many times "d played it while drunk.

The first time I have it on ... sober -

and there's twenty minutes of dialog
I've never heard before!

So I went to other movies
and at about the same time
of the lost dialog of Shrek -
I'd 'never seen' several scenes of those movies either!

It would ony make sense, then
that something as HUGE and surreal
as the death of aparent
there'd be spaces that you just ...
had all the input you could take at the time.


Now when my own mother passed away
I was there as well
but I didn't drink or use back then.
I remember being in a state of HYPERawareness
during the entire final 48 hours.
I was 20 years old
she was my last surviving parent.
I wasn't 'high' at all
but I've never been that ... 'aware' since.

Events like that we cope with what we can
while the body records the entire event.
It was recorded
you just weren't 'present' to participate ' in that until now.