BeenDown2Times

So I've discovered that my biggest relapse trigger is that when life gets tough, I say to myself "Why do I bother staying sober!?"

I'm not talking about the larger question of why to even attempt sobriety in the first place, this more refers to relapse as an answer to despair. And we all have curve balls that life throws us that make us want to escape. "My boss is a jerk, my spouse left me, my job sucks, etc, so why do I bother staying sober, instead I'll just get high"

I heard AA guru Clancy I. say once that this is the main difference between alcoholics and addicts-- that alcoholics drink to join the world, and we use to escape from the world. Nothing could be truer for me. I've always had problems with crippling anxiety, low self-esteem, and despair. I can stay sober pretty easily when life is easy but when it makes a turn for the worse, I lose and I relapse.

Anyone have any good answers for this? Tips? Wisdom? Advice?

Dee74

I fell for this trap a lot...life kept throwing me curveballs and I kept going back again and again to what made me feel good...if only for a little while.

But eventually getting drunk or high became like a brick wall for me - the negatives grew to far outweigh the positives...

My old way of coping sucked - I figured I better try something different.

So next time life got rough or unfair or boring - or whatever else I used to drink or get high for - I stayed straight and looked for other positive ways to get through the situation...

and every time I stayed straight I learned a little more about dealing with situations, not running away from them like I used to by getting wasted.

Dealing with life straight really hurt for a while - I was so used to 'checking out' - but I had the support here, and I knew the only real way was forwards, not back.

and...everytime I accumulated a few more coping skills - everytime I learned something positive that helped with tough situations - I grew a little.

Eventually I grew a lot - I changed from the guy I was....and y'know? not in an ego way, but I really like the guy I am now....

so I guess that for me is 'the point' - even more than the fact I'm sober...is the fact I'm sober and I'm a good stand up kinda guy.

It's a small thing to someone else maybe but I never felt that in 20 years drinking and drugging - I felt lower than a snakes belly.

I dunno what recovery method you ascribe to, but this really helped me back when I was trying to stay clean and sober

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...e-surfing.html
D

doggonecarl

In my using days, if I was looking for reasons to get high, I had no problem finding them. I had to come to terms with the fact that I had an addiction and that was what made me use and use and use. The "reasons" were just the justifications (call them excuses) I gave myself so I wouldn't feel guilty about what I was doing. I had it rough, I said to myself, I deserved to get high. That is drug addict BS.

That said, anxiety, low self-esteem, and despair are real challenges to recovery. Especially, in my mind, despair. Despair is a recovery killer. There are plenty of avenues to learn coping skills for these issues. For some it is as simple as reading a self-help book. Others need counseling. Some need therapy. There is plenty of help if you want it.

One other thing...it helps to have some perspective on what just is "tough" about life. You used the example of a jerky boss, a job that sucks. Yes, these might be your problems and you certainly deserve to be troubled by them. But there are people in this world dealing with much worse stuff, and doing so clean and sober. Find a little gratitude, be thankful you have a job and don't use!

Good luck.

FT

Hi BeenDown2X:

You have described me to a "T". I think we are seeing this syndrome in our society as a whole right now, the "why bother" syndrome. Who can blame us? I totally understand why people use. Why NOT use? I was there. And I could be there again. So, I've been examining this problem myself, because as I've gone through life I know that bad times are ahead, and so are good times, because that is just the ebb and flow of life. I miss the "ignorance of youth", and that is not a negative slur, just an observation of what life looks like before you find out that every big high is necessarily followed by a low, and even "middle" looks like "low" when you've been riding high for years.

So, enough of the philosophical crap I tend to spew.

Why bother, you ask? As I try to figure the answer out to that for myself, I just have to look at the times in my life where I have fallen into despair, or fallen into addiction, or hit bottom for whatever reason. Every time that has ever happened to me, it has been my fault at least in part. I've "seen it coming" so to speak, and either did nothing to stop it or not enough.

Well, I didn't always see addiction coming, but come it did, and it was always because I was coping with bad stuff in the wrong way. Every time you cope with something in the wrong way, you can be sure that more bad stuff is on its way to you.

Think about it. You see bad stuff happening at work, you start not to care, your own work suffers, and you either lose the job or suffer in misery doing something you hate with people you hate. Instead of being proactive (I HATE THAT WORD) even at the risk of losing the job, you take the easy way out, which ends up being the hard way when you consider the domino effect of what happens next.

I look at the drug "answer" as the domino effect at its worst. If I slip and start using again, I've opened a door I may not be able find my way back to, maybe not ever. Using will only turn into more using. Eventually the "dope sick" will hit again. That brief love affair with the drug will be over almost before it starts, because I KNOW what happens next.

I once imagined a lovely life where I could use oxycodone "as needed", I would be comfortable, and all would be well. It sure looked like I could do that. Well, I know you don't need to be reminded that opiates just stop working that way. The dose is never quite high enough. Eventually, you just stop feeling as lovely as you did to start with. Later, you don't even feel normal. Eventually you find yourself using just to not feel sick. At least that was my cycle.

So, I have no real answers. For me, I only have logic. Unfortunately, sometimes despair will override logic. That's why I've personally set into place some mechanisms to make it really hard for myself to ACCESS the drugs again. Yeah, the old "access" thing again. Well hey, I can't take what I don't have. I know, I know... it is really easy to gain ACCESS if you want it bad enough. My little pea brain (addict brain now slightly smaller than it was) has already figured out the ways I could do that. I can't seem to stop myself from creating that "just in case" plan. But it would be harder now than it was before. At least that's good.

Take care.

FT

MelissaNoDrugs

Job One for an addict is you really have to want to stay sober. Beyond support systems and groups and networks, you have to want it. Want it bad. That's no guarantee but it's the starting point. If you let go of that, suddenly all those external forces close in. My job, my spouse, my dissatisfaction....at that point the excuses are endless.

stugotz

More times than I can count did I rationalize a good excuse to get high. I had to relearn how I think. Just sayin...

djensen

If you dont want to be sober, you wont. Until you hit that point in your life, like I just did yesterday (Day 2 today). You will keep rationalizing a reason to dose, its in all of us addicts, we dont need an excuse to use, just a WORD will give us a reason to use. And thats what I am now figuring out, in my haze of withdrawl symptoms that are making me crazy... the only thing I can do is keep reading here, this keeps my busy and keeps my addict tendencies at bay for a short time anyway.

DJ
Norco addict

Justfor1

Yes I often think this way before I return back to the booze/drugs. I rarely drank in the beginning of my addiction when life was good.

djensen

I have made this decision for my family mostly, and also for myself. But my family has suffered long enough with my addiction, its time to do things together without daddy being either so high that they cant keep up with me, or so low that I yell at anything.
The time has come, its over.

BeenDown2Times

Yeah I think the theme I'm hearing is the same answer that I'm feeling myself. There is no good answer to the "why bother" question other than the fact that I want to be sober more than I want to be an active addict. Sure the drugs numb the pain but when the drugs run out I'm always in a worse place than I was before I relapsed.

Having said that though, despair is a formidable relapse trigger for me and I have to be mindful of that at all times. It doesn't matter that my problems aren't as bad as other people's, all that matters is that despair is a real emotion for me and that if I feel it coming on I need to defend against it with the best tools at my disposal or I WILL use. I'll need to rely on others to keep me sober.

Thanks everyone for helping me talk and think through this.

Nightsd

BD2T,

You've perfectly described the apathetic state that leads me to a relapse. But I've learned that if I already hate how my life is going...there is always one way to REALLY hate my life, and that would be if I used.

Some days are just tough man. Sometimes you wonder what the point of staying clean is. Sometimes you don't care, and lose hope. Just always know that using will always make you feel even worse, eventually.

omaha

BD2T,

You have just said what I fear is going to happen to me, but haven't been able to say it yet. Using has always just been easy and a way to put my whole life and all my problems on hold. I am currently facing a problem with percocets and I don't blow them like a lot of people I know. I eat them and sit alone with the tv on and just chill out. I don't think about things when I do it and I don't have to deal with anything and I love it. I know that when things get hard I'm going to be so lost, but I'm hoping that being apart of this will help me get through it. I'm sorry I don't have any suggestions as to how to help you with this, but I wanted to comment and let you know that it helps to see others in the same boat just trying to escape.

djensen

The easiest, shortest answer I can give to "Why bother" is this................


SO........YOU.........DONT..........DIE!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!
Cut, Dry, truth, no BS, no candy coating. If you want something candy coated go get a gumball.