Quandary

[box3]

Hey, TB. I hope you check back soon, I'm worried about you.

[firestorm090]

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[thirtybubba]

Dot.

Somehow that seems like as appropriate of an answer as any (although I do realize you just deleted whatever you wrote ).

Ago... that one caught my eye, re the "don't think this is what you wanted to see" (I'm paraphrasing). I don't know what I expected to see.

I suppose I expected to see new ideas--or just bopped upside the head, like I need--I got some, and got bopped upside the head, and I thank y'all kindly for both.

I hope I can get through this.

Thank y'all for being here for me. One day I'll be a better 'bubba... In the meantime... Um. It's a sad existence for me. Tonight's about a breaking point though... I hope. Don't think I can hold on if it gets much lower... how's that for sad?

[Sikkisirus]

It (alcohol) seems to sail us through the rough times but all it really does is sail us INTO rough times. Hang in there TB

[Aysha]

Dont have much to add. Just hang on.
Are you doing anything for your recovery?

[Threshold]

Originally Posted by thirtybubba

Tonight's about a breaking point though... I hope. Don't think I can hold on if it gets much lower... how's that for sad?

This is where trust comes in. When I read this, I see your own will threatening to rear up and do you in. Your will, somewhere has set a boundary...that you will trust recovery ONLY so far...and then if it doesn't meet up to your preset expectation, you have given yourself permission to use again. Uh Uh...ain't gonna work.

You haven't really given up your will, you just shortened it's leash a little, put it in the back room, ready to let it out as soon as you decide that recovery isn't what you want it to be.

I've caught myself playing this same game with recovery. I take it on a test run...ride it down the roughest most impossible roads I can find and the second I feel a bump declare it a failure...and say I may as well keep my old rusty rattling death trap of addiction..since recover CLEARLY has nothing better to offer me...

I did that and danced the relapse boogie for better part of a year.

Then I said...OK, where do I sign? And I BOUGHT relapse, traded in addiction and now recovery is the only ride I have. NO GOING BACK...because addiction has been sent to the junk yard and dismantled.

As long as any of us keep allowing for some level at which we know we will break, can't hold out, etc, then we are doomed because we all know from experience that YES, life will reach that level.

Deciding to live sober is committing to live sober...no matter what. No matter what life throws at us, to trust that sobriety can and will get us through and is up to the challenge, that we no longer need our addiction ever again. NO EXCEPTIONS.

I am not pointing fingers bubba...I saw, in what you posted, the things I had been saying to myself over the past several months, the bargains I made with sobriety, the deals I cut...I never really gave sobriety a fair chance...when things got hairy...I'd say "it's not working" and use again..so how could I ever really know?

[keithj]

Originally Posted by thirtybubba

What happens when drinking doesn't work for you... but sobriety doesn't make it better?

If drinking is my problem, then not drinking will solve my problem. But if my problem is alcoholism, then not drinking just makes me a pretty miserable alcoholic.

I was a pretty miserable alcoholic, drinking or not. And as long as I still had an alcoholic mind, eventually I looked to alcohol as my only solution, for many years even after it stopped working.

When Carl Jung is working with Rowland and telling him that alcoholics like that simply don't recover, with the exception of phenomena that

Originally Posted by AA BB, 1st Ed.

They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them.

That describes the way by which hopeless alcoholics can recover. The Big Book just contains a set of instructions for producing that rearrangement.

The last time I drank, years ago, was in the form of a 6 month bender of drinking 24/7. It followed 7 or 8 months of not drinking, but not doing much else except going to meetings and hanging out with sober people. I remember beating my head off the wall shocked and demoralized that I had, once again, dug myself into a hole that I couldn't seem to get out of. A guy looked at me and asked me why I was surprised. He said something to the effect of, 'Well, duh, of course you're drinking. You haven't done anything to treat your alcoholism. You haven't had a spiritual awakening.'

And then he offered to show me how to have one.

[Lionne]

Hello TB,
I see a lot of similarities between your age and current situation and mine. Some of the feelings you expressed about sobriety in your posts mirrored the thoughts I had lately.
Even though I have been constantly working on myself, sobriety doesn’t come easily every day. The person that emerged from the haze of alcohol is not always the pleasant one I imagined myself to be and often has virtually no (sober) experience of dealing with problems, stress or even boredom. So yes, sometimes I didn’t like very much what I saw and hat to learn to adjust to this new me.
But once I removed the booze from the equation, I at least gave myself a chance to learn to handle all this stuff and all my emotions in a different way than numbing them out or pass over them. (I don’t make a difference between “good” and“bad”ones here, because its important to finally experience all of it)
Sometimes it is hard to find a positive attitude when you are depressed and sad and frustrated but I experienced that these feelings pass and are easier to handle once you identify them.
The crap is, as unpleasant as it is, in a way necessary for the learning and growing and for acquiring coping mechanisms. I strongly suspect that it is there all the time, even while people were still using, and one was so caught up in one’s own hell that it was just not the priority to deal with it. Sometimes it requires to have patience and the solutions sometimes aren’t quick or easy, but thankfully, most of it is only temporary.

You can have the courage and perseverance to work trough this, please don’t give up. I experienced firsthand that these feelings pass and can be dealt with, that adressing them seems to be a part of recovery and that it gets better. Hang in there, it is worth it. Hugs, take care and I’m sending lots of courage your way,
S.

[thirtybubba]

Reread these tonight with clearer eyes. Actually, they're tired eyes and having trouble focusing altogether. Maybe a withdrawal, symptom, I don't know.

I have decided to take some kinds of steps. I talked to a psychologist this morning and she called around to rehabs... I'm going to go on Thursday to sign up. It's a 60-day wait, maybe sooner if people get off the list. I learned there is no publicly funded services in this county, and that was a major issue with trying to find a place that would take me.

Housing, well y'all, finally get to transfer rooms. But it's as scary as hopeful... what if the same thing happens again (it's already been surreal twice... of out two).

And I talked to the housing people about rehab too... in case someone doesn't follow through... which is usually what happens to me lately. I chase them down, they're busy... look, I still have my bitterness!

And I talked to some of my teachers, no real problems there. The first medical note did help (from the flu) and I'll get on to fixing all my school problems... soon as I move and go to the rehab and go to my court class and got to 8 more classes this week. And sleep and eat and stuff... but on these busy days I *normally* don't want to do extra stuff... no choice this week, and lovely, I'm detoxing hard.

Well, that actually was a plus 'cause I'm pale and shaky, and I suppose a few people listened to me that might not have otherwise.

Take care y'all, thank you all for your continued support... I know I'm not doing it very good, but my intent is there... Mens rea...

I still have a hard time accepting that other people had a hard time too... seems like everybody should just up and get sober, because everybody I talked to in real life seemed to do just that. Here, that doesn't seem so common...

And I'll be talking to the dean... either leave of absence, or I'm out of here in the spring. I cannot do this again... another semester like this and I don't know where I'd be. I cannot comprehend any lower, although I know from experience that in a year, I will be living there. That's pretty much been my life for a while now. I don't worry about that, just current stuff for the most part.

Guess this is a little longer than I meant to write, I'm sober but not thinking real clear so I apologize for lack of topical cohesion...

I hope it gets better... I'm afraid to.

If this doesn't work, I don't know what else to do.

[Aysha]

I am glad you are taking action.
Your post made perfect sense.
I hope that you follow through and dont change your mind during the wait.
Hang in there.

[eureka]

I'm proud of you thirty.

[Threshold]

hugs thirty, you are moving forward in recovery, that's wonderful