Hey Creekryder,
I checked out your thread about the werewolf yesterday, and even watched the video someone posted a link to, and could relate one hundred percent to your analogy. It really is as if we have two personalities, one that wants a better life, and one that's too scared to chase it, so it wants us back in the throes of hell, where we feel more comfortable. After a while, the comfort gives out and we are miserable again, it happens over and over and we get used to it, we even find comfort in being miserable, drunk and lost out on the fringes of life.
I'm beginning to discover, after a few hundred attempts to get sober alone, that not asking for help has caused me to lose more years to the bottle than were necessary. I may be tough, but that doesn't mean I need to continue to be crazy. It's crazy to me to expect that the bottle would be easy to put down, after decades of drunken existence. That bottle became fixed to my lips, like a bugler at sunrise, I had to have a drink just to feel anything, good, bad, or just plain indifferent. And I wasn't alone in my misery, my best friends were drunks like me, the 8am type, the drink all day type, the party never ends type, you know who I mean. We were the "in" crowd, mainly because we were the only ones constantly living "in" the bar, lol. So you know I've been there.
You've been back and forth, like me, and I stumbled upon this little gem of wisdom about asking for help quite by accident, but it does lessen the load we carry if we get a hand from our friends. I'm proud to include you among my new group of friends and I hope, if you need someone to be there, that I'll be along shortly, as well as our other friends here at SR.