When i had problems with drinking and relapsing i deeply felt like living was useless, and dying just as useless as well. No way to win. Just kept losing.
I wanted to quit of course. Really did. I would get a few days in sober and suddenly *it* would only make *sense* to me if i had a drink to think things over. Insanity. As i drank, my thinking would clear up, and i felt better. It just made sense to drink and the longer i went without it, the more sense *it* made to drink again. Of course, i felt worse again later. Doing the math, it obviously was impossible for me to quit drinking from just wanting to quit.
So i stopped just wanting to quit. i stopped trying to stop. i stopped trying to get better. i stopped worrying about the whole thing. i gave up on *wanting* and began *accepting* that i was completely done. I was going to die slipping and sliding until i was dead, and all my misery was not going to stop it from happening. Inevitable. Just another drunk loser. So be it.
The thing is, the more i *truly* accepted my demise, the more i felt like living. The more i understood that i was at the end of my rope, the more could see that *drinking* was the thing killing me. Not my feelings. Not my thoughts. Not my loves. Not my hatreds. Not my failures. *Drinking* was killing me.
i could begin to see that *honest and rigourous* acceptance of my drinking was the very thing that i had not been doing. I would start off with looking at my drinking, but i would end up just looking at the mess of my life. My drinking always just became a troublesome thing in the scheme of things compared to the troubles in my life.
In those last days of my drinking i simply kept honest and true that *drinking* was my *only* problem of any importance. All my other problems were like nothing compared to my drinking. I still had them as problems, but now they seemed to be simple and understandable in a way that had always escaped me before. I could actually *see* how drinking would wreck any plans i may have had or not had. i was starting to see the truth of my miserable life.
i began to battle with my drinking in a different way. i just hour by hour stayed honest as to what was keeping me away from drinking and i would simply do what that required, no matter the cost or the insanity or the misery, what ever kept me away from drinking i would just do. Simple and direct. Not some big plan or anything special. Just whatever it took i did to stay away from drinking.
it worked, of course, for i am here today.
the last beer i had was just an hour before an addiction specialist was to examine me. i had finally asked for help from an organised source for my alcoholism. The specialist informed me i was suicidal and if i didn't off myself before my time, i would most likely be dead in five years anyways form drinking. i didn't care, to be honest. And it showed.
He offered a residential detox and treatment program, which with my new way of going about things, i just accepted. The bed would be opened on the Wednsday. It was a Friday then, i think. I went to my first AA meeting on the Sunday. Saw a few of my past drinking buddies there. Surprise surprise. On the Wednsday i entered the doors of the rehab, still not caring, just doing what it took to not drink. I never drank again.
Since July 1981 i have been an alcoholic drug addict who does not drink or use drugs. Before that, i slipped many years trying to quit, so i have been there, i remember.
My ESH for you today is just your *completely embracing* not picking up that drink will open a new path for you to journey. You don't have to care. And you don't have to figure it out. Just don't drink, follow the path from there into a supervised detox, AA, or whatever, and your drinking will be over.
Sound to simple and obvious? yeah, that is eactly what kept me from doing it for too many years. What a miserable fool i was from that blind ignorance.
Now i really do care about my life. I thought i did before of course, but i really didn't. i just *wanted* to care, i know that now.
i don't know what your problems are exactly.
i hope you have a good day today. godspeed.
RobbyRobot