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.