Originally Posted by
Lonelyranger 
These are my four main triggers. I was just wondering how any of you might deal with these feelings. Guilt being my main cause of drinking and drinking being my main cause for guilt. Anger is getting easier to control the more time that gets between me and my last drink, but that gives a lot of time for guilt and depression to take over. Have a good one guys.
Good question.
I felt a lot of guilt when I was coming to the end of my drinking days. Ugly days they were indeed. How awful a feeling it is to know that something has control over you and there is nothing you can do about it short of turning your life over to a HP, which was an immensely hard step for me. I felt guilt that I couldn't beat my disease on my own. I felt guilty that I was a drunk raising a toddler and a newborn. It is only by the grace of my HP that I still have my kids in my custody today. You name it, I felt guilty about it. I carried the weight of the world on my shoulders.
I'm pretty much the Queen of Anxiety; I am OCD and bipolar depressive. Between the two conditions I was often anxious the send myself into frequent panick attacks. I suspect I drank to self-medicate my psychological problems. The drinking, of course, just added to my problems and did nothing whatsoever to better my situation except give me a reprieve from my constant racing thoughts.
Anger? Yeah, that's a funny one. It's something I never expected to feel when I got sober. I figured life would be all rosy when I got sober. Instead I was greeted with overwhelming emotions I could not deal with because I had given up my way of numbing them. Like a child, I am still learning how to deal with emotions, and it is complicated sometimes. But anger was definitely one of those emotions. I have days where I just want to beat the crap out of everyone I see, pick fights with random strangers, flip people off in public, etc.
And depression, really, is just anger turned inward. It's what you do when you feel you have no way to release the anger. I have days I am so depressed all I can do is crawl into bed, put my blanket over my head and let my husband or my mom care for the kids because I am simply paralyzed and can't do it.
If there's one thing I've learned, getting and staying sober, learning to love life sober, is not an easy task. We have taken the higher road. We are willing to battle these emotions and take the steps necessary to eventually live a peaceful life. The road to that is long, and personally the hardest thing I have ever had to endure. I must remind myself daily to have patience, that this too shall pass.
The people here with a long time of sobriety under their belts say it is worth all the struggle and pain we have to endure througout our recovery. I listen to them because I know they can't be wrong.
We are here because we want to better our lives, and in all reality, there is nothing better we could be doing for ourselves.