renaldo

Hello everyone,

I've read many of your posts and responded to some and it has really helped me. Thank you so much.

I really need your help now. I've told my mother and my therapist that I'm going to detox and rehab. Those two processes are separate, and quite likely to be separated by days in which my resolve will be tested. Also, the detox is non-medical, so if I need medical assistance, they'll just call an ambulance to take me to the emergency room, and God knows how much that would cost. They won't give me anything for the withdrawals. No doctors on the premises.

I've spent many hours on the phone calling different programs and most are out of my financial reach. The one that's affordable is only so on a sliding scale basis if I can prove I'm unemployed.

My therapist called me the day before Christmas - I forget for what. He is very free with his time. I told him I was still really under the weather with this cold that I had (which was true - sleeping quite a lot, lethargic, incessant amount of phlegm, lack of appetite). We talked for a bit and eventually he said, "well, we can just do your session over the phone."

Yesterday, as I was going through all the mounds of paperwork related to financial assistance, I thought, 'did I pay him for that session?' It's not the first time we've done the session over the phone.

I called him, and he couldn't remember either. I took the opportunity to explain the situation and ask him if he would write a letter to confirm that I was unemployed, because of course, anyone could say that, but how do you prove it? He said no problem, he would write a letter right away and send it to me.

So I'm biding time for the letter to get mailed to me and using that as an excuse to have the "last hurrah," because the idea of never drinking again makes me shiver in my boots.

Last evening and this morning, I've been enjoying the current and older TV shows I've been watching on the internet and doing the sporadic email... just dreading the inevitable.

I suppose I could let down my therapist - he's paid for his time - but my Mother doesn't deserve that. She remembers the good stuff somehow, or perhaps she's just not letting on. I'm pretty honest with her, so if I screw up now, I'm really going to feel like a failure.

Finally yesterday (for the second day in a row) I ate a couple of healthy meals, showered, and felt strong enough to drive (not under the influence) and get some business done.

When I got home, the first thing I did was cook another healthy meal, eat, and wash the dishes. Then it was 10:30pm.

I ended up watching some TV shows on the internet, then more and more, and now it's 9am and I haven't slept or felt tired at all or felt anything but a mild thumping at the door during the process.

I know that the insomnia is coming with a vengeance, and I'm just dreading it. Perhaps in a half a year I can look back on this and think, 'this is no way to live.'

Plenty of you have said that there is life without beer, and a good life at that, so I'm not going to ask you to remind me. But, although I'm enjoying myself, if I'm having this many misgivings, it must not be all it's cracked up to be.

For now, however, I can say that it's the way it is.

Obviously, if I'm voluntarily willing to check myself into rehab, I know something is amiss. I can't wallow in hedonism indefinitely.

Thank you all for any feedback from your experience.

Please, no AA stuff. I know it backwards and forwards already and have been to many meetings. I've read the BB twice all the way through and many times more in bits and pieces. I know some people think that's not enough. I'll be "doing the do" AA-wise the next month, 'cuz that's all I can afford, unless someone knows of a $6/day rehab that doesn't use it.

And I may start attending meetings again after rehab, but, please please talk from your personal experience without quoting the BB. It causes a gag reflex in me.

It didn't initially, but having been raised a Southern Baptist and being told you have to keep reading one specific book over and over until it's milked drier than a cow's teat in the dust bowl just brings up awful memories for me.

I could say lots of funny things unrelated to addiction - or related to them - but I know that this is a forum devoted to recovery.

Thank you again for any stories from your personal experience that may help me through this difficult time.