Originally Posted by IvanMike

Hang in there.

I look at your post and I see me a few years ago.

I finished up step 4 with about 6 months clean. It wasn't until I did step 5 with my sponsor (meaning that I shared step 4 with him, not that I wrote on questions in the step working guide) that I came clean with him about having an affair with a woman who had quite a bit more clean time than me. - Later on, I had to get honest about pursuing a relationship with a woman who had relapsed and was once again a newcomer.

Fortunately I changed my behavior and took guidance and direction and figured out why I chose the women I did. I stopped causing pain and I stopped using other people to make me feel good, (which ultimately made me feel bad).

The NA literature is spot on. We come in and stop using and discover that we have difficulty dealing with the pain and confusion that we tend to feel. It takes TIME to start to achieve the emotional stability and emotional balance that the basic text talks about. But it does happen. We just want it right away.

At six months I was a mess, but I kept staying clean just for today, went to a meeting or two every day, talked to my sponsor, and worked the steps with his guidance. I developed a few close relationships with other men and gravitated to those guys who had been around a long while and who were obviously serious about their recovery. I was still crawling out of my skin. Life went on. My father died. My marriage fell apart for good. My kids weren't really talking to me yet. I stayed clean. The first guy I sponsored went back out and immediately overdosed and died.

Over time I began to realize that I was starting to feel OK with myself. I realized that by changing my behavior I was slowly starting to change how I felt. I began to really internalize the idea that "this too shall pass", and the idea the "just because it itched, I didn't have to scratch". The pain and agony and discomfiture of being me wasn't really all that great any more. I still had off periods, but the frequency, intensity, and duration of the times I felt awful all diminished. I didn't feel like killing myself any more.

Hang in there. You feel normal for six months. I get worried about the people that say they feel great at six months. - Stay clean and keep doing what you are doing and you will notice things in your head start to change over time. Every once in a while you'll be very surprised. - One day you will be talking to a newcomer and trying to get them to believe that they can be OK, and you'll start to wonder how you got on the other side of that conversation.

We do recover, and we includes you. - So long as you follow that way, you have nothing to fear.