Berrybean

I think what you mean is that your alcoholism led you to use financial woes to justify your drinking.

Have you read the promises of AA LB?
There's one in there you might particularly like...

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through.
We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
We will comprehend the word serenity, and we will know peace.
No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Self-seeking will slip away.
Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

ALL those promises have now come true for me. Something I never really believed would / could happen. I can now check my bank balance when I need to without having a nervous breakdown / crying / getting in a state.
I am not rich by any means but I seem to be able to last my money out til the end of the month. Simple things, but things that I never managed to do for the 20 years before I got sober, when my finances were frankly a complete mess. The debt I got into led us to losing our home. I try not to dwell on that too much now as I can't change the past. I can just do the best I can in this moment, and this day.

I 100% believe that those promises can come true for anyone who works for them. But the first step is in recognising that alcoholic drinking is not the RESULT of our lives being unmanageable. It is generally the CAUSE of it. It is the problem. NOT the solution. Drinking never solved your financial problems before, and it never would. All it'd do is make them worse. Our addictive voices are constantly there in our heads rationalising (making excuses for) the next drink. Don't fall for it's lies. This whole 'drink to make the financial problems go away' is typical AV lies and bull-poop. We all have that lying, decietful, cruel AV in there trying to jostle our reason and sense into the background. And we can't shut the little effers up. All we can do is make the decison to not listen to them.

I found it hard to distinguish between the true and the false (my AV and my rational sense). That's where the good folk on here and in meetings are invaluable. Have you got numbers from people at meetings so you can call them? Usually as we talk these things through, or even type them out, we kinda know. It's like in the dark quiet of our mind that AV is 20 times more powerful than once it's brought out into the light. I've heard people say 'we're only as sick as our secrets' and I've found that to be true on so many levels. Fear is often very secret. Esp financial fear. I hid mine, along with any evidence on it. I did not even want to tell my closest freinds what was happening. Nowadays I DO talk about those things, because I know that I am a very fertile ground for fears to grow. Some tiny little worry, left inside of me, cosy in the secretive darkness, WILL grow into something debilitating - EVERYtime. I cannot afford secrets. They cost me too much peace. I am not willing to be in that place of disturbance any more.

We are human. That means we are not perfect and we have made mistakes. It also means we will continue to not be perfect We will, in all likelihood, continue to make mistakes. That does not make us not-enough. It does not make us bad people. It does not make us any less likeable or lovable. We do not need to be secretive or fearful about those mistakes. We just need to be willing to look at them honestly so we can learn from them. Don't give yourself too much of a hard time about the bankrupt proceedings. I say this because that tends to lead to self-pity and anger - and neither of those are good for sobriety.

This will pass. Drinking would not make anything any better - it'd just stop you learning from the situation.

It is easy to find ourselves focussing on 'The End', but you know, nestling right next to every ending is a new beginning. And our shiny sober new beginning can be that start of something altogether amazing and special. I hope you will look beyond this particular 'The End' and embrace the new start

Take care. BB