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Old 06-22-2018, 08:20 AM
  # 10 (permalink)  
Gottalife
12 Step Recovered Alcoholic
 
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 6,613
This might not be you, but my experience was that whenever I stopped drinking, life got worse. I had a reasonable spell dry after 10 weeks in a rehab. Probably 100 dyas or so. At the end of that I was so unable to cope with life, I couldn't even get out of bed. My solution was to turn back to the bottle. For a time at least, it seemed to supply whatever was the missing ingredient, but I paid a high price in the long run.

It is quite normal with alcoholics to get worse after stopping drinking. That is the nature of alcoholism. It tends to make its presence felt when we stop. It is like an inability to exist happily in the world and there is an emptiness inside. We used to fill it with booze, now dry, we might attempt to fill it with something else. Some describe it as a God sized hole in the soul. Maybe that's it. Or something wrong with our connection to life and the world around us.

For me to get well long term I really had to find away to make my existence reasonably happy and with a purpose that meant something to me. I was able to do that with the AA program.

There are also websites these days that cater specifically to depression and have many good ideas on what can be done short of medication. You could try some of those ideas and see if it helps.
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