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Old 06-30-2018, 03:34 PM
  # 18 (permalink)  
MissPerfumado
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Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: Australia
Posts: 1,499
You sound like a "type A" personality - you hate not being productive, worry about just "puttering about" on a weekend (that's what most folks do on their day off...), and can't stop ruminating about past "failures".

If you are a Type A personality, and the sort who has to be doing something "productive", then can I suggest you put together a recovery plan and work at it. Go and get a notebook and start to make lists. I went and got out my recovery plan while typing this. My list headings and some examples:

(1) My support people and contact numbers (family, close friends, GP, counsellor)
(2) Daily recovery practices (waking early, exercising, posting on SR, reading something positive)
(3) Weekly recovery practices (counselling session, call my mum, doing yoga, getting a massage, tidying the house)
(4) Triggers (evenings alone, travelling, special occasions)
(5) Strategies for dealing with triggers (logging onto SR, going for a run, "urge-surfing", playing the tape through)
(6) Goals - health, professional, appearance, personal

That part of you with will and discipline will likely perk up doing this. Just doing it ought to give you hope for a future. Visualise that sober person who will do all those things. That person is waiting to emerge again.

The anxiety and depression are likely the effects of alcohol. I became anxious when I was drinking, and could not see a future - I am usually a very optimistic person. I also became paranoid in the latter stages of my drinking, and even imagined people who were having unconnected private conversations at work were really discussing my drinking problem.

As the physical effects of alcohol lifted, the old me returned. I fixed on that recovery plan like my life depended on it (and it did).

Don't put pressure on yourself to feel better straight away, just get the plan together and dedicate yourself to following it and staying sober.
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