Dime

I have just been reading back through this and am noticing how screwed up my thinking is and how my perception is way off. I am going to try to meet some folks for eats before a meeting tonight that I have been avoiding for weeks. I think they have been asking me simply because they know I am not right. Bottom line is that if I continue to isolate I am doomed.

I really don't know how to fix this but for right now I will continue to push myself.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions.

aasharon90

What part of Texas are you from?

Dime

First big city down I 10 from you that has that "Big Park" with the oval running path. Houston has over 2000 meetings per week and a zillion alcoholics. I guess I fit in!

RobbyRobot

Isolating is also a protective action from ongoing interaction with people, places, and things. One clue is that you're defensive about criticism concerning your program performance and your efforts to seek a solution.

You're doing all the right moves but the doom n' gloom keeps creeping forward...

IMO you are attempting to face an internal emotional struggle of some importance that is deep, stubborn and resisting your "everyday program". The fact that you have been to this scene before and you still have no thinking resolution pretty well cinches it for me that you are struggling with an emotional/feeling kind of challenge...

having said that, i would encourage you to search not for a problem today in your life but one from your distant past and also look to your future as well... something is bothering you that is either below your present time awareness or you're in some kind of denial thing...

anyways i'm just passing on my ES&H. Awkward feelings are sometimes overlooked when we have otherwise great things going on. We don't always have to feel bad to search out the shady corners in our feelings... we all have them no need to be shy of ourselves and/or hide away from others.

You know more than me what is behind you.... whatever is causing you fear should be respected and dealt with.

take care

Robby

irishmalcolm

Perfect opportunity to deepen meditation practice. Are you isolating, or making a decision to be alone? I spend a lot of time alone, through choice, because I enjoy it. I am there for my family, friends and other members of the Fellowship. I'll go to a meeting 4/5 times a week. Other than that I find silence, solitude and spiritual practice to be the anthesis of my life in active addiction. There are some excellent books on solitude and it's virtues. Sometimes I think it's expected of us to "be" exactly the role society creates for the ideal citizen, and one who learns true independence and inter-dependance is taking a radical spiritual path. However it goes for you, I wish you peace serenity and love from the Emerald Isle.

ufe

I definitely think isolation is one of the games alcoholics play.

I played it when as a kid, my mum was paralytic by the time I got home from school. I couldn't bear bringing anyone into the house smelling like wine, and seeing her passed out naked in the middle of the lounge room. So I had less, and less friends as time went on.

I started work after my mum died, and began to develop friendships, but my work determined that I spend 7/8ths the year away, I don't know if this was my choice or not, but my friends started to drift away.

That's when I turned to alcohol, then I started turning even my family away. It's a vicious circle, noone wants to see, be involved with or hear a drunk, incoherent idiot.

It was only a month into sobriety that I realise that I have conditioned myself to believe that I need isolating. A year later, I have many close, real friends I can count on, and they can count on me. Not one of them is an alcoholic that I know of, but that's not by choice.

Stick with it, you're worth friendship, and have proven by getting sober you have a lot to give!!!!!!

karrotop

hi dime....I,too,tend to isolate myself and push people away....i find great comfort and safety in stayng home,alone.......when i would drink,i would be here,noone would know,and i wasn't out in the car.....I was SAFE.


now that i am trying to stay sober,home is still SAFE....i don't have to expose myself to people or to any opportunity to drink....

It's all ok now....i'd rather be here,alone and sober....for now...once i start feeling alittle better and more confident about my decision not to drink,i will venture out into the big,bad world.....

Just stay sober.......everything else will work out in time,and i do think therapy will help....it's helped me.....

aasharon90

I so enjoyed that park when i was living there.

The Park is off Elderidge I think....

Post Oak AA meeting was one of
my favorite meetings i enjoyed
except i was a nervous wreck
when i got there at noon after
i fast pace hectic drive to there.

One right around the corner from
me on Addicks Satsumma.

However i hooked up here to SR
most of the time i was living in
Houston all the way to them helping
me thru my move back home to
Baton Rouge, divorce and everything
else.....

SR has been my life line to recovery
when not at a face to face meeting.

Thank you SR..!

CarolD

ufe....
Welcome back to SR!

Dime

Powerful stuff Robby, that's a lot to think about. As a person in recovery I don’t have to look hard to realize troubling things from my past and uncertainty in the future. In my case I had a wonderful family evaporate due to my drinking and that isn't something that I will ever get over period. Acceptance on an intellectual level is a cake walk compared to acceptance on an emotional level. Realistically the great things going on in my life today seem pale and superficial in comparison with spending any amount of time with my family. Anyone with children will understand.

Meditation is an activity that I do not connect with at all. I listened to various tapes and I cannot relate to focusing on the space between two letters or humming, groaning and things like that. Another tape I had the speaker talked so that you couldn’t hear what they were saying and that was the technique. Now if I am offshore in a boat watching the sunrise meditation and letting go seems plausible but in my bedroom listening to some guy grunt? I rather just send the guy a laxative!

I still am very open to meditation if anyone can identify with what I am trying to say here. Just no Ohhhsss, Ummmsss, Ahhhsss unless of course somebody special is giving me a reason to utter that stuff!! Hmmm, maybe isolation is not such a good thing after all……………

Dime

Wow,
Thanks everybody else that is helping here. I missed the entire page 2 this morning and didn't see all the additional posts.

Sharon you're right the drive to Post Oak is intense. I went there once at a couple of months and some guy was on a rant about how he was feeling suicidal but now he was better and just feeling homicidal. I haven't been back since but I think it was just an isolated incident but it does stick in the memory.

Thanks so much!

irishmalcolm

Hi Dime,
Meditation is so many things to so many people. There are meditative practices in all the religious paths I can think of.
If I may suggest a book for people in recovery, that has no religious element to sign up to, but was a great help to me in developing some sensible practices is "Full Catastrophe Living (How to cope with stress, pain and illness using mindfulness meditation)" and it's accompanying CD.
It sets out a definite program, is flexible and you can do it without frightening the horses on the street.
It was written (and recorded) by Jon Kabat-Zinn. He is the director of The Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. The book is the program they use there.

Pilgrim

Hi Dime,

Coming to SR is not isolating. It's chock full of struggling alcoholics you can help.

Did you have a spiritual experience as the result of the steps? How much time are you spending working with others (taking them through the steps) and how much time did you spend with your higher power today?

Sometimes we forget to look for our part in difficult situations. Any resentments or fears hanging around?

Don't forget to ask in your morning prayers for your thoughts to be directed and divorced from self seeking self pity and dishonesty.

Sorry to quote when you asked us not to but the book has all the answers we need.

Dime

Thanks IrishMalcolm,
I will check that out. Is the tape the same as the book? I see both being offered.

irishmalcolm

Hi Dime,
The book contains a very comprehensive stress management program. The CD contains 4 guided meditations that are at the heart of the course. There is 1 Guided Body Scan meditation, 1 Sitting meditation and 2 Yoga meditations. I love the sitting meditation, which is about 40 minutes and practiced frequently is as much as you need to know to have a full formal meditative experience. The body scan meditation is so relaxing I have never actually stayed awake to the end! It is important to point out that meditation is not a relaxation therapy, it's more a NOW therapy. How to be awake to the here and now. Much of our anxieties and fears come from the fear of the future, or regrets from the past. Often in the past if I have suggested meditation to people I'm working with, they often reply that their minds are to chaotic. I try to explain that that is great! A lot to work with. Learning to see your thoughts as random, uncontrollable and transitory is a powerful lesson. We can begin to see them for what they are, and lose our reactivity to them, often mistaking them for how we actually are.

pinetree

Good suggestions. Maybe it is time you found some other interest. Invite someone to a movie or out to eat. Sometimes it just takes time. That four lettered word. Most alcoholics I know have trouble with socializing, making friends, etc. Keep coming back. Love in AA Pinetree

MsChief

After an absence of almost 2 years I attended my Home Group last night, alone (I have been suffering from agoraphobia). I was so stressed about going back to that particular meeting because I was worried about seeing my ex clients. (I used to work in a rehab just around the corner from the meeting). However, I wanted to see the people who had watched me grow in sobriety and so made the journey with humility and fear. I nearly came straight home as soon as I got there because of the fear but I remembered that I need to expose myself to my fears in order to conquer them.

Face Everything And Recover!!

I was inspired by some of the shares and was appreciative of the welcome I received. However, I have a saying and it is "every meeting has an Uncle Knob Head" (British people will understand - a la Peter Kay - UK comedian) He was droning on about being off the booze and that was all he wanted from AA and his share was exactly the same one I heard 2 years ago. I noticed people in the room raising their eyebrows etc. and I just kept thinking, 'some of us are sicker than others' as it states in the BB. It helped!

I just had to remember my primary purpose (to stay sober and to help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety) and realise that the only inventory I am qualified to take is my own.

Thanks to all for your support.

colettely

im also 16 months sober and am going through the same thing i talked to people at a meeting and they told me that they where the same at this stage and all we can do is keep going to meetings and doing the suggested things untill it passes and we can get through it the time i spend isolating i now spend wrighting or playing the accordion and try to change it to my hobby time

yukonm

I have been sober for a little over 19 months and I find myself isolating at times. I do know that for me, it's not a good thing. When I am all alone, my disease has a greater chance of getting into my head. When I realize that I am isolating, I start calling people and letting them know. Most times, I have already ignored calls from those who have missed me. My disease is powerful and I believe that it progresses even when I am not using/drinking. The only way I have any chance in a battle with this disease is to stay armed with recovery tools. My recovery must progress at a greater rate than the disease and this takes work. I am not always willing to do the work, that is when I depend on others to encourage me and support me. In the end though, it is me that has to take the action. Today I want to stay sober.