ClayTheScribe

Hello,

So I've been sober 104 days now, but I'm about ready to give it up. I don't see how much better my life has got off alcohol or pot and I don't see how my life could get much worse, although it could. I just keep thinking if I had one night of being drunk, that'd give me some peace of mind, even if only for a few hours. I just don't really care about my sobreity anymore, or life in general. I can't find a job, I'm depressed and anxious and I can't talk to my friends about it, or I don't like to because I don't like to burden them. I don't see my depression lifting anytime soon, I'm lazy, lethargic and apathetic. I've been having recurrent thoughts of suicide and how I'd try, but no definite plans yet. I guess I'd more like to just attempt. I feel I have to get to a really low place in my depression before it gets better, therefore drinking will help that. I dunno, I'm lost, frustrated, stuck. What really has me angry at myself is that I was supposed to have started on a novel for this month, like 1,500 words per day and I have like a page and a half written. I know drinking will help get those creative juices flowing again.

I guess I'm just looking for some good advice on why I should continue in my sobreity because I don't see much point anymore.

CarolD

Clay....

I'm sorry to know you are having so many difficulties
I honestly don't know how drinking is going to solve them.

I do know alcohol is a toxic liquid and it caused me a lot
of depression. I hope you will re consider.

Prayer helps me immensley to find peace of mind.

caleb76

I have battled with anxiety and depression some for myself. I have never wanted to commit suicide, though. As far as alcohol is concerned, it makes depression and anxiety worse. Yes, it temporarily relieves these feelings but overall they become worse.

When you drink your neurons become coated with an oxidation layer. Your brain has to work "harder" to operate normally. Once you begin to let the alcohol out of your system, for example going to work or something else. This oxidation layer starts to leave the neurons. This results in excess stimulation in your brain and it leaves you feeling irritable, or anxious. My anxiety has never been worse than it was a few months ago. Alcohol was the major reason it was so bad! Sure I was fine when I drank, but as soon as that stopped I was pulling my hair out. Not literally, but that is what I felt like.

If you are having trouble with anxiety and depression I want to encourage you to seek out the help of a doctor, or maybe even a psychiatrist. The medical community has much more sophisticated tools compared to alcohol to deal with these types of problems.

Also, anxiety and depression can be very manageable if you find the right treatment for yourself.

I am on 10 milligrams of fluoxetine per day and I have never felt better. In fact, most of the major triggers that I used to have are almost nonexistent.

Alcohol, is not the only way to make yourself feel better. Try something else!

ClayTheScribe

I'm feeling a bit better today. I think I just needed a good night's sleep. I was just feeling overwhelmed with all I have to do (chores, finding a job, finding a journalism job, keeping up appearances, staying sober, trying to find confidence so I can get said jobs, getting off lithium) that drinking sounded like a good idea, rather than focusing on what I need to do right now. I'm just at a big transition period in my life (graduating from college, staring my career) that frankly it scares the $hit out of me rather than making me excited. I suppose that's normal and I need to just get over it, but with this depression and anxiety it all seems too much. I just feel so much pressure to be "normal," be confident and be ambitious and it's not coming as quick as I had expected. I just need to quit being such a whiny b*tch and suck it up.

I won't drink today.

Bamboozle

Yes.

Hey, Clay. It's hard for me sometimes to focus on what I need to do at the present moment. I tend to get caught up in everyone else's expectations and I've found that doesn't help me. I do what I gotta do and keep moving forward. Hang in there.

TheSunAlsoRises

Hey Clay,

I know I didn't start to get past those horrible thoughts till I enlarged my spiritual life. I think I remember you talking about a mindfulness approach to recovery you were exploring... Are you sitting everyday? I find that extremely helpful... Keep talking and let us all know how you are doing. Obviously you know that drinking isn't gonna solve anything or you would have done it rather than post...

Another Clayton

ClayTheScribe

I've tried meditating but find it more frustrating than helpful. Maybe I just need to keep trying. As for enlarging my spiritual life, I don't really know where to begin. I feel so disconnected from my spirit or higher self, I can't even imagine what it'd take to get back there, if I was ever even there. I just feel lost and I don't know how to get back home.

TheSunAlsoRises

Yeah man I feel that meditating can be frustrating especially at first. Spiritually its different for everyone, I enjoy nature etc. more than regular religious places. These guys are buddhist but it might be some good food for thought, try searching these names Gil Fronsdal, Jack Kornfield, and Thanissaro bikku all of them have talks online and I find them centering when I feel the committee in my head trying to get started... Might be some good stuff to help reboot your meditation practice... Best of luck man...

December15

104 days of sobriety is really great. You are going through a challenging time but ofcourse the objective challenges wont diminish one bit by drink. We all know there is no such thing as just one drink, so please Clay, make your sobriety survive through this.

Wolfchild

i will not give you any advice on this topic. i will remind you that recovery is a process, not an event. i will tell you that the trustworthy guidance of the 12 Steps & 12 Traditions have produced incredible results in my life. i may not like giving up my negative self destructive urges, but what have they ever gotten me before? Living a new way of life, using the spiritual principles as my foundation, always helps me to move out of my problem and into a new area where there is a solution. Each day presents new opportunities to learn, grow, and apply myself.

i have listened to what you express and often thought about why you seem to be stuck in this pattern of thinking and feeling. i don't have any answears; only experience, strength, and hope to offer you. If you want to live a better way of life please stay committed to making progress, not perfection. You may have some issues that it would be wise to discuss with your doctor and you may have some problems that you should discuss with your sponsor. i will love and support you in your recovery no matter what! i pray you will keep moving forward, whether that is sometimes slowly or sometimes quickly. If you do that, you will eventually get to where you want to be. If you move backwards, you will get to where your disease wants you to be. Your choice, what direction you will go in today?

Thank you staying staying sober for 104 days and giving yourself another chance.

ClayTheScribe

I exercised for an hour today and I'm feeling better, for now. Don't have a desire to drink. Well I do, but I'm not going to. I'm going to try to instill some hope in myself that things will get better. I would like to think they are, but you can never tell...

Lionne

Hey Clay, that's good! Keep on going.
I have been trough a rough patch myself the last days, so I can relate a bit.
Yay for having a more positive outlook
Ps: lots of exercise for me too

killingmesmalls

Hi Clay -
Thank you for your posts. I am a couple weeks behind you, and yes - lately it has been really tough for me too. I thought that quitting drinking would magically solve all my problems, and am rather discouraged to find that it doesn't. At times I miss my old way of escape, taking of the edge, relaxing - whatever - it is now not an option. So I have been going to AA meetings, and I am finding that it helps me tremendously to have people around me that are going through the same difficulties and can just understand where I am at. It took me a while to find the right ones, and I am really glad I kept going to new ones until I found the ones I was finally at home in. I do have a hard time just doing what they advise me to do though. They tell me to pray and I just think - "Really - that's all you got for me?" So I try - maybe half heartedly - and maybe I expect too much. Like some holy experience to come over me like I took X - and that is not what happens. Someone did say something in a meeting that is helping me though - and maybe it will help you too.
"So when you pray to god for courage - does he give you courage - or does he just provide you with an opportunity in which to act courageous?" For some reason looking at it this way helps me through the tougher times of being newly sober. I hope you are doing better in the days to come!

Dee74

So glad you're feeling a little better Clay - lean on your friends here, mate


D

Sikkisirus

Glad you're feeling better Clay. Alcohol might lift you up for a few meagre hours but it only drops you into a deeper hole, there is nothing it makes better.

c49

Exercise and meditating is the only thing that helps me. Go figure, its the most difficult thing to do besides sitting still.

It takes about 1/2 hour of working out to just warm up and then "natures drugs" begin to medicate my mental ills. Gratitude does follow an honest workout.

Charmie

hello Clay.im glad you feel a bit better.anything you feed will grow,anything you starve will shrink.so try and find just a little positivity and keep cultivating it.build on it,do more of whatever makes you feel good and try and keep trying to starve the negative thoughts.its not easy,nobody said it was going to be,but like wolfie said,it is a process.you have to work hard at achieving this,but it is possible,i and many others are proof of this.we are with you.

DesertKate

Why stay sober?

That's an answer each one of us, at the deepest level of our beings, must answer for ourselves. Like you, I have suffered from depression most of my life and I absolutely drank to self medicate that depression. Still, I remained sober for a number of years before medical science came up with Prozac and the newer anti depressants. It was a hard few years, for sure, because the depression was always there in the background, waiting to throw me a choke-hold when something difficult occurred. At one point in my first five years I lost my job and my fiancee left me for another woman- and we had just moved accross country. I went into a deep depression, hated myself, could not sleep, lost tons of weight but STILL I stayed sober. Within six months of this excruciatingly difficult time, I was offered my dream job overseas, where I eventually fell in love again. The point is, if I'd started drinking again, I would never have seen what was right around the proverbial corner.

I hope you find your reason to stay sober. Good luck.

ClayTheScribe

Thank you all for your kind words. I am feeling better today and have no desire to drink 'cause I know ultimately that would just bring me down. Now I just have to keep this good mood going and hope I don't lose it. I'm anticipating some more downs as the lithium leaves my system, but I can try to have faith that it eventually gets better.

I'm going to cover an event for this website I'm working for for First Friday art walk and I'm not nearly as nervous as usually am about going amongst the crowd. Kind of excited actually. I'm going to work out today for an hour again and hope I can keep those good vibes going.

Charmie

thats the way to do it,,keep cultivating your good vibes clay!