Iriss

Hi - I feel I have reached a stage where I really dont want to be drunk anymore, and I don't get the slightest buzz now, from any amount of alcohol, and one is still never enough.

But I dont want to be sober either, as I feel it is a huge mountain I have to climb, to learn to cope and deal with all of my emotions sober. I could cope every day with all emotions, knowing that I could switch off at the end of the day with alcohol.

After a twenty years of blotting my feelings with drink, I want to get to know myself, and learn to deal with life sober....

I am sober today and I guess, it can only ever be, one day at a time...

CAPTAINZING2000

not drinking is the easy part, learning to live with emotions is hard !

NewMe11109

Do a search on PAWS. This may help explain why we don't feel great in recovery for a while. See Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome (PAWS) — Why we don’t get better immediately) Digital Dharma

Give it time. Eventually, you get through it.

Are you actively working on your recovery?

Charmie

hello iriss.
i was exactly like that at the end of my drinking,couldnt live with it,couldnt live without it.
i was terrified of how i was going to cope in the real world without booze.
alcohol was my "solution" to life.
i didnt know how to do anything,interact wiht people,be a sister or mother,or girlfriend.
or just be a friend,i lost all mine.it was all abotu me for such a long time.
so....i stop drinking,then what?
i knew i needed something in my life to replace what i thought alcohol had given me.i needed structure...a plan.
so i went to AA little over a year ago.i got a sponsor an ddid the steps.
life is just great now iriss,i have a plan for living in which it is no longer necessary to drink.
i have made a few very good friends in AA and the fellowship is just one part of it!
have you thought about giving AA a try? what do you have to loose?
i wish you well.

Nevertheless

In my opinion, if you are having a hard time dealing with life sober. AA is the place to go to fix that. It is also the way to get to know yourself if you work at it a little bit.
Fred

keithj

Oh, I hope I can keep this light-hearted, especially in light of your editorializing comments in that Newcomers thread. That got me laughing today.

So, we are advocating to someone with a few days sober, that they need to give it time. That it will eventually get better.

I think we owe that person the truth, and let them come to their own conclusions. Look around at AA, treatment facilities, this forum and observe what happens to people who give it time and do little else. I contend that the vast majority of people who take a passive approach to recovery, who expect the misery of early sobriety to just get better over time, wind up getting drunk within a few months.

I also contend that the people that abandon themselves to actively doing whatever it takes, no hold barred, tend to do a whole lot better.

If waiting until PAWS passes is the answer to feeling better, why do most of the sober for two years drug court participants I see, relapse within a couple months of the pressure being removed by the judicial system? Surely PAWS has run its course by then. They didn't get better over time.

Why are we telling people that it will get better when that isn't the truth for ourselves? I know that when I wasn't drinking, I went through the usual ups and downs of early abstinence, and then returned to drinking. I didn't magically get better over time. Or by waiting. I got better by taking desperate action.

I get it, that we are trying to be encouraging and give newcomers some hope that it gets better. And from your question, NewMe, about actively working on recovery, I know you understand that.

The truth is, it does get better only if I'm willing to go to any length. If I'm not, the truth is that I'm almost assured to return to drinking.

Iriss, pg 152 of AA's Big Book talks about that place where one can not imagine life with or without booze. The jumping off place where you can know loneliness such as few do. I spend a lot of time with people who have reached that place, and I have never see a single one of them achieve sobriety (or have those bad feelings go away) by sitting around waiting to feel better. What I see (and experienced myself) is a little up and down and then things worse than ever.

Charmie

Amen Keith.

NewMe11109

Hi Keith -

My comment about "eventually you will get through it" relates to PAWS, not alcoholism.

PAWS doesn't last forever, but alcoholism does.

I was trying to keep it light with you in my last post, so please take it as that. It wasn't a dig, rather an acknowledgment that I agreed with you.

We absolutely owe everyone the truth. I agree.

tommyg123

hi Iriss I'm Tommyg from South alabama AA the Best AA in the whole World.
I heard you say you wanted to get to know yourself. That is exactly what will happen after the Admitting and the Accepting of the problem. Look at it, admit it, Accept it,
Ask for Help...Let the Help,Help. Boom....Time my friend..it takes time..All those things that you don't think you can do is simply a wrong perception.. That's a head thing.
Join us in the rooms of AA..Start the Journey that will I promise will change your life.
It ain't Easy, but hell if it was we'd all be Sober. Then i couln't help pass the Message of LOVE.. Put on a New Pair of glasses.

Easy does it.

shaun00

Dear iriss.....i have been in that dark awful place.....do wanna drink..dont wanna be sober.
i just wanted to sit in a dark room with my remorse and guilt...leave me alone.

How could i do what i did.......put people through what i did...
and stone cold sober all i wanna do is drink all over again.

but there is hope.....hope to change that mind......to be truly recovered.
that hope for me was laid out simply in the big book in the form of 12 steps.
if your prepared to do some, sometimes uncomfortable step work.

i could put the drink down....bit of medical help and a shove in the right direction.
but i couldnt get free from my sick mind......my alcoholic mind.
the mind that tells me to do it all over again......with the full knowlege of the damage and heart ache it causes...

i dont have that mind today....