Don't think I can go on
Sally1009
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 467
Don't think I can go on
Hi Everyone.
I'm newish - joined in May, having been sober for a week. But since then have been sinking. I started drinking much more heavily in July; on the anniversary of my late husband's birthday (he died last year). I know that is an excuse, but the grief was and is, enormous, and the only thing that takes the pain away is alcohol. (Of course, yes, the pain returns two-fold hours later).
I just don't know what to do anymore. I feel like I have lost the will to live, that although I am agnostic, I just want to join my husband. What stops me taking my life is the pain it would cause my three children and grandson. But I'm out of hope.
My two adult sons live with me, but the eldest is a great worry - when his Dad died he took an overdose, and I suggested he move back to live with me and my youngest son. So I worry about him all the time. Friends have fallen away - and the massive depession that fills my waking hours has now turned into agoraphobia, which is new, and keeps me in bed almost all day, which is depressing all in itself...I'm desperately lonely, yet paradoxically I feel unable to be around people. I keep turning down invitations despite wanting to accept them. Don't know WHAT that is about...
Anyway, hope I haven't bored you - hope to hear from someone though.
Love,
Sally
I'm newish - joined in May, having been sober for a week. But since then have been sinking. I started drinking much more heavily in July; on the anniversary of my late husband's birthday (he died last year). I know that is an excuse, but the grief was and is, enormous, and the only thing that takes the pain away is alcohol. (Of course, yes, the pain returns two-fold hours later).
I just don't know what to do anymore. I feel like I have lost the will to live, that although I am agnostic, I just want to join my husband. What stops me taking my life is the pain it would cause my three children and grandson. But I'm out of hope.
My two adult sons live with me, but the eldest is a great worry - when his Dad died he took an overdose, and I suggested he move back to live with me and my youngest son. So I worry about him all the time. Friends have fallen away - and the massive depession that fills my waking hours has now turned into agoraphobia, which is new, and keeps me in bed almost all day, which is depressing all in itself...I'm desperately lonely, yet paradoxically I feel unable to be around people. I keep turning down invitations despite wanting to accept them. Don't know WHAT that is about...
Anyway, hope I haven't bored you - hope to hear from someone though.
Love,
Sally
12-Step Recovered Alkie
Join Date: May 2010
Location: West Bloomfield, MI
Posts: 5,797
I know this sounds absolutely insane but I'm going to say it anyway: What a glorious and fortunate place you're in!!
I was deeply saddened by what you wrote but, on the other hand, it reminded me of when I have felt that way - no hope, full of fear, alone, depressed, full of guilt and shame.....on and on. That was THE only time I was finally willing to, as the book says, "completely give myself to this simple program."
carpe diem Sally.... this can be a fantastic opportunity for you to be completely open and willing - willing to do ANYTHING (whatever "anything" is...) to get well. I can absolutely promise you can recover...you'll probably have to do some things you don't necessarily WANT to do.....but if you do them you CAN recover!
I was deeply saddened by what you wrote but, on the other hand, it reminded me of when I have felt that way - no hope, full of fear, alone, depressed, full of guilt and shame.....on and on. That was THE only time I was finally willing to, as the book says, "completely give myself to this simple program."
carpe diem Sally.... this can be a fantastic opportunity for you to be completely open and willing - willing to do ANYTHING (whatever "anything" is...) to get well. I can absolutely promise you can recover...you'll probably have to do some things you don't necessarily WANT to do.....but if you do them you CAN recover!
Member
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Land of Cotton
Posts: 3,433
((((Sally)))) We most definitely care about you!! I'm so glad you're here. SR is an amazing place and I pray that you stick around, post often, and keep us updated.
I've been through depression before and found that medication was a life-saver. Have you talked to any doctors (honestly) about your situation? Did you ever try any grief support groups? Please let us know a bit more about you.
In the meantime.... I am praying for you.
I've been through depression before and found that medication was a life-saver. Have you talked to any doctors (honestly) about your situation? Did you ever try any grief support groups? Please let us know a bit more about you.
In the meantime.... I am praying for you.
Forward we go...side by side-Rest In Peace
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Serene In Dixie
Posts: 36,740
tjp613 and DT gave excelleent suggestions
I will add.....
depression is why I began AA recovery
and the AA Steps are how I live in balance.
Welcome back to our recovery community Sally
I will add.....
depression is why I began AA recovery
and the AA Steps are how I live in balance.
Welcome back to our recovery community Sally
Sally1009
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 467
Thank you for your kind words. Yes, I have taken the medication route - sometimes helpful, sometimes not. Am currently on my third day of Citalopram - feel very nauseous on it. Came off Zopiclone three months ago - a sleeping tablet I was very addicted to, but as a result insomnia is a huge problem, and one of the reasons I drink.
I live in a part of the UK where AA meetings are far away, and I feel very anxious driving long distances. I don't know....I just want my darling husband back. He was a beautiful man - a clinical psychologist and incredibly talented keyboard player. He had spent 33 years helping others, including myself, and then out of nowhere, at only 55, he got bowel cancer.It was six months of agony seeing him waste away, humiliated by his colostomy bag, worried for me...I suppose I should be grateful for the 27 years I had with him, to have had such a happy marriage. But I can't touch that gratitude right now. I just feel I don't know how to live in a world where he doesn't exist. x
I live in a part of the UK where AA meetings are far away, and I feel very anxious driving long distances. I don't know....I just want my darling husband back. He was a beautiful man - a clinical psychologist and incredibly talented keyboard player. He had spent 33 years helping others, including myself, and then out of nowhere, at only 55, he got bowel cancer.It was six months of agony seeing him waste away, humiliated by his colostomy bag, worried for me...I suppose I should be grateful for the 27 years I had with him, to have had such a happy marriage. But I can't touch that gratitude right now. I just feel I don't know how to live in a world where he doesn't exist. x
12-Step Recovered Alkie
Join Date: May 2010
Location: West Bloomfield, MI
Posts: 5,797
Originally Posted by Sally1009 
I suppose I should be grateful for the 27 years I had with him, to have had such a happy marriage. But I can't touch that gratitude right now. I just feel I don't know how to live in a world where he doesn't exist. x
A work in progress
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: South Jersey
Posts: 16,633
I'm sorry for the loss of your husband. It sounds like your grief is overwhelming.
As you well know, the alcohol is interfering with your ability to heal, though. And I'm quite sure your husband wouldn't have wanted you to be in any hurry to "join him". If you were on your deathbed, and he were alive, would you want him to stop living? He sounds like a wonderful man, and I'm positive he would want you to miss him and grieve him, but then go on and live your life until your proper time. He would be very sad, indeed, to see you wasting away in bed, too sick and afraid to go out and enjoy life.
My suggestion to you is to find a good therapist to help you stop drinking and deal with some of your overwhelming grief. If you can get well enough to get out of the house, AA will give you some wonderful new friends with which to surround yourself. You will be much less lonely and you can begin a whole new life.
I sense that you are NOT ready to give up on life, or you would not have posted here. There is a little spark still glowing inside you that wants to bring you back to the world.
Please reach out for some help. It's out there, if you will make just a little effort.
As you well know, the alcohol is interfering with your ability to heal, though. And I'm quite sure your husband wouldn't have wanted you to be in any hurry to "join him". If you were on your deathbed, and he were alive, would you want him to stop living? He sounds like a wonderful man, and I'm positive he would want you to miss him and grieve him, but then go on and live your life until your proper time. He would be very sad, indeed, to see you wasting away in bed, too sick and afraid to go out and enjoy life.
My suggestion to you is to find a good therapist to help you stop drinking and deal with some of your overwhelming grief. If you can get well enough to get out of the house, AA will give you some wonderful new friends with which to surround yourself. You will be much less lonely and you can begin a whole new life.
I sense that you are NOT ready to give up on life, or you would not have posted here. There is a little spark still glowing inside you that wants to bring you back to the world.
Please reach out for some help. It's out there, if you will make just a little effort.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Lowell
Posts: 345
Originally Posted by Sally1009
I just want my darling husband back. He was a beautiful man - a clinical psychologist and incredibly talented keyboard player. He had spent 33 years helping others, including myself, and then out of nowhere, at only 55, he got bowel cancer.It was six months of agony seeing him waste away, humiliated by his colostomy bag, worried for me...I suppose I should be grateful for the 27 years I had with him, to have had such a happy marriage. But I can't touch that gratitude right now. I just feel I don't know how to live in a world where he doesn't exist. x
Can't help but wonder how your husband would feel about the way you feel, giving up on living. I can't imagine that is what he would want you to do. He is resting in peace now and is in a good place. You haven't lost him because he will forever be in your heart. You should reach for that gratitude of having such a wonderful man in your life that shared such wonderful experiences of his own with you. There are many people today that have never shared such an experience and probably never will.
It could be your turn now to share your wonderfful experiences with other people, as your husband did. You can take over where he left off. Share those experiences with your three children and your grandson. You have so much to live for and so much to give. Unfortunately, alcohol is removing all that is good from you. Don't let it defeat you. Prove to king alcohol that you don't need him and you can and will stand on your two feet and live again.
I feel pretty sure that is what your husband would want.
My thoughts and prayers are with you. God be with you and God bless.
Harry
Member
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Toronto, ON
Posts: 1,591
Sally, I think it's hard to say anything that will do any good when it comes to bereavement. You sound like you know what is happening though - how the alcohol dupes you into thinking the void is filled, that the the wound is sealed. When I stopped drinking, it wasn't the thought of special individuals I'd lost that made me reach the point of quitting. I would think of them and consider that they probably wouldn't want to see me like I was (and wouldn't want that for me), but of course addictive drinking would put it out of my mind often enough. I have described what I was going through prior to quitting last year, and I'm still not sure why I wanted to in a specific way; just that I was getting tired of living in a state of stagnation, and that it was about me.
I can relate to the paradoxes you mention, wanting to venture out and be among others yet at the same time retreating from it. There are also times that I don't want to fall asleep and then don't want to get out of bed, and that seemed to surface after I quit drinking. A couple of months before I quit, I remember taking a few days off work, and I slept a couple of entire days away out of some kind of exhaustion or breakdown, I don't know.
I've been getting better though, and I can't go back to drinking. I think I have some more work to do, but drinking would only hinder any progress. In fact, drinking was like a 15-year delusion that there was nothing wrong.
I hope you'll find your way out of this and do what you need to in order to carry on. If you don't think you will see yourself going to AA meetings, then maybe you can make the most of communicating with others here and gain something from the process of explaining your own experience as well as reading that of others.
I can relate to the paradoxes you mention, wanting to venture out and be among others yet at the same time retreating from it. There are also times that I don't want to fall asleep and then don't want to get out of bed, and that seemed to surface after I quit drinking. A couple of months before I quit, I remember taking a few days off work, and I slept a couple of entire days away out of some kind of exhaustion or breakdown, I don't know.
I've been getting better though, and I can't go back to drinking. I think I have some more work to do, but drinking would only hinder any progress. In fact, drinking was like a 15-year delusion that there was nothing wrong.
I hope you'll find your way out of this and do what you need to in order to carry on. If you don't think you will see yourself going to AA meetings, then maybe you can make the most of communicating with others here and gain something from the process of explaining your own experience as well as reading that of others.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Chicago
Posts: 166
Originally Posted by Sally1009
Hi Everyone.
I'm newish - joined in May, having been sober for a week. But since then have been sinking. I started drinking much more heavily in July; on the anniversary of my late husband's birthday (he died last year). I know that is an excuse, but the grief was and is, enormous, and the only thing that takes the pain away is alcohol. (Of course, yes, the pain returns two-fold hours later).
I just don't know what to do anymore. I feel like I have lost the will to live, that although I am agnostic, I just want to join my husband. What stops me taking my life is the pain it would cause my three children and grandson. But I'm out of hope.
My two adult sons live with me, but the eldest is a great worry - when his Dad died he took an overdose, and I suggested he move back to live with me and my youngest son. So I worry about him all the time. Friends have fallen away - and the massive depession that fills my waking hours has now turned into agoraphobia, which is new, and keeps me in bed almost all day, which is depressing all in itself...I'm desperately lonely, yet paradoxically I feel unable to be around people. I keep turning down invitations despite wanting to accept them. Don't know WHAT that is about...
Anyway, hope I haven't bored you - hope to hear from someone though.
Love,
Sally
I'm newish - joined in May, having been sober for a week. But since then have been sinking. I started drinking much more heavily in July; on the anniversary of my late husband's birthday (he died last year). I know that is an excuse, but the grief was and is, enormous, and the only thing that takes the pain away is alcohol. (Of course, yes, the pain returns two-fold hours later).
I just don't know what to do anymore. I feel like I have lost the will to live, that although I am agnostic, I just want to join my husband. What stops me taking my life is the pain it would cause my three children and grandson. But I'm out of hope.
My two adult sons live with me, but the eldest is a great worry - when his Dad died he took an overdose, and I suggested he move back to live with me and my youngest son. So I worry about him all the time. Friends have fallen away - and the massive depession that fills my waking hours has now turned into agoraphobia, which is new, and keeps me in bed almost all day, which is depressing all in itself...I'm desperately lonely, yet paradoxically I feel unable to be around people. I keep turning down invitations despite wanting to accept them. Don't know WHAT that is about...
Anyway, hope I haven't bored you - hope to hear from someone though.
Love,
Sally
It is never a bad thing to talk with a doctor! I was hesitant but so glad I finally scheduled an appointment...
Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Chicago
Posts: 166
Also, the anxiety became much worse after the deaths in my family. Not sure why, but this system of the brain can have its chemistry upset pretty easily due to high levels of stress. When this happens, you end up with anxiety and depression. If you drink, you are making your anxiety and depression worse. A good psychiatrist can help balance off the levels in your brain, he/she may also help you develop a recovery plan that works!
Anxiety and depression are very treatable now, let an expert help you...
We can help too, but not in the same way as an MD. Anyway, hope this helps...
Anxiety and depression are very treatable now, let an expert help you...
We can help too, but not in the same way as an MD. Anyway, hope this helps...
Sally1009
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 467
Thank you so much to everyone who responded to my posts. You are very kind. I know I have to get back to AA -it is just the agoraphobia I have to fight.I
I know I also need a therapist, but in the UK it is a different system. The waiting lists are very long- we can't choose who we get, and I can't afford to go private.£100 is the average... So there is not much professional support.But I'm glad I've found this site. You seem a great group.It's just trying to find hope at the moment.the future feels very scary cos tho I am not ready at all to meet another man, I would be terrified to live alone- never have. But who would want a broken down 54 yr old alcholic?! Unfortunately I have no siblings or close family other than my kids. My daughter lives 200 miles away and isn't. talking to me just now - she said Al-anon advised her not to, so that's pretty awful. I'm obviously risking losing my sons too, so I know I have to stop.
Anyway, thanks again everyone,
Sally x
I know I also need a therapist, but in the UK it is a different system. The waiting lists are very long- we can't choose who we get, and I can't afford to go private.£100 is the average... So there is not much professional support.But I'm glad I've found this site. You seem a great group.It's just trying to find hope at the moment.the future feels very scary cos tho I am not ready at all to meet another man, I would be terrified to live alone- never have. But who would want a broken down 54 yr old alcholic?! Unfortunately I have no siblings or close family other than my kids. My daughter lives 200 miles away and isn't. talking to me just now - she said Al-anon advised her not to, so that's pretty awful. I'm obviously risking losing my sons too, so I know I have to stop.
Anyway, thanks again everyone,
Sally x
Member
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Land of Cotton
Posts: 3,433
Keep talking to us Sally, ok? Check in tomorrow and let us know how you're feeling. We'll be worried if you don't!
You don't even have to go to a meeting if you don't want to. Call your local AA and I'm sure they'd be more than happy to send someone over to talk with you! Just call!
You don't even have to go to a meeting if you don't want to. Call your local AA and I'm sure they'd be more than happy to send someone over to talk with you! Just call!
A work in progress
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: South Jersey
Posts: 16,633
Yup, tjp has a great idea there. And go ahead and get on that waiting list. The sooner you get on it, the sooner you will be able to work with somebody.
Here's something else--when I was at the end of my own drinking, I only went out when I absolutely had to, too. It turns out that the alcohol was ramping up my anxiety, and once I got sober for a few weeks, it disappeared! So if you can work on getting rid of the booze, you might find yourself a lot better able to cope with things, and even start getting out of the house.
Here's something else--when I was at the end of my own drinking, I only went out when I absolutely had to, too. It turns out that the alcohol was ramping up my anxiety, and once I got sober for a few weeks, it disappeared! So if you can work on getting rid of the booze, you might find yourself a lot better able to cope with things, and even start getting out of the house.
Sunny Side Up
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Sth Australia
Posts: 3,802
Sally :ghug3
GET BUSY!! I know the pain hun, I really ,really do. I lost my young sister last November and I still cry most days, quietly.
You have to get busy, I know this is so easy for me to say but thats what I did. I would have gone mad if I didnt keep busy.
Seriously Sally, do you think your husband would be happy to see you like this. Give the man, some respect and get up and get on with it. When you do finally meet him again (like I will meet my sis) I want to look good for her. I was drinking too and occassionally still do. Its ok to feel the pain but the booze wont make you feel better, its gonna make you feel so much worse.
Start going places, put on a bit of lippy and go out, go shopping, do some gardening, whatever it takes to get you out of that bed.
I'll be watching your posts, so lets get on with it ok, sally !!!
Luvya JJ
GET BUSY!! I know the pain hun, I really ,really do. I lost my young sister last November and I still cry most days, quietly.
You have to get busy, I know this is so easy for me to say but thats what I did. I would have gone mad if I didnt keep busy.
Seriously Sally, do you think your husband would be happy to see you like this. Give the man, some respect and get up and get on with it. When you do finally meet him again (like I will meet my sis) I want to look good for her. I was drinking too and occassionally still do. Its ok to feel the pain but the booze wont make you feel better, its gonna make you feel so much worse.
Start going places, put on a bit of lippy and go out, go shopping, do some gardening, whatever it takes to get you out of that bed.
I'll be watching your posts, so lets get on with it ok, sally !!!
Luvya JJ
Sally1009
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 467
Oh dear - I don't think I uploaded my reply properly. Anyway, just wanted to say thanks so much for your posts - I didn't drink today! Thanks to you guys and your wise advice. It's not much, just one day, but if it hadn't been for you I would have been on my third bottle of wine by now. So a million thanks xxx
Sally
Sally
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