scared1

Well it's not just you that "does stupid ****" when drunk. I am right with you. I am afraid to be sober, I never have been but I know I am tired of looking stupid and feeling shameful. I don't know how we became out of control but the fact is... we do. I am glad you now know you can't handle alcohol and need to refrain from it. Good for you. Be strong.

least

It might be that some of those "normal" people have an unrecognized problem with alcohol and all they know to do is drink. I used to wonder/agonize over why I can't drink like normal people. But after a few months of sobriety I stopped thinking that, stopped wishing for the ability to drink 'normally' 'cause I felt so damn good I didn't want to be a drinker! I no longer waste my energy wondering why I am who I am - I just am, that's all, and I'm learning to love who I am.

Wishing for the moon won't bring it closer... Unfair or not, that's just the way it is. Spend your energy being glad you won't fall victim to the many bad things that alcohol brings: accidents, sickness, jail, job/family loss, and death.

It took me a while to get to this point but today I'm so glad I don't drink!!

whenartdeparts

Believe me...I'm in the same situation. BUT I'm an undergraduate so I get to hang around with all them silly "cool party people" every ******* day. Not to mention all the "grown ups with prosperous jobs", whose motto is "Work Hard. Party Harder", that I need to tolerate quite often... Everybody I know literally *lives* to party. I don't know how they manage to not overdo it like I did.
The world revolves around alcohol and drugs and only the people that develop a problem with it detach from it...
I was asking myself the same question yesterday, probably it's normal for early recovery: "Why me? Why *exactly* me? Of all the dumb asses and a-holes, why me?" But maybe that's not necessarily a curse, I figured. It's better if we clean up our acts now, while we are still young so that our future depends on our brains, not our livers lol
By the way, from what I've read in your posts, I can tell you you wouldn't even be classified as an alcoholic in England (esp. at university). Here this is just STANDARD. You have to really go overboard to raise suspicion haha That of course should not give you an excuse to continue drinking! If you do continue, just keep in mind it's all downhill from here...It only gets worse. Never gets better till you sober up for life.
I've been at your stage of "alcoholism", I sobered up for around 90 days...then relapsed. And if I could go back in time I would have never done it. But oh well....I need to fail some tests several times in order to learn my lesson. Make sure you don't do the same. Pass the test now and never look back

Dee74

Hi Undead

I spent a lot of years wondered 'why me' and cursing that fact.
I spent a lot of years cursing my disability too.

In the end, all that effort, all that angst got me precisely nowhere.

I hate to be Swami Dee here, but we have to do what we can with the hand we've been dealt...

I've found my alcoholism to be not so much a curse as a blessing in a lot of ways...

I found something meaningful to do with my life, I found a loving partner, to who I am a good partner back, I'm healthier than I've ever been - and happier...and for the first time ever I like who I am.

Those are some pretty good gifts and I got them all from simply accepting the fact I was an alcoholic and realising it made more sense to walk away from the wall than to beat my head against it....

D

LaFemme

I like what Swami Dee said:-)

You can have a "why me?" Attitude or you can vdiew it as an opportunity. You get to get sober young...I am jealous, even though I'm not ancient.

My view on life is that without the dark the light isnt quite as special. If you make it intimate the lightt it will be worth it. I'm not 100% there yet, but I can see it up ahead and its gorgeous :-)

TheEnd

I understand how you may feel, I have people congratulating me on how good I'm doing on my sobriety and then in the same breath they are enjoying their drinks.

I could feel sorry for myself and say why can't I do that, and the answer is I can do that, but I'm choosing not to do that, because of all the negative consequences it was bringing in my life.

I read this quote on a shirt "Sobriety: If not completely sastisfied, we'll gladly refund your misery"

Boleo

As long as I looked at my alcoholism from the perspective of a victim, I suffered. When I started looking at my alcoholism from the perspective of a student, I recovered.

DayTrader

The odds of the world changing to make you happy is unlikely.

Perhaps they're not all alcoholics and maybe you are.

If you are, and they're not, that's your answer.

I'd suggest getting recovered quickly. I don't know many alcoholics who live in feelings like that for long. They either get recovered or drunk & recovered > drunk

Toronto68

Undead, I don't blame you for having bouts of Woe Is Me, because it does feel unfair to have challenges that are not fun.

I like what Boleo said though, because there can be a feeling of success in turning the woe around. It was a satisfaction for me to really get a grip on the fact that I couldn't really change what I had (alcoholism), although I could repeat the current day of drinklessness again. Then a sense of gratitude for all kinds of other things (seeing, walking, not being in a hospital, not being dead; take your pick) would come over me, and I still bear these things in mind. I guess there's a process of simplifying what a Woe really is and doesn't have to be, and then things get better.

And I guess that is a drawn-out version of the Serenity Prayer (what you can change, what you cannot, and the liveability between the two). It IS possible to live through the daily stuff without "woe," but sometimes it's painful, other times easy.

And besides: what do undergraduates know? (Just a little humorous slant on it for you.)

artsoul

Yeah, it would be nice to feel like a part of the crowd. I miss certain parts of the socializing, but to be honest, I paid dearly for that "pretend" enjoyment. The truth is that we're so dumbed down during those times, it's not like the real us is the one having fun anyway.

When I start feeling sorry for myself, I try to think of all the things that I have to be grateful for and the positive stuff I can get out of sobriety. And then I think about all the people who have cancer, asking the same "Why Me?"

It's hard to be patient, but that horrible boredom does goes away.

cakeeater

Gonna play knowitall a little bit

Your urges will twist your thinking to suit it's needs. For me at the root of it all typically I found nothing but an intense urge to consume alcohol. That urge doesn't understand consequences or your judgments or care about your values. Be careful and think about this Undead. You feel like your missing something, you say "I'm cursed because I can never drink again" as if it's a rule that's been imposed upon you, maybe you start feeling angry, maybe you start feeling hopeless, etc etc, Next thing you know you're sloshed and cursing yourself for drinking once again. That's how relapses happen. Think about why you're saying this self defeating crap to yourself.

OK I'm done

Bamboozle

The longer sober the more that feeling changes or goes away.

You start to view the world through a different lens--I've come to see that most people do not have a drinking problem...and that there are several people who don't drink at all.

My world went from revolving around alcohol to completely not. I don't live for the next buzz. I just live.

Mark75

I used to think like that, but that's not the reality. It was the world I made for myself, the world I lived in.... that world revolved around alcohol and drugs. It was the alcohol and drugs that actually caused detachment from the world... Detaching from alcohol and drugs has brought me back to the real world.

That's been my experience.

jamdls

Why me? A dear friend of mine has pancreatic cancer and will be gone within a year, why her? another friend had breast cancer and lost both breasts, why her? A co-worker has a 22 yr old daughter with cancer, why her? I am allergic to alcohol, just like so-and-so has a peanut or shellfish allergy, no big deal I just have to stay away from alcohol like they stay away from the food product they are allergic to.

DayTrader

Just read this today and it reminded me of this thread.

It's from Sermon on the Mount by Emmet Fox and this particular quote comes from Fox's explanation of the part of the Lord's Prayer that says "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven."

from p159 of Sermon on the Mount
"Thy kingdom come" means that it is our duty to be every occupied in helping to establish the Kingdom of God on earth. That is to say, our work is to bring more and more of God's ideas into concrete manifestation upon this plane. That is what we are here for. The old saying, "God has a plan for every man, and he has one for you," is quite correct. God has glorious and wonderful plans for every one of us; He has planned a splendid career, full of interest, life, and joy, for each and if our lives are dull, or restricted, or squalid, that is not His fault, but ours.
If you only find out the thing God intends you to do, and will do it, you will find that all doors will open to you; all obstacles in your path will melt away; you will be acclaimed a brilliant success; you will be most liberally rewarded from the monetary point of view; and you will be gloriously happy.


Heh....now THAT'S a heckuva promise. The question is how long do I want to avoid searching for the path...and the answer? How long do I want to stay locked into my old ways, my old thinking, my old preconceptions, and my old prejudgments of things?

BellaTeal

Yeah it feels like everything revolves around drinking, doesn’t it? I’m in college and this year I’m rooming with 4 other girls and they LOVE to party. We’re all over 21 so we’re allowed to have alcohol in our room and there is ALWAYS some in the fridge. A couple nights a week they invite a bunch of people over and drink while I stay in my room wishing they’d just shut up and go away. Then they leave and hit the bars or whatever but I’m still left all wound up and anxious. Yesterday I got back from class at 11:30am. I open the door and the first thing I see is a glass of wine sitting on the table. It was all I could think about all day. Great. And it feels like they’re always talking about it. Yesterday I overheard one of them say, “Well, in just a few more hours we can drink!”
I wanted to scream and/or break something.
The funny thing is I’ve always wanted hard drinking roommates because my past roommates either didn’t drink at all or drank very rarely. Be careful what you wish for, huh?
But anyway...enough rambling.

I can relate with how you feel and I’ve also asked “why me? Why this that and the other thing?” It never gets me anywhere and just makes me frustrated. Whenever I get upset or anxious I go talk to my best friend. He’s the only person that I’ve (almost) completely opened up to and he’s very supportive. Do you have anyone you can talk to in person when you feel like that? I mean, talking to people online is great, but sometimes we need more. It’s really hard to stay sober in a college environment and I don’t think I’d be able to go a single day without a drink if I didn’t have support from my friends.

Stang

Sigh...I can't drink poison and act like an ass anymore either oh what a problem....NOT! I could have a child in the hospital dying of cancer ...THAT is a problem! I could lose my home to a tornado that is a problem! I could be a rack of bones wiping flies off my eye lids in some third world ********, THAT is a problem!
There is so much misery in the world I hardly qualify not drinking as a "problem" worth feeling sorry for myself over!

AA4life

You aren't the only one that does stupid sh!t when you are drunk. Trust me. When I am at work I hear people talk about alcohol all the time. Sometimes I have to go to lunch with them and they talk about all their drinking episodes. Maybe some of them have problems, maybe none of them have problems.

My point is, when I am around people that talk about alcohol it makes me miss it. But, I also have a lot of people around me in AA and they understand why I don't drink anymore. They don't glamorize the sh!t. The, like myself, have a healthy respect for all pain it bring into peoples life.

This is one reason AA is so beneficial. You can be friends with people who know what you have been through and won't want to sit around talking about how much fun drinking is.

I don't think the folks at work would think alcohol was so cool if they had buried loved ones who had died drunk. Or if they spent their 20's and early 30's in a long painful drunken hangover like I did.

Part of sobriety is choosing the right people to be around. If you fill your life with plenty of people that help you maintain your sobriety then life will be easier.

AA isn't the only road to sobriety. There are others. But it works for me and I encourage everyone to try it.

:-)

One last thing, some people say that when you quit drinking you go through stages of grief just like when you loose someone you love. You experience anger, resentment, bitterness, sadness, loneliness etc. But, with time you gain more and more acceptance. Just keep adding your days up. Over time both you, and I will gain more understanding of ourselves and more acceptance the the shoes we have to wear.

Stang

That is one thing I do like about AA. You do have people to discuss your drinking "problem" with. I know at work I hear a bunch of bottle worshipers talking about how much "fun" drinking is. Screw that fun my ****** ass!

LawMama

I can relate to how you are feeling, and I have felt this way sometimes in early sobriety. The only thing that gets me through it is AA, to be honest. That and God. In AA we are all sober and it is a group of people I can relate to.

That, and I think about the fact that even when I was drinking I was thinkng, "why me? Why can't I drink just some and be normal? Why do I have to get the drunkest and get drunk by myself and why can't I stop?" Now at least I don't have the guilt and hangover the next day, along with the 10 million other problems brought on by drinking.

Also another thought that comforts me is feelings aren't real, they are just feelings. There is a TON of stuff to do that doesn't involve drinking.