foghead

I all, just throwing in this thread just to try find out if im going crazy or still recovering. I have been sober for just over 50 days now and have noticed alot of changes. Fallen asleep quicker at night. Having really weird lucid dreams every night. My energy levels are pretty steady all day and my thinking has become alot clearer but i still have times when im stuck on repatitive thoughts going through my head. Sometimes they are just silly thoughts and sometimes worries or from a conversation i had earlier but they happen and do bug me especially when im trying to have a nice 20 min rest during the afternoon. Just wondering does this happen to anyone else and does it fade away as time goes on

kiki5711

yes, and it drives me crazy! just by the time I catch it and stop, it goes on to some other trail of thoughts.

my friend gave me a good suggestion. let them come in one ear and out the other, don't hang on to them.

I've tried that, it don't work.

BadCompany

Yep. When I got sober there was just too much traffic in my head. It didn't start to wane until I did my 5th step. Today, if someone offers me a penny for my thoughts they might not get their moneys worth.

invisigoth

After a few days clean sometimes my mind starts racing and I'm thinking of a 1000 things all at once. I sit down take a deep breath, find my happy place and try to slow it all down. Calm blue ocean calm blue ocean.

AlcoholicOrNot

Oh yeah. Thoughts tend to race around my head constantly. What I do, is address one at a time to determine if I truly need to do something about it. I find if I take action on the important ones, those obviously leave my mind.

For those thoughts that are meaningless, I just tell myself to forget about it and there's no meaning / significance to it.

LaFemme

Meditatihon is a very useful tool for dealing with this. Oh and it also helps prevent relapse...lowers blood pressure and makes you healthier and happier in general

invisigoth

When I was in High school I was big into meditation, then I graduated, got a job and it became harder and harder to find the time. Lately I've been kinda mentally preparing myself to perhaps get back into it. It can do wonders for a cluttered mind.

rws177

I still struggle with racing thoughts to this day. I'm sure a big reason I drank was to silence them. Sometimes I pray, other times I just have to self talk myself. This will probably be an issue forever but I know drinking to shut my mind up is not the answer.

foghead

I have been trying meditation and it does work but as invisigoth said its the finding the time. Just wanted to know if its just a stage in recovery, its hard to tell, maybe ive always been like this and have used drink to calm the oceans...one thing i have noticed from stopping drinking is i am constantly soul searching and finding out who i really am and looking back to the person i was i now realise i was in a very bad mental state. Life is so strange. I still feel like my brain has not fully woken up yet. Thanks for your comments.

johndelko408

I get the racing thoughts all the time. They bother the crap out of me and drive me crazy. I've heard many suggestions on how to get rid of them, prayer, meditation and so on. I've tried the prayer, sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt. I'm not quite sure how one goes about meditating because I personally don't know how. I've tried and I usually just end up frustrated because I dont feel I'm doing it right. Is there a proper way of meditating, I really dont know, maybe its different for everyone. For me I usually try reading or watching tv or a movie, that usually helps to get my mind off of things I don't want to be thinkibg about. As for my opinion on whether its normal or not in recovery, I think it is. I personally feel that we also had these racing thoughts in our disease as well and drinking was our solution to quite the storm. I know it was for me. When ever I was thinking about things I didnt want to think about I would just hide from them inside a bottle or behind a pipe or joint. In recovery I think we focus on them more because we're choosing not to hide from them by clouding our minds anymore, but instead to find more productive ways to do so. I learned early on in my disease that getting drunk or stoned was only a temporary fix that qhen i sobered up my thoughts, worries, fears and problems would be there waiting for me. Hence I was rarely sober, I was always chasing the demons away.