lilac0721

Just like I thought...the afternoon at work was quite busy, and by the time I returned to my office after meetings, I was overwhelmed, upset, and feeling very down.

I was questioning my ability to do my job well, and questioning my competence. I perceived that a coworker was questioning my competence, as well. I felt down, overwhelmed (there aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done/return phone calls/schedule meetings), hopeless and flustered. I did the bare minimum and left at 6:15. Normally, I'd have decided that was too late to workout. I went to the gym anyway. I got home just before 8pm. I fought the desire to drink away the sadness and self-doubt. Now I really really want to drink.

Wow, it sucks. What does everyone else do?

johndelko408

I can relate to just feeling overwhelmed and wanting a drink to quite the storm. The anxiety we get sometimes feels like its to much to handle. We feel inadequate, we think people feel we are inadequate and just generally have negative thoughts running through our hear almost as to command us to drink. I do what ever it takes to get out of my own head. Some of the things I do is read, write my thoughts down in my journal, even watch a movie or tv, call someone or go to a meeting. I don't know if you're in a recovery program so the meetings may not be your cup of tea. I know its tough sometimes but just do what ever you need to do to get out of your head without taking a drink. Hope this can be of some help to you.

Dee74

Hi lilac

wow a lot of that is how you feel and perceive things...I know myself I had to try and divorce myself from a lot of that....it took time and effort, but I learned to be ok with feeling, even bad feelings.

Talking really helps. Do you do anything besides SR? have you got a support network? anyone to talk to in real life?

D

lilac0721

Chat works...just got on there and kept myself busy long enough to decide to get in my jammies and read until it's time for bed.

Dee...learning to live with bad feelings is one of my biggest hurdles in recovery, and one of the things that I kept thinking every time the idea of a drink crossed my mind. I can learn to get through and deal with bad feelings. I can only do that if I am sober.

Tomorrow night I will go to a meeting and can feel good about not having caved to the drink thoughts.

ZZworldontheweb

It may take long, but I really think you can convince yourself that the self-doubt is imaginary. You seem so smart and capable, try to look at yourself the way others see you.

least

In early sobriety I too had urges to drink. I always 'played the tape through' to its miserable end and tried to do something, anything, to distract myself. I walked my dogs a lot early on just to be busy and for the exercise. I think they miss all those extra walks.

DayTrader

I'm familiar with those feelings Lilac..... all to familiar with them.

I've tried a gazillion ways to get past them and about the best I found that were of myself were short lived temporary fixes.

It's that sort of thinking though, that keeps me working the Steps. The more I recognize my inability to always be in control of my thinking (aka the unmanagability of my life) the more I need to turn to some better design for living. If I don't, I recognize that those thoughts......that sort of thinking......has the power to take me back out to my next first drink - and we all know where that leads.

Instead, I've learned to IMMEDIATELY (when I recognize it) turn to God for help. I stop what I'm doing and ask for direction, "right thinking," or the willingness to get moving in the right direction. Sometimes that means I just have sit there and can think the situation through, reformulate a better plan of attack and go in that direction. Sometimes though, I don't get that peace.......and the anxiety grows. In those (fewer and fewer as time goes by) instances, I remember "nothing so ensures our continued sobriety as intensive work with other alcoholics." So, from there, I realize I better get on the phone with someone I can help.......or go hit a meeting........or help a neighbor out........or just do SOMETHING for someone ELSE (ie - being of service for someone other than me) otherwise those thoughts of me, myself, my situation, my bad mood, me, me, me, will grow - and when I get full of ME, it usually leads to trouble.

SSIL75

This has been my experience, too. The cravings are tough at the start. I used AVRT (rational recovery) a lot. So I'd feel a craving and be OK with it. Of course I was craving alcohol, I'm an alcoholic and that's what my brain does. And of course I was feeling sad/frustrated. Things were pretty crap and crappy things feel bad. Just being OK with all that and trusting that it wasn't the end of the world, it would pass... really helped a lot.

I would remind myself that not everything had to be fixed immediately. Not everything had to feel fantastic all the time. That some days were just sh*t and that was OK. There would be better days.

Hope you're doing better today.

lyddie

Sometimes - just calling it a day early and getting into bed works for me. I have actually gone to bed at 6pm. I like to read so usually I just read in bed until I fall asleep.

Stevie1

I'm in early sobriety too (less than a month) and I hear you on the urges.

AA meetings calm the desire.
Play the tape...
Long hot bath with a book.
Go to bed early.
Take the dogs for a run, if it's not too cold and dark and icy out after work.
Eat like a piggie and drink tons of grapefruit juice. I'm going to look like Jabba the Hutt if I'm not careful so perhaps this isn't the best piece of advice...!

lilac0721

Thank you all for great advice! I made it through last night, and I feel great. For the first time in a long time, I slept solidly through the night even though it was a weeknight! Hooray!!! That would not have happened had I drank.

What I did: AVRT talk (Rational recovery method), by telling the part of me that wanted to drink that the real me didn't want to drink and thought that alcohol tastes disgusting. I distracted myself by getting on chat and reading the forums. Then I got into my jammies, grabbed a glass of milk, and read some recovery literature, including the Big Book.

Phew...crisis averted. Now off to court for a very very busy day! THanks, everyone for your help last night!

crunchy

When I start to feel like I'm fighting with myself over drinking, I generally just try real hard to distract myself with something. Lately I've been really excited that they have the entire X-Files series on netflix.

It's hard, sometimes when I'm in that mood it feels like everything is boring, and alcohol will make things more fun.

Video games have generally kept me distracted through times like this, I don't play nearly as many games as I did when I was younger, but I've tried to play games on harder difficulties these days.

While I know it's not good to recluse into materials though, you mentioned the gym. Working out has always been the biggest reliever of stress for me.