Dee74

Have no fear, the ability to enjoy the little things does come back

memory not so much....lol
D

FT

Hey there! Just in case I forget what day it is on the 10th, I wanted to say congratulations on the year anniversary!

That is more than awesome!

FT

PS -- The image of you on the chariot, only to fall off and be run over by the back wheels, was hilarious! That's my day over and over again at times. The art is in knowing when not to walk out the front door in the morning. Thank you for that laugh this afternoon!

NobleCause

for over two decades i've used some combination of cocaine, valium, vodka, whiskey, xanax and weed every day, multiple times daily, barring stints of jail and pregnancy. no doubt my mind has been normalized to a very different plane. sober life is flat, confusing, awkward, painful. using life is flat, simple, predictable, numb. i chose the latter over the former for so long because logically it seemed the better deal. and then everything fell apart, and i arrived here.

i get that this is one of those deals where the only way out is thru, and i get that i don't even know what i don't know right now. but regardless of my belief in the grand potential of possibility and fulfillment that avails itself in sober time, the truth of my current reality is that i walk thru the days robotic except for waves of anger, itching to quit my job, itching to pick up and leave, itching to explode, itching for a drink, itching to not feel this current exercise futile and temporary, itching to not live a base existence centered simply on hanging on. the thing about climbing out of a hole like this is that eye level's gonna look pretty dark for awhile. for what it's worth, i am still sober.

many, many congrats on your year, ollie909.

Deserto

I don't know how old you are, NC (and you don't have to answer). I'll be 40 a month from tomorrow. Been drinking more or less constantly since 17 or so. I realize I really don't have a clue how to be an adult, sober. Never learned that lesson. It will be dark for a while.

Nothing profound to add, really. Just: I hear you.

ReadyAndAble

Yeah, I reckon that's true, NC. But just awhile. And this time around, that's clearly the better deal.

You don't need to skip through the early part of recovery; trudging is fine. Just keep moving and you'll eventually reach a better place.

langkah

Some sharp minds have looked at the process that eventually leads most alcoholics back to drinking when they have made yet another ironclad decision to not do that again. That is the problem to be overcome somehow, as we can often stop without experiencing too much difficulty.

That over time the world changes to grey, people appear hostile and misshapen, there are vague threats floating around, tiny and really insignificant conflicts build and accumulate, we are misinterpreted and unappreciated, and all is meaningless are common feelings that point us back to a drink for the relief that we know from experience it brings almost instantly. Our little friend washes those emotional conflicts away and for some moments we are again at peace. More correctly we have the illusion that we are again at peace and in harmony. Alcohol does not accomplish that restoration for non alcoholics, but it does for us.

But we pay for that illusion in our usual coin of trouble shame sickness and regret and soon have again very good reasons to make another ironclad decision and go through the process again.

As time goes by we get further from any reasonable way to handle reality and so we need what alcohol does for us more than before, but our tolerance for alcohol lessens with time, so our drinking abilities are not what they were and we are more rapidly taken down. Our desperation rises as our once kind and dependable old friend becomes a harsher and more demanding and abusive master. We wind up not able to stand drinking for very long and are unable to stand not drinking for very long.

Bad spot to arrive at, but it's what propells many of us to do what it takes to change enough to handle reality all the time the rest of our lives without returning to drinking. It's an error many new people make that those who are sober just wanted to do that of our own accord for honorable reasons. Not so at all.

A more correct view is that we did it because we felt like you do.

BackToSquareOne

Try thinking about it as if you were standing in front of a curtain. Behind the curtain are happiess, joy, peace of mind, all the good things, they take the form of a pure white light. All the bad feelings you have take the form of darkness. Each sober day that passes the curtain rises a small, almost unnoticeable amount and as it does some of the darkness gets replaced with the pure white light. When the bad feelings come you manifest the thought " I am surrounded by the pure white light of all that is good, nothing but good will enter, nothing but good will leave."

You know that if you drink or let the negative things in the curtain will begin to drop and the darkness will be allowed back in and you don't want that. You also know that all of the discomfort you feel is transient, it's part of the price you must pay to keep the curtain rising and for that reason you embrace it. You begin to fill your life with positive things and as time passes the curtain continues to rise and you start to reclaim the things you lost somewhere along the way.

You view the negative thoughts as an observer, you let them flow in, examine them and let them flow out. You notice feeling lost or angry flow in, you examine the thoughts and let them flow out. If a craving flows in you acknowledge it and let it flow out. The thoughts seem to lose power when you deal with them as an observer of the thoughts.

The more that you learn to live in the present the quieter your mind will be and you'll notice the flow of negatve thoughts will geatly diminish. Just some thoughts... Happy Saturday morning NC and everyone!

FT

Langkah, how well put.

What common "praise" it is to hear from others, that they "want what you/they have", i.e. the "strength" and "virtue" it took to "do the right thing!" What is overlooked is that us sober folks did have what they had, exactly has you have so well described above. We just got sick, or tired, or both, and decided to stop the madness.

I'd bet there are few of us here who would be clean and sober if drugs and/or alcohol had continued to deliver what they appeared to deliver when we first discovered them. Who would not continue to use a "miracle drug" or the "elixir of life", if those things continued to appear miraculous and wonderful to us?

We just got sick and tired of being sick and tired. Me? I wanted to live again, because what I was doing was not that.

NC and others still struggling, as has been said above, as "logical" beings, it's difficult and often prohibitive to take the "illogical" path of quitting drugs and alcohol, insofar as our basal human drives are concerned. Almost NONE of us did so by virtue of wanting to live a more "virtuous" life. Ha! Far from it.

Many people make their declarations for sobriety while inebriated, a cruel irony since it is the altered state that provides the fuel behind the statement. It's the "I'll worry about it tomorrow" mentality talking, since it's easy to make declarations while buzzed.

What it takes is not logic or virtue, but bovine determination, to forge through days of misery you are sure to encounter as you quit drinking. You've got to be damn sick and tired of drinking to put up with that. The decision to be a non-drinker cannot be contingent upon "as long as I feel good."

Thanks for that insight, Langkah.

NC, we were where you are. It's lots better not to be there anymore.

FT

NobleCause

Just when I thought I had you all stumped. Seriously tho, this is my life, this is my Groundhog's Day. Well stated.

Deserto

How are you doing NC?

NobleCause

swimming in the sea of hefty consequences. but not drinking. 18 days sober. there's much i'd like to escape from right now, but i know i've got to do this honestly.

a lot of deep breaths, a lot of letting go, a lot of coming clean, and a lot of trusting that the way will somehow illuminate itself as i go along. it's been scary, but so far i've stayed afloat.

NobleCause

for most of my life i thought i had a pretty good handle on my identity. i knew who i was - i was a dependable daughter/sister/wife, a thoughtful friend, a curious intellectual, a successful professional, and i knew the adjectives which most accurately described me - decent, kind, honest, hard working. my upbringing was messy and chaotic, but it ultimately made sense and i accepted it. i converted my stubborn will into a course of unlikely achievement and prided myself on overcoming those challenges while being the most authentic, virtuous version of myself possible.

and of course, i was completely delusional. yes, to some degree some of those things may have not been outright lies, but then there was also the fact that i was constantly high, drunk, erratic, lying, cheating, desperate, volatile. my genius lay in my ability to consistently slide thru under the radar. until i didn't.

with each day sober, my view of what's behind me grows longer and sharper. it catches my breath. i shudder. i shrug. i have no idea how to fit these things into my idea of who i am. the phrase 'alcoholic divorced felon' hangs heavily at the front of my mind on some mornings, and, on nites like tonite, the thought creeps in from the cold that a drink might make me more normal, give me the cover to think myself whatever i'd like to believe. i desperately want to start over, to feel confidently ok with it all, to not feel that it's ruined me. i know rationally that i cannot undo or live in the past, but unfortunately, my dominant thought isn't always rational. i've managed about 20 days sober so far this time, i'm alternately feeling very strong and very hopeless, and i'm trying hard to believe that the bleakness i see now is just as much a mirage as the delusional belief that things were just dandy back then.

Dee74

I guarantee you'll feel better tomorrow waking up having not drunk, NC.

I figured, when I got sober, whatever monsters were pursuing me from my past...it made sense to keep moving forward, away from them, towards the new - not back towards them....

stay strong NC

d

langkah

I relate to being a faintly evil and highly misunderstood genius in certain areas with a secret heart of gold that carried old affecting scars he was not the least responsible for placing at his core which were the reason I occasionally hurt the innocent; a fellow who needed to drink to bring myself down by self-crippling with drink to approximate the level of the people I was forced to bear and deal with day to day.

It wasn't required that others understood that I was so sensitive that I almost required a few drinkies now and then. It was about emotional survival after a while. I knew the truth of it and that was enough. I knew there was no other who would.

And I was dead right about that guy needing to drink to get by. Changing enough to bring a different guy to life was required to stay sober. Different responses and attitudes and even deep alterations to my personality to the point where I would respond to a situation with x instead of z, which had always been natural.

I needed to learn a lot from people like me who had already gone through the changes I needed to make to live comfortably sober. At first it was just showing up and going to coffee with them after AA meetings and talking about my stuff and their same stuff and how they handled it and how I might handle mine. Getting off my lonely island and starting to reconnect with other humans and presenting myself to them as best I could, not a false construct I thought people would best respond to. Telling them little bits of the truth I found they could indeed handle it all. I could stop hiding and running away and could begin the adventure of change.

It clicked finally my choice was between making my best grudging and inconsistent efforts to change very slowly for the better or to endure ever more serious unpleasantness. Not sure how that understanding got through, hampered and crippled by my emotions and thoughts as I was.

dickensen

Noblecause,

The world of sudden sobriety is new to us because we haven't been there in a while and we are physically adjusting to living and functioning without booze. They say it takes as long as 12 weeks for the body to physically adjust. So you are on a journey. As time goes on you will feel better, cravings will decrease, and your self esteem will improve. The real you - a better one - will emerge. Hang in there, the journey is well worth it.

FT

NobleCause,

While I am mesmerized with words that wax poetic, the deflated version of yourself portrayed in those same words stands out very clearly. The lack of punctuation is not lost on the reader, as it is not a failure to punctuate but an ortographic diminution of self.

As you move though the self-analytic vivisection of your psyche, I hope you don't forget that along with the ability to so deftly diagnose the pathology of your ego comes the ability to recognize that the polar opposite of every one of those traits also resides within you in parallel. It is not possible to entirely separate yin from yan, and sometimes they lie perilously close to one another.

FT

NobleCause

i've lived my entire life with the world at arm's length, never fully honest, never fully trusting, and never fully understanding the use of either. it was the way i'd adapted and it made possible decades of alcoholic insanity by rendering all others insignificant in comparison. but there's this new relationship thing that i've unintentionally fallen into. he is, by all accounts, far better than i deserve, and completely oblivious to my past. he knows that i don't drink, but he doesn't know why, and as i careen ever closer to the daunting intersection of necessary disclosure, i realize that in addition to having no inkling of how someone else might be able to deal with my past, i myself have no idea how to deal with it. it is a hideous trail of tears that i've never approached with honestly, and it is the obstacle in my life that i am most ill-equipped to overcome.

funny how, when low, the punctuation is the first to go. my mind is all shout and bark right now. i didn't drink last nite, tho i wanted to, and after willing the night away, rose early and went on a very long run. because alone and in motion seem to be where i do best right now. accept the things i cannot change. accept the things i cannot change. accept the things i cannot change.

FT

If your thoughts in your head are flowing anything like the words on your computer screen, then I see how the shout and bark continue undeterred by anything but the pure physical exhaustion that you can replicate with that long early morning run.

But you didn't drink last night.

Maybe the new relationship.

Confessions of past indiscretions come soon enough. Let the newness mature into the comfortable territory where the mutual exploration of past events is right and appropriate. Maybe you don't have to know how to deal with your past. Free thinking rarely follows a structured plan.

Maybe, just enjoy? Maybe that's the key to disabling the self destruct switch.

NobleCause

Interesting.

Dee74

I lived that way for much of my childhood and the whole of my adult life NC - I wasn't expecting that to change when I stopped drinking, but it did - because I changed as a person.

I was just expecting not to drink - instead I got a fresh start and a fresh sense of my capabilities and my future.

I also got the chance to work on some long standing issues...when I felt ready to do that

You have the rest of your life to get this right NC - it may seem like it at times, but there really is no hurry

D