gold1009

Were you ever MORE scared of living without alcohol than you were scared of dying?

I have a dull ache in my right side now when I drink. I'm sure it is my body telling me something. But I am so scared to live without alcohol. That actually scares me more than what this ache could possible be or turn into if I continue to drink....

For goodness sakes I'm a piece of work. I have the best life ever and I'm an alcoholic. I'm pathetic.

ImReadyToQuit

I was at first.. However, most of your post is the alcohol talking.. Life is immensely better without alcohol. You will find this out after around 3 months of sobriety.. (could be different time wise with you, but 3 months was my clean break)

DayTrader

No matter how bad it got, really, I wasn't scared of dying. My denial system was pretty strong and I remained convinced that only "they" would die from alcoholism...never me.

There were though, plenty of times where I contemplated suicide...and that "concerned" me. I didn't think I'd ever go through with it but it bothered me that I was spending that much time thinking about it.

My "hope" was at an real low. I didn't really believe I could or would get better and my life seemed so futile, frustrating, and dismal that continuing on seemed like more than I could take....or "wanted" to try taking.

One of the cool things in AA was that I started to LEARN hope.... I'd look around and here were all these people who said they had felt the same way at one point but things got better and they don't feel like that anymore. I wasn't convinced the same would happen for me but I suspected there was a chance.

I started to learn to quit focusing on the failures in my past, at all the garbage I'd been through....and started to learn to focus more on TODAY: what I'm doing now, what I'm doing today, and what's possible. It took time and it took practice......but simply looking at myself as someone with potential who always fell short sure wasn't working......so I gave a new style of living - the AA style - a try. There's a reason it's been around so long - it works.

I still slip back into that "old thinking" from time to time but it's no longer the norm. Usually, I can catch it fairly quickly and make some adjustments to get back on the right path again.

One of the things I've really had hammered home (experientially and from being told so by others) is that CHANGE doesn't hurt so bad.......FEAR of change hurts like hell though. "Surrender" is a big tenant of AA - and it seems sooooo backwards to my brain. Surrender to win - it still even LOOKS kinda strange, yanno. Surrendering to change is the key though...... until I'm willing to quit fighting, I keep fighting......and the fights usually leave me a beaten mess.

I promise.......it's guaranteed........ getting sober, if you're an alcoholic, will be probably the coolest and best things you've ever done. EVERYone says that when they look back at it.... Hang up your guns, surrender, and join the winners.

gold1009

@Daytrader...That give me hope, pardon the pun, that you learned to LEARN hope. I feel despair about that, truly. I just don't know who I am going to be without drinking. I've drank since I was 16years old. And life just doesn't seem possible without it. I don't think I'd ever commit suicide ever either...but I've thought about it before. Like, how it would be easier than facing the shame and embarrassement of admitting my addiction. And dealing with life sober seems so hopeLESS than death seems less intimidating. But death still scares me! I just need to figure out what scares me more.

Thanks for your thoughts. I sure I "hope" I can get there someday too.

David 1

gold, were not pathetic although I am sure it feels that way sometimes. We have a disease called alcoholism. It doesn't care if your rich, poor, male or female.

Like DayTrader said, it is quite a revelation to gain sobriety. Just like the second poster, I started feeling much better once I hit 90 days.

Dave

Poodlegirl

I managed to build a life built on denial. I know now that I was existing, definitely not living, in a hopeless cycle of despair. Hope was one of the first things I felt when I went to my first (and only, so far) AA meeting. It is an amazing feeling, one I never allowed myself to feel because I really didn't know how long I would be around.

Dee74

Pretty much - until I nearly did die - it was very different to the abstract notion I had in my head.

It terrified me and that tipped the scales.

Don't wait til that point Gold.

Think of it this way - look at all the members here who've been sober for a while - would any of them still be doing this if it was impossible or they felt they lost out on the deal?

Yeah - it is scary, and it's not always a walk in the park - but I think my drinking life was harder.

I've never regretted getting sober - the really hard part is making that first leap - but you're not alone

Go see your Dr too - make sure that ache isn't anything to worry about

D

FBL

At first, I was terrified about never drinking again. I was a weekly binge drinker for 20 years and a daily drinker for the 10 years after that. I had to take the "one day at a time" approach, especially for about the first year or so of sobriety. Now, nearly 3 years later, my not drinking has become second nature and I can't imagine ever going back. That said, I still wake up every morning and promise myself that no matter what happens, I'll not take that first drink. My life isn't perfect, but it's sure a lot better than it ever was while I was caught up in my addiction. Just took some quality sober time to realize it.

Noro

Until I had alcohol out of my system and was finally able to think rationally, there were a lot of times that I resolved that I'd simply drink myself to death because I saw no other way.

I remember towards the end of my drinking, when I'd get drunk, a portion of the right side of my body would get progressively numb (pins and needles kind of feeling). I'd ignore it and just drink more. It's been over a week since my last drink, and my right pinky still has that pins and needles sensation. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it's just nerve damage, maybe it's both. Maybe I just need to wait longer for it to go away.

Once you have a few sober days under your belt and alcohol is no longer manipulating your thoughts and feelings, you're going to realize that drinking is no longer worth your time. You just need to take that first step and decide to finally put down the drink. Trust me, you'll be happy you did.

SoberDan

I felt exactly Like that, I couldn't imagine life without it. I was here for a good time not a longtime. but then I had children and started to get scared of dying before my boys grew up, they need me. I new I had to quit altogether because I couldn't moderate it no matter how hard I tried. I am now so happy to be 4 months sober it's the best thing I have ever done, I have my Life back I just couldn't see that I had lost it. Gold you are defiantly not pathetic you just feel trapped, there a plenty of ways to get out. I went to AA, read Allan Carr's how to control your drinking, read rational recovery, and do plenty of reading on SR. Life is now great without that poison in my life.
You can do it too, good luck.

Stang

No....all I wanted those last few years was to sober up. My fear was dying a drunk.

penny74

l have a friend who always said "better 10 years as a lion than 40 as a lamb"
He drank himself to an inch of death.
Been an alcoholic for 40 years.
Now he has seen death in the eye he stopped drinking and never wants to go to that place again.
Other do live 10 years as a lion.

jc76

When I found myself holding my moms old rosary and praying for God to not let me wake up, that's when I knew I had a problem. When you want to die and are no longer afraid of death because you see life as the deepest form of sorrow, you may have a problem. Please don't let it get to this point. You are NOT pathetic! This disease is powerful. It's literally a piece of hell that has been put onto earth in my opinion. It can and will bring you the darkest days beyond your imagination. Don't let it get that far! I'm not trying to be Dr. doom here, just pointing out how bad it can get. Good luck to you. Don't give up your stronger than this thing!

F355

Great thread; this one has been so illuminating to me. I used to think I must be the most desperate person on Earth because I thought of suicide as a better alternative to continued binge drinking. Now I realize that this is actually a very common feeling for alcoholics to have. How can we allow ourselves to continue to drink when it obviously causes us so much psychic distress? It's insane.

RobbyRobot

Yeah. Absolutely. Dying drunk was the greatest fear simply because I was sure I wasn't going to ever stay sober anyways so life wasn't really important to me while I was still drinking. I wanted to care about living but I also wanted to not care. My greatest fear was of dying drunk. That fear is long gone now and life is my greatest joy.

dawnie24

Don't put your self down your not pathetic chin up,
I am same, I'm scared to live without it I keep thinking I'm gonna fail - and why cant I be like others and stop till a certain point but I can't so next morning scared that I'm going to die, but then the day after I'm back on the drink

NYCDoglvr

Oh my God, yes! Actually I didn't think it was possible to not drink. What happened is that I came within a hair's breath of death (not a vague idea, but the real thing) and crawled on my hands and knees to AA. Someone said to me "you don't have to drink" which was an amazing concept. I only had to not drink TODAY, that's all. Just get through to bed time.

Yes, very very common way to feel.

FlyerFan

Never, but I was at that breaking point between major drinking problem and near death drinking problem. I am not really afraid to die, but I did not want to die as a result of alcohol or an accident involving alcohol so that is when I went into AA.