Feeling very strange...
 

I am over two weeks sober, but have this horrible feeing that I am headed for a major relapse. That is what has been happening for the last few weeks. Every two/three weeks I relapse for a few days, do a home de-tox, then the cycle starts up again.

I have no desire or craving for a drink however. Just the growing sense that relapse is inevitable. I'm on a waiting list for rehab - it will be about 8 weeks from now. I wonder if part of me subconsciously feels I may as well drink as it will be the last time? I am not consciously thinking that though.

I have had a very serious chest infection for the last 3 weeks which has kept me bed bound. I get these attacks often as I also have asthma and emphysema, and get so breathless that I can't get to meetings.
So any thoughts most welcome.:a108:

Stay off it. You can handle eight weeks, and you don't want to be going in hungover and detoxing. Your head will then be clear for rehab, and that will give you another month, which gives you your traditional 90 days. You don't need a last hurrah, which rarely turn out to be the last.

Thanks TU,
The place I'm going is actually a detox unit, which lasts 2/4 weeks, then a 12 Step Rehab centre for 12 weeks. The main reason for going is to come off all the meds I'm on; benzos, sleeping tablets and a powerful antidepressant that is really an antipsychotic, which I shouldnt have been put on given that I'm not psychotic..All these meds have crippling side-effects/withdrawal effects, effects so bad that whenever I have tried to stop taking them I relapse on alcohol..

Part of me is dreading going away from home for so long. But I know it's for the best...

Hang in there Sally....Don't drink.

Listen to some AA Speakers if you can't make a meeting.

XA-Speakers - The lights are on!

Thanks for the link Sapling. I often listen to meditation talks to get me to sleep - insomnia is a HUGE problem.
No, I'll do my best not to drink. But there is a little voice whispering away at me, saying things like "You know you are bound to drink - it happens every couple of weeks", or "you're going to rehab anyway. Why not have a final Swan Song?" And " Oh you have been so ill, why not cheer yourself up?"
Insane...

Hi Sally!

I too get those voices. I too am fighting the relapses.

I don't know what happens. But suddenly I decide to throw all commons sense out the window and so I go out and buy wine. It's like I am a programmed robot on a mission.

I'm on day #1 once again here. We can do it!

Don't. It's not worth it.

Seen it. Done that. Been to Rehab. Got the dead-mans t-shirt along with the rest of his under-ware.

Before I had a Spiritual Awakening, sobriety sucked. It was like doing straight-time with a probation officer looking over my shoulder 24 by 7.
Abstinence was just a way for me to delay my next drink. What I really needed was to deal with the underlying causes of why I needed to drink in the first place.

That took a lot of self-appraisal and working with others. As in 12 step recovery.

If you can't make a meeting, perhaps a couple of the AA girls would visit you if you called them. Have you informed your sponsor and group about how you feel??

People that have a problem with a Higher Power just haven't had their butts kicked quite enough by alcohol. As Boleo says, a "sincere" request from God (as I understand him)(on my knees) is usually answered in a timely fashion if I do my part.

All the best.

Bob R

Have faith in yourself Sally. Just because this has happened before doesn't mean it has to happen again. You're trapped in a cycle and at some point you will have to break it x I can't really remember my last drink...these things are never as fun as we think they're going to be. *hugs* x

Thanks everyone. Feeling a bit stronger now. 2granddaughters, I don't have a sponsor anymore, and I didnt get close enough to the women in AA to feel able to ask them to visit me. It's pretty rural where I live - we have to travel miles to get to meetings, and I feel shy to ask people to drive 20/30 miles to visit me.
But I will try to get to my local meeting tomorrow. It's been horrible just lying in bed for weeks with no company. And 'Satan finds mischief for idle hands". If I'm alone too long my thoughts turn towards ideas of drinking again...

I always found being sick used to lower my resolve Sally - I wonder if thats playing a part here too?

In any case, what I eventually learned is.. I'm in control, not my addiction - If I don;t want to drink I don;t have to go to the shop, buy wine, pay for it, bring it home, open it, pour it into a glass and then raise that glass to my lips.

If you ever were to find yourself on any point of that continuum - you know what to do anyway - stop, take a deep breath, and immediately reach out for some help :)

You can do this Sally :)

D

Sally, a relapse doesn't have to be inevitable. You can give the power to your addiction or you can keep it all to yourself. Like Dee said, giving into your addictive voice isn't a passive thing - it requires effort. You have to get up, go to the store, buy the booze, come back home, then drink it. In the time you spent doing that, you could be coming here to SR and letting us talk you off the ledge. Or you could be calling a friend for support. Or you could take a walk around the block and clear your head. All of those things require just as much or less effort than stocking up for a binge. You have more control and more strength than you're giving yourself credit for. Look at you ... you've made plans for intensive detox and rehab! That's awesome! No sense in one last "hurrah" before you go ... you've earned the sober days you already have and you deserve to keep them. So KEEP them. If you do, you'll feel much better about yourself when you enter your programs and come out even stronger. :)

Sending prayers and love your way!

Have you read the doctor's opionion in the Big Book? What you describe is the peculiar mental blank spot that is the classic characteristic or the real alcoholic. I too lost all power of choice where alcohol is concerned.


Back to the OP, I had a lot of trouble with a sense of impending doom which occured on a regular basis for the first two months or so. I would be doing OK on a daily basis and then suddenly out of nowhere came this awful feeling that the roof was going to fall in, figuratively speaking. I had a lot of damage up stairs, I had lost the ability to think or reason, and couldn't work out what was going on.

The answer for me was a very loving and understanding sponsor whom I spoke to daily, telling him all the trivial deatils of my life each day.
When the roof fell in he would patiently go back over the last few days and unravel the causes and efffects of the things I had been doing which lead me into these blackspots.

I had no insight you see, and he lent me his reasoning power by asking me questions, the sort of questions a sane person would automatically be asking themself.

Later, when the fog had lifted a bit, I found that there were steps in the AA programme designed to solve this exact problem and as I learnt to apply them, episodes of doom and depression became fewer and further apart and within a year had stopped altogether.

Sally, as I read your posts, this idea popped into my mind.

Doing my fourth step, I realized I have fear and extreme avoidance of confrontation (even neutral ones). The idea of dealing with life, people, even normal situations is very stressful for me.

In sobriety I come to see myself, behavior and motivations more clearly, so I am dealing with more than I did while wasted. I am confronting reality, rather than my fear of reality. New skills must be developed.

Sometimes I get tired of this "going back to the school of life". I just want to return to the blurry place, where I could get scared, use, say F it world, and repeat.

It's going to take awhile for things to fit into place. So, after all that, here is my idea. And since you say you have all this time on your hands...Get a real big puzzle with a lot of pieces. Imagine the pieces represent sober life, and you are fitting them into place. Sometimes it's easy, and a piece will immediately be recognized and fit in, sometimes it takes some searching and trying a piece that doesn' fit where we expected it to.

I have to maintain this hope/belief. That even though my life makes no sense to me today, and it's all a jumble, and some days no pieces seem to fit...ultimately all the elements of sobriety and a rewarding life are available to me. And if I keep working at it, even at the rate of a few pieces a day or week, eventually the big picture will begin to take shape, things will start to fit together.

Many people start puzzles by putting the "frame" together first, the basics that the rest will fit into. That can be a sort of symbolism as well, make sure we set some boundaries...sobriety being a very very good one.

Re:Relapse
 

Please don't drink. Your dogs need you to be sober to care for them properly. :hug:

I'm feeling much better now, thanks to everyone who kindly responded to my post. I feel I have averted the immediate danger of relapse, though being careful not to get too complacent. I am getting over my chest infection at last, though am still quite breathless. However, I think I'll be able to get to a meeting tomorrow or the day after.

My next goal is to find myself a new sponsor. No easy task given where I live, but it's vital. Until I get to rehab I think I am in some danger of relapse, simply because of the fact I'm going, and my mind tells me I could have one last spree. As that would be beyond stupid, and I still have 8 weeks to wait before I go, I must try to do everything to stay sober during this interval.

Thanks again for all your kind responses...

I wish I could tell you to do what I did. Which was give in to the temptation. I did that so many times that eventually the temptation wore out. The bad effects of drinking started so soon after slurping down that first drink that I couldn't lie to myself and say that I was getting anything good out of drinking any more.

Don't do what I did.