Noro

I'm a little over three months sober now. I've been carrying around this pint of vodka with me lately. This is the second time I've done this. The first time, I bought some vodka, pretty much glared at it but unable to get myself to drink it or to dump it out, until eventually on a whim I poured it out in the toilet before I had a chance to change my mind.

Days later I buy another bottle of vodka and here I am. Things have been rough lately. Anxiety, negative thoughts, depression, hopelessness, apathy, etc. Just feel like giving up. I've had this bottle for a couple of days now, and I've been holding onto it and trying to bring myself to take a drink. It's like the opposite of the standard. Normally the recovering alcoholic tries to talk himself out of drinking. I'm here trying to talk myself into drinking, but I just can't seem to allow myself. I know I want to be drunk. But then I think about tomorrow and how all I'll have to show for it is a hangover and having to start all over.

I don't want to eat. I live with my parents and I don't like when my father can hear me in the kitchen. This seems like a trivial excuse but I'm at the point where I would rather starve than continue to feed his narcissism by eating food he bought. Maybe these cravings wouldn't be so bad if I could eat, but I'm at the point where I don't want to. There are people out there starving to death who would do anything to have access to food, so I know this makes me an ungrateful person. But I just can't do it anymore. I feel like if I drink, it'll numb me to the point where I can stand eating his food.

babycat

Dump it out Noro. Just get rid of it.

Dee74

Go back and read some of your old posts Noro.
There are no answers back the way you came.

You obviously need to sort some stuff out - but drinkings not a solution... it's running away from problems.

You certainly sound depressed - have you seen a doctor or a counsellor?
Is there any way you can move out and get your own place?

I think thinking about things like that are solutions, not carrying a bottle of vodka around with you, y'know?

D

F355

I agree with the others, Noro. Dumping that stuff out is the first step. I'm sure you'll feel a giant weight lifting off your shoulders when you do.

Gottalife

Hi Noro,
Sorry your are in a bind just now and I hope the suggestions of the previous posters were a help.

In my experience, if you are an alcoholic of my type you are beyond human aid. In a practical sense what that means is that nothing we humans can do or say will make any difference to whether you drink or not, though we might be able to delay it for a while. Again this only applies to alcoholics of my type and may not apply to you, but many years ago I found myself in exactly the same bind on more than one occasion. My problem was I drank without thought.

It is a common misconception that alcoholics try to talk themselves out of drinking. Those kind of thoughts only come to sane people who can see the consequences, but an alcoholic is never more insane than just before he picks up that fatal first drink. Thoughts of consequnces just don't come. We are without defence against the first drink .

In the end I was faced with a stark choice which is described in the Big Book. The choice was to go on drinking to the bitter end with all the misery and insanity that that entails, or accept spiritual help. If fought all the way, resisted all offers of help but in the end I surrendered and accepeted spiritual help in AA. For alcoholics of my type, AA has a great way out of that bind if you want it.

Jeni26

Think how you will feel in the morning. Definitely not worth it xx

Noro

Thanks for the replies everyone. I didn't end up drinking but lately I've been coming pretty much as close as it gets. I mean, literally with the bottle open and almost touching my lips. Then I get this shock feeling of "What am I doing?" and put it back down. Something inside of me just won't allow it to happen. I haven't dumped it out yet, though. I know that I should. There's no good reason to keep this bottle. This is the second time this has happened so far in my sobriety. For some reason, having some alcohol nearby makes me feel a bit more "safe."

I can relate, in the sense that the words of others generally aren't going to be what keeps me from drinking. It does feel better to have people whom I can vent to and who will listen, but when you get right down to it and the decision to drink is in front of me, I'm on my own. I've tried AA and it honestly just didn't work out for me the way it seems to work for others. It certainly was never a negative experience, but I'm not sure if it's the kind of help I need. I've tried to suspend disbelief and give spirituality a shot, but it's like I've lost the ability to. Not trying to knock AA or anything. I've seen it help countless other people.

You're right that drinking isn't a solution. It's helpful to remind myself that one night of drinking will only make things worse. A few hours of escape will only dig me deeper in this hole I'm in. There's nothing worthwhile that booze can offer me. But rational thought and reasoning doesn't seem to have much to do with it when I'm caught up in temptation. It only makes it seem easier to just give up and not have to think.

I don't see anyone for my depression. I really wish that wasn't absolutely necessary, but maybe it is. I've been sober for over three months, I eat healthy and I exercise regularly, and I'm still unhappy. Moving out would probably be great for my mental health, but unfortunately that isn't an option at the moment. Sometimes I think that my lack of independence and having to live in this house is the main thing that keeps me depressed. I'm trying to take small steps in order to eventually get out of here and live my own life.

Gottalife

Hi Noro,

our paths have crossed once or twice on this site and it feels like we are on the same road. I really appreciate the way you described your experience with AA. You obviously went along to some meetings and didn't find the answer you were looking for. It would be good if you could keep an open mind on that subject, and keep AA as an option for the future.

Anxiety and depression seem to be common among newly sober and untreated alcoholics, so the feelings you are describing are very much how I felt in early sobriety.

I hope you won't mind me saying, but I have heard a lot of people over the years say they have tried AA, when really they haven't. AA is not the meetings, that is the fellowship. AA is the 12 steps as laid out in our basic text. Very rarely have I seen a person fail who has taken up the steps as a way of life, honestly and without reservation. This is the medicine of AA. The percentage of those who actually take the medicine and recover is very high. The trick is to find a sponsor who knows how to teach the steps. (administer the medicine)

Other things I have learnt are that the steps cannot be understood in advance, and that, for me starting as an agnostic, it wasn't until I was some way on with the steps that I began to get an inkling of what is really meant by spiritual. All that is required to make a start is a measure of willingness and honesty, and an open mind. The solution, the spiritual awakening comes as the sole result of the 12 steps, so I suppose it does require a faith of sorts to put in the effort at the start. But I got that from the recovered people I saw in the meetings. Some of them had what i wanted.

dawnrunner

I hope you can eat. I think good nutrition is the basis for mental well-being (along with sleep).

I have sons, and if one of them was needing a place to live and to eat groceries I bought, I would be thrilled to be able to help them out. In fact, nothing makes me quite so happy as cooking a meal for my boys when they're home. Your relationship with your dad may be complicated (I don't know anything about it) but I would not let that get in the way of accepting help at a time when you need it.

Best wishes to you; you can win this.

Elisabeth888

I know exactly what you are talking about. I have convinced/made myself drink when I didn't want to. You need to get to a better place. Pull out the tools youised when you first got sober. Develop some new ones. Do you have any friends in recovery?

Pour out that vodka. You will feel so much worse than you do now if you drink.

davaidavai

Narcissistic father. Sometimes, I feel like everything my father ever did for me he put into a little bank to draw on later when he wanted me to do something for him. Like that was the point. His drug addiction aligns with that outlook. The mere idea of addiction was a horrible cliche. Now, all I can do is sort through his raving demands and tell him to go to NA meetings. The thing is, his narcissism precludes that because NA/AA isn't about being special in the egotistical self-esteem sense. It's about recognizing commonality, finding one's specialness through linking with, call it the quantum field, call it darma, call it the sense of poetry that flows through all things... Being a product of my father's narcissistic outlook and more or less trying to cope with the legacy of a similar outlook rooted in myself, the 12 steps in all their foolish simplicity and antique diction are somehow letting me see myself clearly, how all that was real. The father, the chaotic family life, the pain passed down from the generations or else self-generated through pride, greed, and an accompanying proud disregard for ancient human wisdom. AA is ultimately helping me replace one chemical experience with another sustainable natural one. Clarity. And sometimes it feels positively narcotic. The gateway was honestly looking at my own faults. Still it's hard sometimes. I apologize if all this comes off as redundant. I quit drinking for 4 months without AA, but now I can't imagine doing this without that. I don't want to. For me, the cessation of drinking needs to be linked with searching for a spiritual awakening.

Veritas1

Can you get out of the house to go get some food and then get to an AA meeting? Do you have transportation?

I am sorry that you feel the food in your family home is "Your Father's Food".

Is this what's really happening, or your perception?

Does your Father make a big deal over food, cost of food, who ate his food?

Is money an issue in your home?

I wonder what would happen if you were completely honest with your Father...

if you sat down with him and told him how you are feeling?

Do you feel like you could do this?

Often times...what is needed is a good talk together, to stop the separation, ...I can picture the silent scorn, and the self pity, and the martyr depressive in that home with this issue over food and the kitchen, and having to feel like you can't live normally.

That sounds like a really unhealthy environment.

Can you change it?

Can you approach him and the two of you make a change so that yours is a happy home with a kitchen that you are both cooking a meal together and enjoying it?

This takes some action.

Can you approach him and have a good talk?

We need to create what we need and it starts with you.

You've got a situation, you have some feelings over it, and need a solution.

Vodka is not the solution.


I wonder what would happen if you sat at the kitchen table with your bottle of vodka with your Dad and told him exactly what you told us.

I am going to drink this vodka Dad, because I feel like I don't want to eat your food.

I wonder what would happen.

I wonder if he wouldn't fall down crying like a baby to witness that hurt you are experiencing.

I can't imagine that this honestly wouldn't inspire some real change and unity in your home.

Get honest with him.

Get rid of that vodka.

Zencat

Hi Noro.

I can relate to much of what you have wrote.

There are always choices to be made in life, drinking or not is one of them or so it seems. Detaching or removing any decision to drink, makes drinking no longer an option. Without an option, no choice can be made. Then all that there is to do is live a life free from the influence of alcohol.

BASEjumper

You might try reading through the threads in the secular forums, people have arrested their alcoholism in a variety of ways. I understand it can be hard to say goodbye to alcohol, but let the vodka go...

NewStep

I've talked myself into drinking a few times too. I think that when you have cravings your mind gives you lots of stupid excuses to drink. I know it's hard to throw it out but you'll feel better for it in the end, I've managed to throw alcohol out before.

Justfor1

Get some kinda of food assistance or food stamps like they have here in the U.S. I use to keep a bottle of vodka hidden "for emergencies" as well when I had long term sobriety. I think it it brought me relief knowing it was there.

Noro

I ruined it. I ruined everything. The least I could have done after getting drunk is just not spoken to anyone. I've ruined everything.

davaidavai

Be kind to yourself. We're all just children trying to figure it out. This is one step closer to figuring it out.

Zencat

No more tempting fate. Please learn and grow from your experience. Today is a new day, be gentle with yourself, a relapse can happen and has happened to me as with a good many people that have started a new life alcohol free.

Noro

Thank you for the support, guys. I really appreciate it and I'm not really getting it anywhere else right now. I had a horrible night last night, ended up relapsing, and things got out of control, which made me want to drink more. I wish it all never happened and the only way I seem to know how to deal with it is to continue drinking so I can forget. I know what that always leads to and that it'll only make things worse, but somehow I don't know what else to do anymore.