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The gift of desperation

Old 05-01-2013, 12:15 PM
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The gift of desperation

Hello all

I've been around these forums for years and have had two stints of sobriety both for 14 months each. The first not in AA the second in AA.

In October 2011 I relapsed and thus strated 18 months of drinking/not drinking hell, trying to claw my way out of the pit of horrible addiction.

I've been in and out of AA in that time, studied AVRT, read Rational Recovery, Under the Influence and a number of other books on alcoholism, worked with several sponsors, been to meetings; goodness I even did one on one phone counselling with Jack Trimpey of Rational Recovery. Never managed to stay sober for more than 30 days.

Basically on the surface of it my life has been 'ok' - still able to run a household, stay married (barely), run a company, manage staff, make money, look decent on the outside; while inside I was racked with guilt, shame, pitiful and incomprehensible demoralisation.

I would swing between different recovery methods because while I KNEW I was an alcoholic, I didn't know what was going to be the best way to treat my alcoholism because I heard conflicting messages and from my own experiences things worked and then they didnt work etc etc

What eventually transpired was the consequences of my drinking outweighed the benefits I got from the drinking. This in reality happened a long time before but because my disease progressed and I was physically addicted and mentally/emotionally dependant; it took a lot for me to reach the point of being so desperate I no longer wanted to go on living in the cycle and trapped in addiction.

Basically, after a night of drinking and my bad behavior being called on by my husband and friend (interestingly they didnt think I was overly drunk just badly behaved.. I would never of behaved the way I did if I hadn't been drinking however.. by this stage I had got very good at hiding how much I was actually drinking) I felt I couldnt go on anymore, couldnt go home, wanted to just 'jump off'.

Phoned my mum in Australia (I live in New Zealand) told her how bad it had gotten, called a number of other drunks and people in recovery and from that point I haven't had a drink.

It was like I needed to reach a point of absolute desperation.. A rock bottom where I finally handed it over.

Don't get me wrong though, this was not the first time of seeming to 'hand it over' but I took some action this time which meant I couldn't go back and pretend I hadn't done it eg - telling people in my real life (not just AA People) eg Mother, Sister in Law, friends etc and told my husband I was totally committed to sobriety to the point that it was more of a priority than our marriage because if I cant get and stay sober we don't have a marriage anyway.

I've been doing everything differently this time.. properly working with my sponsor,, addressing the steps in a new and excited way (they are tools of change and empowerment when used properly) and there have only been a couple of times in the last 2 weeks where the thought of a drink seemed like a welcome idea and those times I phoned people and talked it through and didnt pick up. In the past, I didnt do that because I didnt want to not drink or have someone convince me out of it.

So thats me - I will come on here regularly. This is it for me.. I've accepted I can never drink again if I want to be a 'well' 'successful' individual at peace with those around me and life.

But I also accept that I will do the above one day at a time and I just have to focus being in the now.
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