Carlotta

I work with homeless people and sometimes it can be really tough. One thing that I learned in AA and that I will do when needed is "start my day over".
I make a conscious decision to start my day over and say it out loud to myself.
Then, I take a little break (could be as short as 5minute) and I meditate and remember to breathe in and out slowly.
Just because my day started up lousy or is going South right now does not mean that it has to end up badly.
It really works.

bemyself

Hi Nuu,

Heaps of fantastic, wise and actually-experienced (people have been there, and felt that and worked out what to do) responses for you here. Thanks for posting, and yeah, bummer about the workplace generated bees buzzing.

Us drunks are seemingly champions at 'monkey mind' (the Buddhist equiv of your bees). This old bat is, for sure!

I just wanted to stick my beak in to also reassure you that this stuff does indeed happen in the first few months in particular. Whilst I'm lately and currently a sort of revolving door relapser, I did at least have a full 6 months early last year. That was HUGE for me.

What was interesting in hindsight, was, on one hand, I felt I was doing incredibly well - moved house shortly after rehab (a big deal in itself), did new things like going to rehab outpatient groups and even AA meetings, all of which was pretty unthinkable the previous time I got sober two years beforehand. I was on a bit of a 'pink cloud' and knew it for a while.

However, re your thin skinned thing: Yeah, I too became incredibly thin skinned. So badly through the year that a. I 'chose' to drink roughly once a month in the latter half of the year. Then right towards the end, about Nov., my thinking and feelings were so erratic and obsessive (those bees / monkeys) that I fired off a firepower type email to a really old friend of 35 years standing......I actually believed, wholeheartedly, that she was a toxic person and all that kind of thing, and crafted the email not with verbal abuse, but some pretty damn heavy duty firepower about how I could no longer cope with her x, y, z behaviours and attitudes, and that I felt I had to terminate our contact - FOR MY SOBRIETY! Yes, I said that.

If you think about it, given how utterly true and real it all felt to me at the time.....you'd be forgiven for thinking I'd gone off my rocker, in sobriety. Fortunately, I was able to get a bit clearer and calmer about that old friendship around April or so this year. By this stage, I'd been through a 2 month relapse, a month sobriety, another month / 5 weeks relapse. I forget the exact chronology. But my point is: elsewhere on SR today, I affirmed what someone had said to a relapsing member - 'each time is unique'.

Ditto, each week, each month of your sobriety is also unique in itself. Just as fini so helpfully observed with that fantastic list which floats about everywhere. Thanks fini, you're such a stalwart!

I'm sorry if my relapse story seems inappropriate. But I wanted to mention it PRECISELY because of that rough list - our feelings and thoughts can go from benign, Zen-like (:-)), hopeful, etc etc to a cloud of nasty bees and leaping, frenetic monkeys, in the space of a day let alone a week or a month. What you've experienced is normal. Not much consolation to hear that, in some ways.

But if you can practise even a few of the helpful hints people have suggested, somehow that practise does - it really does - add up over time, through the rough and the smooth.

You're doing beautifully, I reckon!

xx Vic

bemyself

And a PS Nuu - what happened with my friend this year? I picked up the phone a couple of times, to make amends....it took a few weeks before she answered. But then she did. We had a couple of very long talks.

We've resumed our friendship, with some slightly new boundaries for us both, but both seeing it as part of a 35 year long journey as friends.

fantail

This is my problem. I realized this past week that I go on what I can only call "booze-free binges". Instead of coping with anxiety, I stop sleeping for a couple days and then will go into a weird schedule of sleeping and waking at odd hours. I make myself physically incapable of engaging with the world. I'm on one right now!

I don't know what to do about them yet. So I guess my answer to your OP Nuudawn is... no idea! But I can report from underneath the sand that sticking your head down here is not a good solution.

RobbyRobot

The escaping has to stop or else we're just playin' with ourselves is the way I see things concerning insignificant crap.

There are already endless stories of people from all walks of life who have no real idea of why they returned to drinking - they just did is what they are left with understanding as they re-examine themselves during and after a relapse. Too sad.

I don't have cravings anymore - haven't for decades now really. My head space is clear and enduringly I live in the moment as best I can. Emotionally, I'm okay with whatever I'm feeling, no worries. Spiritually, I'm alive and well, as I understand for myself.

I'm successfully wealthy enough not to work or worry about retirement. I drive fast cars and have no mortgage. I'm re-married and living the dreams for real which I have always wanted to live. I'm gratefully happy. I could have more friends. Real friends.

Most importantly, I don't drink, and I live a spiritual sober life.

Could I become drunk nonetheless? Even from insignificant crap?

Of course I could. I'm not perfectly invulnerable to a relapse, lol.

Will I ever return to drinking?

Absolutely not. I will never drink again. It really is up to me, and me alone that I don't drink. It's all on me, and I really like that. I'm responsible for my sobriety.

For me, insignificant crap only becomes insignificant after I really don't care about it one way or the other, and never before I don't care. If for whatever reason I can't move myself into not caring, I never still dismiss it as insignificant crap.

So my advice is this:

it's only insignificant when you say it is, otherwise it's not, and should absolutely be taken seriously, and with full honest awareness as something that is indeed significant. No matter what whatever is, it is what it is nonetheless. Believe in the paradox of the impossible.

Think first. Don't just react to whatever. Know yourself. Like yourself. Respect yourself. Do onto others as you would want done unto you. Become responsible to yourself. Enjoy sober living. Be aware and in awareness.

Hey great question, Nuudawn. You got a lot of great replies. Awesome.

whipster

I want those feelings to well up so that I can recognize them and figure out why my reaction to the situation produced such feelings. I think if you try to ignore them or dull them with something else, you fall into the same trap of avoidance.

Let them come out into the light of day, then analyze why they are there in the first place.

mick3580

I have found that these feelings come from my ego. My ego is within me, but its not actually me; it's just a voice. If i can find a way to live in the present moment, no analysis of my feelings or of the past is necessary. I can observe the emotional reactions within me, watching them rise and watching them fall. I have to realize that my reactions and any voice associated with those reactions is not me. But, if I'm not living my life moment by moment, this is impossible.

Have you read any of Eckhart Tolle?

Another suggestion is meditation. Meditation of a certain kind, that raises awareness, separates me from my thoughts and feelings without hiding or suppressing them. This, too, helps me with living in the present and not reacting emotionally go thoughts and feelings that come up. Try this too......

Www.stepelevencomesalive.blogspot.com

The author of the blog is a writer and has written a book on meditation, but he provides the audio links to the meditation for free. This has helped me. But it's not the meditation that foes it, it's the present moment living that the meditation gets me to that helps. I hope someone finds this helpful.

EndGameNYC

Great story. Shows what's possible in sobriety. It all starts with putting down the drink.

Nuudawn

Thank you Mick! I visited the site and really liked what the author had to say. Listened to one little meditation...looking at the movie screen on my eyelids : ). I will definitely look more into this as I want to move away from my reactions to others and not BE my emotion. Thank you so much.

mick3580

You are welcome!

Boleo

Zen... Don't even think about it.