Past experience and recovery
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Gatineau, QC, CA
Posts: 5,100
Past experience and recovery
Hi all,
I have come to the realization that past traumatic experiences have a direct effect on my sobriety success. Personally I believe that the more the psychological trauma was deep, the more it requires addressing for sobriety to be successful.
The underlying cause, needs addressing. For me, it was seeing my father die from bone cancer when I was 6. In those days therapies for children did not exist. I have carried a terrible fear of dying ever since. I then watched my grandpa die, my father figure. A complete Alcoholic that left me a Mickey of Brandy. I still remember drinking it at 14. I then watched my mom die, full of fear, I have never seen such fear in someone's face.
Anyway this too long, just thought I could help someone identifying the pain they are drowning.
Blessings
I have come to the realization that past traumatic experiences have a direct effect on my sobriety success. Personally I believe that the more the psychological trauma was deep, the more it requires addressing for sobriety to be successful.
The underlying cause, needs addressing. For me, it was seeing my father die from bone cancer when I was 6. In those days therapies for children did not exist. I have carried a terrible fear of dying ever since. I then watched my grandpa die, my father figure. A complete Alcoholic that left me a Mickey of Brandy. I still remember drinking it at 14. I then watched my mom die, full of fear, I have never seen such fear in someone's face.
Anyway this too long, just thought I could help someone identifying the pain they are drowning.
Blessings
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Gatineau, QC, CA
Posts: 5,100
Hevyn, I remember you from a while back. You always take the time, I really appreciate it. Always have great input. I avoided going full blown dramatic but I have been "sober" for 3 days. Ive cut from 18 beers. Withdrawal is brutal this time. I had one beer today to subdue the withdrawals.
Stupid nightmares!! They are so vivid!
Stupid nightmares!! They are so vivid!
Life the gift of recovery!
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Home is where the heart is
Posts: 7,061
I firmly believe that addressing my mental health problems and sobriety are very interconnected and both need to be addressed for me to lead a successful, healthy, and happy life. The way I see it is like this: If I am not sober then I can not effectively address the traumas of my past or present and if I am not addressing my past traumas then it will be harder for me to maintain my sobriety.
I am not going to go into my past traumas here for several reasons, first I don't want to trigger anyone elses past or current traumas, second this is not the best format for doing so, and third because it would serve no useful purpose but suffice to say it has been enough to leave me with a severe enough case of PTSD that I had to stop working and just work on healing. That happened after several years of continuous sobriety. I think that often the longer we are sober the more these traumas come to the surface because we no longer have alcohol to numb them away and take the edge off from them causing them to feel more painful once we stop drinking. But the positive side to that is once they have come to the surface we finally can address them and start healing from them instead of running by drowning them away in alcohol destroying ourselves and our loved ones in the process.
I wish you the best in your journey and encourage you to find a good mental health professional that you can trust. Between that and working on your sobriety you might find the right combination for long term sobriety for yourself.
I am not going to go into my past traumas here for several reasons, first I don't want to trigger anyone elses past or current traumas, second this is not the best format for doing so, and third because it would serve no useful purpose but suffice to say it has been enough to leave me with a severe enough case of PTSD that I had to stop working and just work on healing. That happened after several years of continuous sobriety. I think that often the longer we are sober the more these traumas come to the surface because we no longer have alcohol to numb them away and take the edge off from them causing them to feel more painful once we stop drinking. But the positive side to that is once they have come to the surface we finally can address them and start healing from them instead of running by drowning them away in alcohol destroying ourselves and our loved ones in the process.
I wish you the best in your journey and encourage you to find a good mental health professional that you can trust. Between that and working on your sobriety you might find the right combination for long term sobriety for yourself.
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,439
Hi Thepatman 
I had various underlying issues too - they were the reasons I started drinkign many years ago.
For me tho, I couldn't deal with them until I was sober. Drunk me just didn't have a hope in hell of dealing with that stuff.
D
I had various underlying issues too - they were the reasons I started drinkign many years ago.
For me tho, I couldn't deal with them until I was sober. Drunk me just didn't have a hope in hell of dealing with that stuff.
D
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