Groovitational

Hey all, happy new year! It's been almost a year since I joined the site. I am at a very difficult place and would appreciate some insight.

I've battled with trying to maintain sobriety on and off since February of last year.Finally it culminated to me going to out-patient rehab in early December 2013 from 9am-230pm, 5 days a week. The idea and morale of the program was so appealing, but I couldn't commit my heart to it because I cannot convince myself to relinquish who I am (which is inherently inquisitive and skeptical) and to adopt a dogma immediately just because it makes sense on paper. That is how this particular institution made me feel, I'm not making a blanket statement on other places!

Within less than 2 weeks in the program, I was discharged (at my provider's insistence) so I could be in an In-Patient treatment deal. This was a week ago. I denied the treatment. I guess I just can't get the grasp on what it means to be in recovery because it seems like such an event to those who either healthily embrace or distastefully boast on it, while I understand it is a process and a rewarding one.

I resent the idea of being bombarded with victimization techniques when approaching my drug of choice. We all have our reasons, and I find I greatly envy those who have a reason or understanding of using. I find that I'll be going around in a circle my whole life trying to understand why I am where I am. And it feels hopeless at times and cynical at most. And maybe that's what is missing in my life. The fact that I don't have the answers. Or maybe that is what's driving it. I don't know.

I would appreciate insight from people who have gone to rehab and maybe how I can tackle these self-defense mechanisms. I respect those of you who have shared your stories on here, because I have read them and feel inspired at times. I guess my major thing is I might just have to go to rehab fulltime but I don't know if my addict brain is thinking this, because even when I'm sober, that mother trucker comes back in.

Thanks if you read this

KateL

I didn't ever go to rehab but I did find some answers through writing about it all in a journalistic type way. It all just seemed to flow out and make sense. It took a few years but it all made sense in the end.

nf1983

Firstly i'd say take 2 mins to chill out. Your post seems somewhat panicked.

Secondly (in your situation), i'd jump at the chance of inpatient detox.

You are naturally inquisitive and always ask why or how something works.

Why avoid knowing how detox works. You've nothing to lose by going there.
Give in, go. It'll be something to tick off the 'bucket list' if nothing else

bigsombrero

I've been to treatment. The alcoholic in me absolutely hated it. I thought I was smarter than that, and above the whole system because I had a college education and had a real job. I envied the "part time" crowd who got to go home at night. I was sure they were probably drinking and enjoying themselves and laughing at us stupid oafs who did the hard work.

But I needed it. I'd been half-assing everything for a long time. I needed to follow the goddamn rules for a change. I needed to be humbled. I needed someone to call me out on my BS. I needed to show up on time, do the work, and go to bed and do it all over again. I would recommend it to anyone who is really in trouble. Being a full-time resident in that basic, no-frills facility probably saved my life.

If you can break free from your inner alcoholic long enough to schedule something, do it. Just my opinion.

Raider

Well I just got out of inpatient. Like anything else, you gather all the info yourself and then make your best educated guess what you believe and what you don't. Inpatient was a very good experience for me. I just went with it, I didn't argue 'too' hard about stuff I didn't believe. I soaked it all up, the good and the bad. Hell there is advice on this site I don't believe. I now know what will work for me, I know what I need, I know what motivates me. Execution of these ideas is a much different story for another thread. They don't teach victimization techniques, they are trying to give you coping techniques. But if you think you'll be cured by doing it, you won't be. I would highly recommend it. Good luck sweetie.

doggonecarl

This trait hasn't kept you sober. If we could "think" our way sober, the boards would be a lot emptier.

Recover is an action verb.

Good luck. Stay close to the forum, leverage some of your support here.

DoPerdition

I think these are wise words.

EndGameNYC

I don't know what the question is.

I do know that resistance to change is in our DNA, no matter how flexible and open-minded I might like to think I am. When we don't acknowledge this or, worse, chronically deny it, we remain forever at its mercy. Resistance is among the very first things that people in my profession identify and work with when we start working with someone new, and remains an issue in therapy throughout the process.

Olive1

Rehab worked for me.
The why I am the way I am no longer mattered. I just needed to stop.

Sarayu

All I can say is that doing it my way led me to 4 relapses. This time, my choice is to follow the steps of A.A. and listen to my sponsor. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I wish you the best honey!

EndGameNYC

Beautiful. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

RobbyRobot

My two cents. Understanding ourselves is a journey best done experientially as we journey, and not really something to be hopeless or cynical about. The journey is itself its own reward. Not having all the answers is not itself enough to be in despair, you know? I'm thinking your judging yourself much to coldly and harshly; taking yourself out of context, if you will. Gathered from your posts on SR, I can see you already have a good grasp on accepting drinking is not in your best interests. Sometimes we can't always see the forest for the trees when we for whatever reason become overwhelmed. Confusion breeds contempt, and this can be a real problem when at times we need to come to terms with the writing on the walls. Its never easy to change while we feel ourselves threatened. With addictions however, the threat is not mere bravado, and the consequences are very real for any of us when drinking is the problem.

I did rehab. Rehab is not itself a special kind of cure. The idea of rehab is to have 24/7 support and immersion. Its not for everybody. I did well with it, as it gave me a real chance to see how others were themselves struggling, just like I was, with addiction ambivalence. We all didn't make it out clean n sober. For those of us who did, gratitude for not failing ourselves was, and for me still is, a healthy practice in my acceptance of who I was, who I am, and who I want to be in my journey.

I hope you can soon begin resolving your challenges thru new actions taken rather then reproach yourself for things left unchanged and undone.

EndGameNYC

Good stuff, Robby.

Confusion is also often a sign of growth; an opportunity to create a life where either one does not exist, or where the life we live taunts us, seduces us through fear to continue living a mistake. Holding onto our old beliefs only provokes further taunting, leaving us feeling alone, fragile, even decrepit, in stark comparison to an indifferent universe.

Confusion leads us directly to contempt when, after having convinced ourselves that identifying the "root causes" of our problems (whatever that is) will bring us to a better place (where culture and ego are the delivery system for this quaintly lethal belief), we remain unhappy, frustrated and clueless as to what to do in order to remedy our existential angst. Gathering information is a weak alternative to action; an empty stand-in for meaning, convinced as we so often are that "thinking through" our problems will bring redemption. "At least I'm doing "something!" "Some thing" does not feed the hungry. Even better (or worse), thought, thinking, and ultimately idling rarely give us the answers we need. Not if our mission is to live a better life. Embracing this, embracing ambiguity, is not the way out; nor is it the way forward. It's the way back...back to who we are in all its exquisite horror and glory. When we accept (or, more often, are beaten and battered into to submission to see) that thinking fails us when engaging the "bigger questions" in life (when we engage them at all), then the only alternative is to act.

Uncovering the seemingly hidden causes (hidden by whom or what?) of our problems is neither a remedy nor a solution; it's an enigma that, when done well, always ends in despair. This is simply and fully the human condition. We demand answers for problems to which the universe does not allow us entry...at least not through the crutch of human reasoning.

The answers we seek come not through thought (which is often only another reason to procrastinate, to despair), but through action. The journey does, indeed, fill in the blanks, which we later discover were never "blanks" in the first place; a discovery that only occurs after acting.

Were I to allow death to hold me prisoner to my own thinking, or to disembodied "Thought," to what in the end is nothing but a decision not to act, there would be no writing on this page. The thing to do is to act. All else is bidding indifferently on a seat in death's waiting room.

Dee74

There are some really wise words here groovitational.

I spent a lot of years analysing, wanting to know why, and not following lines laid down by others.

There's nothing inherently wrong with that - unless you use those traits like I did to simply keep drinking, while kidding myself I was 'doing something'.

Like someone else said recovery needs to be an action verb.

If you can stop by yourself and maintain that - great

If you can't stop by yourself, I think you need to at least consider the possibility that there are folks out there who know more about this than you do?

D

Groovitational

I read everyone's post and must say I feel really blown back. Like a I got a dose of the reality of what I've got to face. I still feel a bit down, but I see it is about action. I don't expect rehab to be a cure. But I am making the steps to go to a meeting every time I can, meaning I wrote out an itinerary for 5 days of every week to arrange transportation to different ones. It's finally crystal-clear that the support of meetings and being around others who understand the addiction is what's necessary. I've been wasting my time trying to find a way around that. But that's the past and it's a new year. Thank you all for your insight. I will definitely keep up with the forum