Cow

My plan was pick Easter Sunday to start with sobriety, cuz what better day to rise from 30+ year of drunken deadiness. It all go very, very smooth …until next day. Since then, is usual conveyor belt of try, fail, give up, lather, rinse, repeat. Worse, is I having very bleak thoughts that I never gonna be well, whole life gonna be waste, nobody love me, and why in God name is I watching True Tori. Has I sink this low? Is so much suffering lately, it scare me. I scare me. My crazy scare me.

In conclusion, my big Easter rise from dead was failure, just like all my quittings has been failures. I was hope to come back and report that I had valiantly fight and claims my sobriety! But in truth, this how it going down:

Sobriety and Death is sitting on log, just chatting. I stumbling down path, slower and sicker and weaker with every step. Finally, I not able to even crawl one more inch. I not able to even reach out to either of them. I just collapses in misery and ruin right in front of them. And Sobriety goes, “Wow. Yikes. Uh, so you want her?” And Death go, “Um. Damn. Yeesh. What a mess. How ‘bout we roshambo for her?” Lucky for me Death throw out the stabby scissors and Sobriety throw out journal paper. Whew, cuz we all knows paper cover rock!

Anyways, I sorry to report that you friend Cow has no risen up and claim sobriety. I has simply flounder and sunk to point that either death or sobriety gonna be claiming me.

Was my feeling to not make new thread until I can come back with better news and changes. But I very much misses my SR friends and they profound encouragements, frank tough talkings, insightful wisdoms, and, of course, fanciful random musings on existential physics, breakfast foods and tiny dinosaurs.

For those who not know Cow, this open salon community. All is welcome! My history, for anybody interested, is tell in detail here:
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...y-mad-cow.html

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SoberLeigh

I am so glad that our dear Cow has returned to us!!! Very sad that you are still suffering. You have been missed.

Gilmer

Hi, Cow! You're your own worst critic. We love you.

PhaseTwo

I'm sorry you're feeling so bad Cow, all I can say is never stop trying. I've read your past journals and I'm really rooting for you.

Lenina

Aw, Cow! }}}}Cow{******. Didn't we decide these are the angry hugs you like? how I wish I could wrap you in my arms and let you sip soothing sobriety.

The best plan I ever came up with for sobriety was to not drink. I'm not being flippant here. And I know it's not very easy for us when caught up in the alcoholic cycle.

I am so glad to see you! maybe you'll get addicted to us and to sobriety? it could happen!

Love from Lenina

Dee74

I like Lenina's plan - used it myself

I'm sorry you're still struggling Cow, but like George Carlin said 'may the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house'

I think being here and trying has got to be that much better than not being here and drinking


D

silentrun

I'm glad you chose to stay here Cow.

RobbyRobot

Hi Cow. Sorry present times are full of hurt and struggle and all that goes with it.

I know failure with sobriety seems to be the real deal so far recently. Nonetheless, sobriety is doable. Quitting can work. Staying quit is very achievable. Seriously.

I'm more than glad you've started Part IV.
Let's all make this happen, Cow.

BackToSquareOne

Cow, what I've found out is that while it's true that quitting alcohol won't cure depression it does make it easier to deal with. When you add alcohol to the mix you set yourself up for those constant mini-withdrawals where the brain chemistry is trying to normalize to the lack of sedation from the alcohol. For a while the depression can get worse but it does stabilize if you give it time. Anyhow know that everyone here and the entire Cow Fan Club wishes you the best!

Cow

Beloved Peeps, you the best.

My biggest problem I has determine is actual caffeine. I know for some this maybe sound absurd. But I even bigger addict to caffeine, cuz of my anhedonia, depression, malaise, ennui and general ploopiness. Every morning, I feel like I crawl out of ancient musty toom, not comfy bed. Is so untenable, I will does anything to spark some feeling of life in my brain/body. And then of course, when I has the caffeine, I go manic. I has been try all kind of herb and supplement, also working with doctor, but everything either not work or also cause mania. And sooner or later mania ALWAYS gonna end in booze.

Stop drinking is logical advice, but for Cow to pull problem out by root, whole cycle of compulsion to modulate mood/energy has to be give up. I must figure out how to sit, willingly, in such untenable feelings.

So how is everybody else? Reports please! Curious Cow want to know.

courage2

Hi Cow, I'm not going to say welcome back because you've never really been gone -- I've seen you posting some thoughtful comments on threads all over the place here. But I'm glad you have a new thread of your own -- it makes it so convenient to check in!

It sounds like you're struggling with the detox terrors, which is why I wonder if rehab may be what you need, or at least a prolonged change of scene. If you don't think you need rehab, you still have to accept that you're going to feel like complete crap for some extent of time. What's the longest you've yet gone without a drink? I ask just because if it's less than a couple-few months, I don't think you've yet put more than your foot in the water, truly. Not meaning that you haven't tried, but you've only felt the scary, cold shock -- not the part where you start to swim.

You might try to make a list of every thing you do every day. Just write it all down in a table. Are there regular times of the day when you get triggered? What are your drinking patterns? I have very specific patterns to my drinking, & I've had to find things to replace drinking at each time. E.g., I want to drink:

• before I take a shower -- now I randomly select a poem to read in the tub (today was John Ashbery)
• as I go to work -- now a cigarette (sigh, but it's all I've come up w/so far)
• when I first get to my office -- I listen to a song I've never heard before
• when the lights come up in the city & I'm sitting at my desk after a long day -- I call another alcoholic
• while I cook-- I drink tea or eat ice cream

(That's just a sample -- basically I want to drink every waking hour and I've had to change everything )

You know me, a little short on philosophy and hugs, but a practical-minded supporter of your efforts to be as healthy a cow as you can possibly be. I'm very glad you're sticking to SR!

courage2

Just saw your post about caffeine. I think the same stuff I wrote above still applies. I think you have to go cold turkey from the caffeine, screw the herbs and supplements, live musty and ploopy until your system starts to regenerate its own natural cycle.

In my experience, your natural cycle once it stabilizes will be different. The spark that you discover eventually -- and you will -- will be different from the spark that caffeine gives you. You can't replace caffeine or alcohol's high with something that has the same effect -- but if you're desperate enough to change, you can decide to forego that effect, and learn to appreciate a different person than the one you think you know.

Hevyn

Always good to see you Cow, no matter what's gone down. You are loved here.

Lenina

Snarkbunny may be on to something. It seems it took me about nine months to really feel alive and not just programmed. if that makes sense. it was a spark I had to nurse into a steady flame. But it did come and still today.

love from Lenina

SavingSelf

Glad to see you back in your own digs. I wish I could give you the magic key to the sobriety kingdom. I am not sure how I have over 1 1/2 years now. I used to think, "I wonder if I will ever be done drinking". I still don't know that I am "done". I know I am not drinking today and have no plans to drink tomorrow. I guess I just finally made the decision to not drink no matter what? I figured if I was going to be miserable I would rather be miserable and be sober. Cheaper in many ways.

I go to AA meetings--something I never thought I could do--but after a time they sort of grew on me. I learned to take them less seriously--and that helped. No one told me I should agree with everything said at a meeting and once I realized that it helped me tolerate them a lot more.

There are so many people struggling just like you. I was once one--for a long time. Now I am not. I hope one day you get to be in the "not" section for a long enough time to really get to experience it fully. It is not so bad. It is what it is.

Cow

Snarkbunny total correct. I has to go cold turkey from caffeine, alcohol and all mood modulating substance. I has to accept to feel really really bad. Is actual strange to me that I can no get this done, cuz to be sure, I has endure unbelievable sufferings before, such as after my OD. But there is something very extraordinary about this untenable musty deadness. It just break me, every time. Is like to be held underwater and ask to accept this while you entire being is desperate to breathe.

I try to be hopeful about such talk as 'stabilizing' and 'normalizing' after period of time. But that seem like tall order for 30 year addict who never in life even experience such thing as normal. How I even gonna know normal if I does get there?!

Dee74

I was a drinker and an addict for 30 years too.

Not taking anything to alter my mood was tough but the ordeal part was not really for that long - I adapted to it.

It took me about 3 months or so for the joyless blankness to dissipate, cow.

D

Olive1

Hi Cow!
Good to see you!

Cow

3 month, huh? ... That hard time, D. That Shawshank hard. Brubaker hard. Question is, before you resign and adapt to 'doing you time,' how you resist almost insurmountable impulse to go for relief. Is you joyful now? Is you normal? ...Cuz you appears to be muppet with Pacman fetish.

Hi Olive, how is you?

BackToSquareOne

Cow, what your doing is perfectly logical. Your trying to add that spark in the only ways that give direct results. The stimulants withdrawal profile is to crash down while the alcohol withdrawal is hypervigilence. Withdrawal is always the opposite of what the drug does while active.

Quitting everything at once would be a shock to the system. I don't blane you for doing what seems to work, I did the same thing for decades. A medical setting is always the safest bet but thats a decision only you can make. Again Cow, just remember that giving up is not in the Cow Fan Club rule book!