neferkamichael

Faceless, you are FANTASTIC, for coming back, , rootin for ya.

EndGameNYC

Hi Faceless.

Taken together, these sentiments and your comments in your OP strongly suggest that you've both taken the hammer to yourself and resigned yourself to the idea that you are permanently damaged, and therefore worthless in the extreme.

None of us wants to be judged by our failures, our mistakes, or for the times in our lives which do not represent our finest moments. When others make such judgments about us, we scream "Foul!", and demand immediate and eternal redress. Life owes us something, and we better get paid. In spades. We’re pleased, sometimes ecstatic, when the judgment includes our wonderful sense of humor, our generosity of feelings, our keen intellect and our engaging manner. Who refuses or refutes such evaluations? But a frank criticism about how we adversely affect other people, commentary on our dismal, and negative world view, and on our own sour judgments about others, well then, the witch hunt is on.

Yet when we put ourselves (the only person in the courtroom) on a by-invitation-only trial-by-self-loathing, relieving the prosecutor (also the only person in the courtroom) of the burden of building his case since we’ve already done this work for him through the course of our lives, and allow ourselves to be judged by a one-person jury of our fears (again, representing one person), we readily accept the verdict of "Guilty by Association." "I am a bad person." "I cannot be fixed." "This is the way I am, and I cannot do anything about it." No criticism is too harsh, no commentary too hurtful, and no judgment is anything other than permanent since it comes from...me. We are both judge and jury, and we wouldn’t have it any other way, if only because when the judgment comes from without, we risk total annihilation of ourselves, the hurt being intolerable as it summons up a lifetime’s worth of hurts, only reminding me of what a POS I am.

By closing the courtroom and holding the trial without the presence of both well-meaning and unhelpful, and potentially unsupportive and hurtful others, we guarantee the desired verdict, and that our egos, though frail in every respect except in its awesome power to judge harshly and continuously, remain undisturbed. Yet this judgment does not allow us to heal, to rehabilitate ourselves while we’re imprisoned..."behind the walls." No longer is it merely the case that nothing bad or hurtful can penetrate from the without, but all goodness now resides in the exclusive domain of those who never even approach casting the final judgment on themselves, who now just represent one among many possibilities of what might have been.

So comfortable do we become living in the pain that we know rather than risk the pain that we don’t know but always anticipate, we can no longer live life any other way. When a sympathetic guard slides the key to my cell under its door, I cower in the shadows since freedom, now, only represents an invitation to further suffering, such is the power of my own judgments.

There’s another thread here, Faceless, in which the discussion turned from the destructiveness of relapsing as it affects other people, to the exploration of both shame and guilt. I see shame at work in both the comments I’ve referenced and in your OP. I provided a link for the thread I mentioned in the event your are interested in what others have to say about it.

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-harmless.html

Faceless

Oh my goodness, thank you ALL, I definitely did not expect such a big response from others, so thank you all so much!

Endgame, I am speechless. But everything you said above is accurate, and it helps me tweak my perspective, for sure. I would like to elaborate, but I am on limited time, and I am also on my phone two-thumbing it (Ug), but thank you everyone for everything! I really appreciate it all!

BTW endgame, I love your avatar

RobbyRobot

Been there. In the shadows.

Awesome post, EndGame.
Brilliantly down-to-earth and concise.
Powerful.

Faceless

Well, I slipped again. Oh well. I guess I'm gonna have to find a way to socialize through something else, there is just nothing much around me but bars, which sucks. I've been really anxious lately, too, so perhaps that's driving me to go out and do this bad stuff. Oh, well. I just heard from someone I was very worried about so a lot of the anxiety has dropped big time, so hopefully now I can have an easier time avoiding and recovering.

PurpleKnight

Hey Faceless,

You need to change up your plan, socialising in bars is probably not the best way forward to start getting Sober, I gave all nightlife a miss for at least the first few months, it was a no go to maintain my Sobriety!!

Have you got a plan in place or doing this on your own? I found sitting in trying to not drink with my thoughts didn't produce many longterm results, I needed to get some support into the equation!!

You can do this!!

Faceless

Well, yes I try not to go to bars just to socialize. It's the itch I get to socialize that makes me say fudge it and go. It's also anxiety and my euphoric phses that make me stop caring because I need a quick "fix." Or I just stop caring about myself. I think what I need to do is get something to live for. I don't think I'd have a problem if I had a family or whwtever. I live alone, and I don't have friends that are easy to visit.

I was reading the thread that endgame linked above. To be honest, from the replies, I was a little offended. It's that kind of thinking and posts that make me embarrassed to come back to these sites. Just knowing people are going to look at my posts, roll their eyes and call me names disgusts me.

I don't usually hang out in bars, again I have to say this. But when I get in one of those euphoric phases I just up and go, or I'll go to the corner store and drink at home. I've been having thoughts of suicide pop up very frequently this past couple of weeks, even in my happy phases, so I'm assuming those are contributing to my...yes I'll use the word...RELAPSE.

Faceless

sorry, edited to delete this comment. It was a correction to the preceding reply; I was unaware of the editing option.

PurpleKnight

I live on my own too, I don't have a wife or kids, so you're talking to the right person when it comes to similar circumstances, but here's the thing, alcohol isn't going to create those things, alcohol isn't going to improve the situation in anyway, just a quick escapism before the hangover happens the next morning!!

We have to get past what we would like in life and not see that as an excuse to drink, we got to get Sober for us, in the hope that one day those things may fall into place.

Sobriety hasn't changed my life in terms of the milestones in life, I'm in the same job, still live on my own, no kids, no relationship, but I'm in a happier place, but the things we can achieve Sober are not all seen, a lot of them are on the inside where no one can see, but we can still feel them and know we are progressing in life as alcohol was holding us back.

I used to think, well if I died, no one is dependant on me, no wife, no kids, who would miss me? so pass that bottle and let's drink the night away, but someone would, my family, work colleagues, friends, no matter how distant, also I would be cutting my self short on what my potential was.

I read a while back someone somewhere posted, probably on SR:

"The definition of Hell: The last day you have on earth, the person you became will meet the person you could have become.”

Alcohol, no matter what our circumstances, if it is holding us back, we need to make the changes necessary for us and our own lives!!

Faceless

Very true. It definitely only makes me feel happy until it wears off. Every time this happens I assess what happened, set up a different plan for the next time I face another slip, and hope that it will work.

We shall see.

Windancer

Faceless, I just came back to SR after OVER A YEAR, and before that, about 3 or more years. No shame! Feel proud. Blessing to you

Eddiebuckle

Face,

There is no need to be embarrassed - we are all here because we couldn't do it alone. Anybody who could quit without significant effort wouldn't be here in the first place.

You are where you should be and you are on the right path. Keep it up, you can do this!

Faceless

Thank you, Wind and Eddie. I really appreciate the words of encouragement.

LBrain

I feel embarrassed that you feel embarrassed.
No need for that. Glad you were able to share your feelings.
Pick yourself back up and move forward.

Hawkeye13

Wishing you a good and sober Sunday Faceless