throwing in the towel again
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Bellingham
Posts: 513
throwing in the towel again
I'm done. Again. I went a year and a half and then spent this year drinking. It wasn't worse, like they say in AA. Well, maybe just slightly worse. Mostly it was exactly the same. The bi-weekly binge, drinking nips on the train, wasting a bunch of money, feeling out of control.
Alcohol has always been a fantasy of my better self with people. That friendship fantasy, friends gathered round a table. But how often does that happen? I want to commit now to the other self, the self that leaves the party, that stays in. The self that often seems quiet with not much to say. I'm afraid of all the lonely years, the passage of time. But the years seem lonely anyway.
I was 5 days into this and used some occasion to buy a bottle of brandy. I almost drank the whole thing. But my drinking is not extreme, is comparatively mild. No jails, institutions, ruination. Just someone who is sick of it, who senses the potential slippage, who cannot stop until the bottle is empty.
I hate this. I wish someone would love me. I wish I loved someone. I want relief from this solitude, this struggle, this fear for the lonely future. The platitudes of the blessed and grateful didn't help much, although they are better than waking up in fright in the middle of the night in a low blood sugar panic.
Alcohol has always been a fantasy of my better self with people. That friendship fantasy, friends gathered round a table. But how often does that happen? I want to commit now to the other self, the self that leaves the party, that stays in. The self that often seems quiet with not much to say. I'm afraid of all the lonely years, the passage of time. But the years seem lonely anyway.
I was 5 days into this and used some occasion to buy a bottle of brandy. I almost drank the whole thing. But my drinking is not extreme, is comparatively mild. No jails, institutions, ruination. Just someone who is sick of it, who senses the potential slippage, who cannot stop until the bottle is empty.
I hate this. I wish someone would love me. I wish I loved someone. I want relief from this solitude, this struggle, this fear for the lonely future. The platitudes of the blessed and grateful didn't help much, although they are better than waking up in fright in the middle of the night in a low blood sugar panic.
Welcome back.
Be the person you were meant to be. Quit drinking and start with loving yourself. Sobriety isn't a cure for loneliness but it is a better solution than drunkenness, with less of the misery.
Be the person you were meant to be. Quit drinking and start with loving yourself. Sobriety isn't a cure for loneliness but it is a better solution than drunkenness, with less of the misery.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2012
Posts: 69
I can identify a lot with what you said. I've matured a lot since my last drink. There's a decent chance that if I started drinking again, there wouldn't be any devastating consequences (or perhaps there would be). Instead it would just be the eternal "fantasy of my better self with people", as you put it. Maybe I'd start some new relationships and have some memorable occasions, but it would never be enough to fulfill the fantasy, and it would ultimately end in me wanting to quit again anyway. I'd rather just not drink and work on the person that I actually am.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 204
Everything is not so cut and dried. Nor as easy as you say. Or as better as you think it is.
A lot of people I know are lonely-they reckon in the UK it's epidemic almost! I have learned for me drink has made me even more isolated. I go to see friends for cups of tea. Cinema etc. I didn't like the lonely times alone so I was using them to try to drown the pain. It didn't though it just made things worse having to cancel plans because drink was taking over etc. I was loosing who I was, all my self respect! I least now I'm finding that I have hope I can be the best person I can be not a sad, middle aged drunk! Now I have some hope again. Life could all change for the better tomorrow. The best line in 12 years a slave was " You mustn't let the despair get to you."
A lot of people I know are lonely-they reckon in the UK it's epidemic almost! I have learned for me drink has made me even more isolated. I go to see friends for cups of tea. Cinema etc. I didn't like the lonely times alone so I was using them to try to drown the pain. It didn't though it just made things worse having to cancel plans because drink was taking over etc. I was loosing who I was, all my self respect! I least now I'm finding that I have hope I can be the best person I can be not a sad, middle aged drunk! Now I have some hope again. Life could all change for the better tomorrow. The best line in 12 years a slave was " You mustn't let the despair get to you."
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Bellingham
Posts: 513
I've done this before. Sometimes I'm envious of the people on this site who can claim withdrawals.
Alcohol is so wrapped up in the pursuit of joy. I've always craved a table of friends. I've wanted to leave the window open. The fantasy. Unadvised, from tumultuous pasts, we cling to the dream because no one showed us how to grow up properly. I don't know.
Alcohol is so wrapped up in the pursuit of joy. I've always craved a table of friends. I've wanted to leave the window open. The fantasy. Unadvised, from tumultuous pasts, we cling to the dream because no one showed us how to grow up properly. I don't know.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Bellingham
Posts: 513
I've done this before. Sometimes I'm envious of the people on this site who can claim withdrawals.
Alcohol is so wrapped up in the pursuit of joy. I've always craved a table of friends. I've wanted to leave the window open. The fantasy. Unadvised, from tumultuous pasts, we cling to the dream because no one showed us how to grow up properly. I don't know.
Alcohol is so wrapped up in the pursuit of joy. I've always craved a table of friends. I've wanted to leave the window open. The fantasy. Unadvised, from tumultuous pasts, we cling to the dream because no one showed us how to grow up properly. I don't know.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Bellingham
Posts: 513
I've done this before. Sometimes I'm envious of the people on this site who can claim withdrawals.
Alcohol is so wrapped up in the pursuit of joy. I've always craved a table of friends. I've wanted to leave the window open. The fantasy. Unadvised, from tumultuous pasts, we cling to the dream because no one showed us how to grow up properly. I don't know.
Alcohol is so wrapped up in the pursuit of joy. I've always craved a table of friends. I've wanted to leave the window open. The fantasy. Unadvised, from tumultuous pasts, we cling to the dream because no one showed us how to grow up properly. I don't know.
Im glad your here as well sir. One thing I learned in 30 years of drinking is that it slowly robs you of hope. It takes away any joy and contentment in your life. It has you believe that it is the only solution you have in life in order to be happy. But one thing that is for sure, when your in a drunken state there can never be any happiness. Its an illusion. Its completely false. Thats, the insidious outcome of this disease. Then it physically kills you off. I ask you not to be dismayed by alcohol. Give sobriety a real chance this time. The rewards and benefits are plentiful. Trust me. Trust us. Trust yourself. Not alcoholism.
Mostly it was exactly the same. The bi-weekly binge, drinking nips on the train, wasting a bunch of money, feeling out of control.
Alcohol has always been a fantasy of my better self with people. That friendship fantasy, friends gathered round a table. But how often does that happen? I want to commit now to the other self, the self that leaves the party, that stays in. The self that often seems quiet with not much to say. I'm afraid of all the lonely years, the passage of time. But the years seem lonely anyway.
Alcohol has always been a fantasy of my better self with people. That friendship fantasy, friends gathered round a table. But how often does that happen? I want to commit now to the other self, the self that leaves the party, that stays in. The self that often seems quiet with not much to say. I'm afraid of all the lonely years, the passage of time. But the years seem lonely anyway.
So i'm done with that approach. I am finding i am becoming a different human inside now that i've eliminated those binges, kept the alcohol off my brain, don't let it send my emotions spiraling. This new sober person doesn't react in the same way to the same situations.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Bellingham
Posts: 513
When I quit for a year, I as definitely less irritable. But the changes were subtle though. I still had the potentials for self destruction with others, still self-isolated, was still lonely. I wanted more of a transformation. I was still chasing a fantasy of some kind I guess, in those early days of AA, trying to fit my story into the hope and glory format. I was this, but now I am this. Everything is more subtle. At the same time, this means that nothing is lost, or wasted.
Hello davaidavai. I'm sorry to hear of your loneliness. It sounds like you are worried that you will be more lonely sober than drunk. Do you think that's because alcohol helps you socialise, or because alcohol is helping you cover up the loneliness you're feeling?
Michael
Michael
Member
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: New England
Posts: 1,926
I understand that loneliness. I'm married with kids and still felt lonely. I could be in a room full of people and still feel lonely. I was lonely when I drank, I was lonely when I didn't drink. I stopped feeling lonely recently when I started attending AA regularly and getting to know people who are from "my planet"....people who truly understand me. People who did almost all the insane things that I did while drinking. People who have been to hell and back like me. I don't feel alone anymore. I finally feel like I'm home.
Good luck. We are here for you...
Good luck. We are here for you...
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Bellingham
Posts: 513
I really appreciate the encouragement. I guess I'm like that but I'm not. I haven't been to hell and back though because of drinking, but something about me lives in the same evasive set of extremes. Like the extremes are good hiding places. I'm totally alone, totally drunk, totally sold that this time will be different, totally self loathing, totally repentant. I feel like Ratzo Rizzo, hustling my way through life, essentially repellent. Shades of grey, where life really resides, are elusive. I think I went into AA the first time not really buying the malady because I wasn't a part of a particular narrative, the gallon of vodka a day, arrests, institutions. I was just a pathetic nip drinker, wandering around NYC buying little flasks of Bushmills. A twice weekly binger, facebook blurter who couldn't hold down a job and find a place of respect in society. A yearly breakdown artist whose going to eventually lose control in some situation, get in a fight, get thrown out of somewhere.
If I do AA again, I'm going to try to be more genuine. In my drinking I get a small taste of that, how awful it must be for the deep bottoms. How truly horrible. My experiences can be nightmarish. But it's this lonely nightmare no one experiences because I am mostly functioning. A literal nightmare, waking up in the night in a panic. No one buys it.
I want to speak more toward the spiritual ailment side. The bingers who can't claim a deep bottom. There's a confusion there, at least I felt that way in the rooms a bit. But that was all me, all wanting to belong, not embracing the validity of my own situation.
Maybe I'll make more friends this time around. I did like it. I enjoyed the stale smell of the places, the light, the cookies and coffee, the stories sometimes...
To answer your question Michael, I'm lonely all the time, like Serenidad. Alcohol is first an intense bodily pleasure. It's a brief ecstasy. Secondly I think it's the fantasy of not being lonely. That's what leads you out I guess. Chasing after something. Some point in the future where it's going to work.
If I do AA again, I'm going to try to be more genuine. In my drinking I get a small taste of that, how awful it must be for the deep bottoms. How truly horrible. My experiences can be nightmarish. But it's this lonely nightmare no one experiences because I am mostly functioning. A literal nightmare, waking up in the night in a panic. No one buys it.
I want to speak more toward the spiritual ailment side. The bingers who can't claim a deep bottom. There's a confusion there, at least I felt that way in the rooms a bit. But that was all me, all wanting to belong, not embracing the validity of my own situation.
Maybe I'll make more friends this time around. I did like it. I enjoyed the stale smell of the places, the light, the cookies and coffee, the stories sometimes...
To answer your question Michael, I'm lonely all the time, like Serenidad. Alcohol is first an intense bodily pleasure. It's a brief ecstasy. Secondly I think it's the fantasy of not being lonely. That's what leads you out I guess. Chasing after something. Some point in the future where it's going to work.
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)