sleepie

Hi all. I have been to the doctor. I have been. Had a little scare, just a wee one but still need to take my health seriously as do we all. Now I am getting to be a little health obsessed. How to move on without worrying all the time? There are no guarantees even after you quit drinking, I feel a heavy cloud will be over my life even if I am perfect and abstinent from alcohol here on out.

Many of us here deal with this I think. How do you cope? I used to feel if I quit drinking everything will be alright. Now I'm not so sure. I'm not young, not old but in between. People say it's never too late. Thoughts?

Cobalt

The answer for me is to simply not drink. I know that if I can achieve extended sobriety, I will feel 100 times better. I had a long period of sobriety that started last year and ended recently, and during that time I was in a significantly better place physical, mental, and emotional health wise. Since I relapsed, I'm back to my old habits and things are not going well for me. This is my problem. I NEED to avoid alcohol entirely, or nothing will ever change. My illness has progressed just like everyone else's, it's no longer up in the air. My options are alcohol or death. Even if it won't kill me immediately, it will be my undoing if I continue to drink. I'm going cold turkey for the umteenth time. It just has to happen.

strategery

There are no guarantees in terms of your health when quitting drinking at any age, as there are no guarantees in life.
However, I guarantee that if you continue to drink, it's going to make your long-term health even worse than if you quit drinking now.
I hope you recognize this is your AV trying to give you the go-ahead to drink.

trachemys

The only difference is you get to deal with your health problems without booze related health problems.

Sasha4

The thing is you will probably never know.

With some illness and diseases (I don't want to give you examples as it might make you worry more) you will never know if it was due to environmental factors, like lifestyle, or it was always going to happen as it is in your DNA.

I find it a little bit strange that people want to find blame for their illness. They become so engrossed in how it happened, they almost seem to forget that the only thing that really matters is getting better from it and alleviating any unpleasant symptoms.

Maybe thats part of the blame culture we will live in today.

There always has to be somewhere, something or someone to point the finger at and say 'you did that, you caused this'.

Instead would it not be more helpful to think 'this has happened, where do we go from here?'

Everyone deserves a pain free existence and a good quality of life.
No-one has the right to say you don't deserve it because of what you did.
Medicine does not work that way either.
The goal is to preserve life.

The body is really complex too.
There are no set rules.
There are children who suffer from FAS and their mother might have drunk 6 drinks a week.
There are children who are fine and their mothers never stopped drinking.
You just don't know.
Alcohol affects us all differently.
As does diet, nicotine and other drugs.

Health prevention is important but you need to give yourself a break.
Becoming over worried to the extent it impacts on your life is pointless.
If something has happened, it has happened.
But for now, if you are generally okay, its time to move on and think about something else.

You could worry for the next 12 months, then be hit by a bus - sorry to be blunt.
Wouldn't that make the last 12 months of worry about drinking alcohol a bit pointless?
You could have just enjoyed those 12 months?

Perhaps the rubber band round your wrist scenario?
The minute you start to think about your health or the way alcohol may have changed some cells, snap the band and it will warn you to stop.

I think thats how it works, maybe someone else could better explain it?

This is said with kindness and love from someone who knows xx

Bostonsportsfan

I still worry about my health from time to time, even at almost 16 months. It's normal to be concerned about your health as an alcoholic, but don't get too obsessed. I'd have faith in your DR and do things to better your health and well being.

I wish you the best Sleepie. I hope you find peace in sobriety. Good luck.

sleepie

Actually no, I have zero desire to drink. I do wish I could handle this though, anxiety is something apparently I am wired for, and it was cemented in by my abusive parents.

Mountainmanbob

My body deals with wreckage due to my abuse in the past. I thank God that I'm still alive for many of my friends died doing the same things that I did to myself.

Best way to get feeling and thinking better,
being grateful for what we have today.

For we could have (far) less.

Mountainman

Mountainmanbob

You remind me of me.
We also need to forgive them one day at a time.

Admitted, sometimes all that is needed is just not that easy.

We keep learning and don't give up.

Mountainman

sleepie

Can't forgive those who have no regret. Abusing children is not ok. Nope. Sorry.

RobbyRobot

Anxiety is itself a whole other challenge. Same with childhood abuse. My experiences with both created a monster inside me with no easy solutions. Self hurt comes to mind, and this itself is another challenge altogether.

Sorry you're dealing with so much, sleepie.

For anxieties, I've learned its uber helpful to separate my feelings from my entangled thoughts. Its far more productive, for me anyways, to change my thinking than it is to shut down, push away, accommodate, soothe, forgive, eradicate, or whatever my feelings of anxiety and abuse and self-harm.

Sleepie, are you able to have separation of thoughts from your feelings? Or does one drag you into the other? I understand about not forgiving. Been there, and on some levels, my forgiveness has not been offered. Do you have any peace of mind though on yourself as a victim of abuse?

Don't have to answer of course.

advbike

Drinking was not my original problem, it was my medication. For the anxiety and lack of confidence I had as a young adult, especially with those of the fairer sex. Of course it became a problem over time, and held me back, so I eventually quit. But now I have to face these issues sober. The anxiety, buried feelings, distorted thinking, and the critical and judgemental voice of my ego.

These are coping mechanisms that help us with difficult childhoods, but become problematic in adulthood. I have done a lot of reading, and work with therapists, but ultimately I believe the answer lies in the 12 steps recovery programs, whether AA, or ACoA. Self help just doesn't work if the thinking is distorted or the ego is running the show. Better if it's our higher power.

sleepie

Separating thoughts from feelings. I can try?

As far as peace of mind. Not really. I know, I should be over it by now, it was a long time ago. But the older I get, the more I observe how much I missed out on, and how much of me is missing because of it. It makes me feel robbed. Don't know what else to say!

Gottalife

Forgiveness is for you, not them. It releases you from the pain of the resentment you hold. If you hang on to the resentment, you are in effect drinking poison yourself and expecting them to die.

They have no regret. Well they are sick people, but we can still forgive. If there is no contrition in this case, there can be no reconciliation, no restoration of trust, but there is no reason for us to go on suffering through our resenment.

sleepie

I really don't understand that. I have heard that before but I truly don't get it. There is no difference between forgiving and condoning if someone is not sorry, in my mind. What's the difference, if any?

Mikie9

My grandfather on my mothers side died from lung cancer.... Never smoke a day in his life or worked in an environment to cause it. It just was.

Point being, we never know. I also have an uncle who has smoked and drank every day for as long as I have know him. At the age of 84, he is still as alive as I am lol.

Live. Don't worry about dying. Nature has that planned out for us no mater what we do in the mean time.

sleepie

That's crazy but true Mikie.

Mikie9

Not crazy, just is life.

RobbyRobot

I understand and hear what you're saying sleepie. I believe peace of mind is more important then any abuse we have had, okay? I'm not surprised as you age, you look at your past and have a different now experience of what happened long ago. You know, I don't think that in itself is a problem either, having more awareness of what was robbed from you.

It's helpful to not have resentments. Resentments are really just the internalized re-experiencing past experiences which you originally hated. When we resent, we bring to our present moments not only the original hate, but as well the added hate of the continuing resentment. Its easy enough to imagine eventually a person can become overwhelmed today by whatever happened many years ago, because its all carried forward.

Solving resentments does not require you forgive others for what abuse they have done. It does require you forgive yourself for being victimized by the abuse. We take on a lot of blame and shame when we were abused, especially if it happened while we were yet children. The blame and shame needs to be examined, and forgiven. This does not forgive the abusers. Forgiving the abusers is extra. Its a different kind of choice. Not making that choice is totally within your rights as a person, imo.

Separating thoughts from feelings is useful so as to deal rationally with anxieties, and to more easily accept the feelings that are created and or influenced from anxieties. Its just easier to process things out, imo. And making the process easier can bring better opportunities for having peace of mind.

Hope this helps some, sleepie.

Gottalife

I take your point Sleepie. It took me years to get a handle on forgiveness in these type of circumstances. There was a book, The Shack, by Willem P Young that helped my understanding enormously.

Generally I will approach these issues from AA experience which has also been my experience. The first thing AA would say is that there are specialists out there that deal with specific trauma and outside help may be advisable.

The second thing AA says is that resentment is highly dangerous to alcoholics. In fact in some cases it has the power to actually kill. I'll give you two personal examples.

In my first few weeks of sobriety I became the victim of a serial predator in AA. A short but stormy relationship ensued which involved marriage on marriage off, having a baby, having a miscarriage, baby comes back, then abortion, and during all that I was suddenly kicked out on the street. This gave me huge resentments and I recognised that it could get between me and AA, which would be a death sentence for me. My first course was to pray about it and pray for her. It didn't seem to work, weeks later I was still stewing away. Then it came to me that I had a part in this, getting into it for all the wrong reasons, so I made amends to her for my part, and the resentment was gone. I found out after that I was just one in a long line. While she carried on with her behaviour, I was freed of the resentment and stayed sober. I didn't trust her, I still don't, but I can be in the same room with her without feeling that pain.

The second story is about my mother, a chronic alcoholic whose drinking seemed to take off about the time I got sober. She had two rehabs, and the best AA s I knew worked with her but she had this resentment against my father for bringing the family out from England and keeping us here when her mother died.
You might say this is the worst kind of resentment, the justified resentment. Well, my dad died about twenty years ago. Mum has continued to nurse this resentment and it has festered and grown to include me, and all my fathers side of the family about a hundred folks. She hates us all equally. Now she is just a shell, her face contorted with rage and hate as she relives and feeds these resentments while pouring gin down her neck, all the while muttering under her breath. She lives in a home, and she is the patient from hell. The only reason she hasn't died is because God couldn't stand the aggravation. So that is where a resentment took her.

I developed another huge resentment around the time my wife died. Her sister did some things which almost wrecked my business and deeply hurt my wife. In her last days I was able to put aside my personal feelings and allow the two sisters to make their peace, but after she died and the funeral was over, I recall being absolutely incandescent with rage. Part of this was grief of course, but my children had an aunt who could not be trusted. Prayer was my first line of attack, as it had always worked in the past, praying for her. Then her husband left her, and I found myself offering consolation. It seemed the resentment had left me.

However, just as you point out Sleepie, there has never been any admission from her of wrong doing, no contrition, so therecan be no reconciliation or restoration of trust. In other words, though I have forgiven her and I no longer suffer form the resentment, I do not trust her and would never put her in a position to be able to behave in a similar way towards my family. I stopped my children from seeing her, explaining why.

They are older now and just recently similar behaviour came up from her trying to get their inheritance or part of it. She is a nasty piece of work when it comes to looking after her own interests, she will trample anyone. The kids know this so they have their eyes open.

But her behaviour does not affect me. We have family Xmas together, I have a good relationship with my nephews and mother in law.

My experience is that the answer to resentment is forgiveness, while forgiveness does not condone the behaviour. The examples above show how I was able to be free of resentment through practicing the principles of the AA program, and I live a good life where those offenders have no power over me.

The example of my mother shows what a miserable existence awaits those who refuse to forgive. She has no life at all. It shows resentment really does have the power to kill.