Coping with Fear
 

Looking for thoughts, recommendations, readings, etc. on dealing with fear in sobriety. Ever since I was a little kid, fear has been my Achilles heel. It used to emotionally paralyze me. In my adulthood, I found that alcohol sent fear packing and I felt great - which is part of why I started drinking so much. Unfortunately, my relationship with alcohol became such that the more I drank, the more I feared. The more I feared, the more I needed to drink. In getting sober, I'm going to need as much spiritual support and strength as possible to overcome all of the fear that rears up without the booze. Any recommendations are much appreciated.

Well it wasnt recovery material per se but when I was first sober I read a lot of eckhart tohles books on mindfulness . I think it was the power of now he wrote about fear and ego and how they relate to addictions

Mindfulness can be a very powerful tool against anxiety and fear. Counseling can help too, have you tried it in the past at all?

Fear is a natural and primal feeling, and I discovered it was not so much the many fears itself in my early sobriety without alcohol which created tons of anxieties, but rather my own awareness that I now was actually being responsible for my own thoughts, feelings, and actions. My anxiety about being the real me without booze was my actual problem to be worked on, and when I worked with others who themselves were struggling, I soon discovered my problem was not really not drinking. Not drinking was actually the best choice moving forward, and although scary at times to be sure, learning who we really are to ourselves and to others is a huge relief. So, stick with staying quit. Work with others. And don't try to deal with all your fears at once, okay? I suggest dealing with whatever moves you forward, and leaving the rest for another day. Pick your battles in ways which give you every opportunity to be victorious!

I found the solution to all of my fears by working the program of alcoholics anonymous.

I'm with tomsteve on this one.
It works. It really does.
Check out The Ninth Step Promises in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
(page 83 and 84, Third Edition)

or simply Google: The Ninth Step Promises.
__________________
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Yes, there are two paths you can go by.
But, in the long run,
There's still time to change the road you're on. ~ Robert Plant

Great question VDGS,

Nighttime when everyone is asleep and a fly can be heard buzzing in another room is when a fear can turn enormous for me. This is when I can pick up any one of Pema Chödrön's books to help "bring it back" to life size (and I do appreciate help in doing so).

Particularly:

The Places that Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times

There are also a few favorite quotes that have the effect of instant calm that I wrote on a mirror (I can share if you would like).

When a fear is running away, I try to put parameters around it by doing the best case scenario/worst case scenario exercise. Accept them both and be happy with anything in between. This is an exercise I need(ed) to do when I became responsible for the health and safety of a few truly helpless human beings (became a parent). It shocked me how the world suddenly became a place of exposed sharp corners. I had to get to the bottom of it in the best way I could so as to not spend the remainder of my days on red alert. Again, I read a book but then also talked with a therapist to gain a more global perspective on what was up.