Fail
Member
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Poconos PA
Posts: 1,544
I have written something similar before, you just have to suck it up and say F... it. Something has to be allowed to click in you that makes you go from disliking your habit to loathing it. You just will lose interest out of disgust, I coupled that disgust with getting a counselor. I was afraid to look the fool and drink while going to him and along with my new found disgust I never looked back. I couldn't care about it anymore, I had lost my love for it. Hopefully you will find that solace some day, keep trying.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 3,293
I was thinking the other day all the terrible things I've while high or drunk. It's not just embarrassing, it's disgusting. I heard somewhere that alcohol takes your soul, than takes your life. Hope things improve for you soon Sleepie. John
Member
Join Date: Oct 2013
Posts: 11,431
As others have said, just don't quit quitting and it will stick.
You have courage and are developing persistence and patience with each try.
In the end, all of these will "dial in" and you'll get there.
We believe in you sleepie
You have courage and are developing persistence and patience with each try.
In the end, all of these will "dial in" and you'll get there.
We believe in you sleepie
Member
Join Date: Oct 2014
Posts: 5,785
While I agree with the other posters that you need to keep hanging in there, you need to raise the stakes. For a number of years I entertained the idea of getting sober, but part of it was I was more interested in drinking and didn't have this resource to know how much worse it gets. It wasn't until I made a commitment to myself that if I couldn't get sober, I would check out more intensive options (AA, oupatient, inpatient, in that order), that I got sober.
It isn't easy, but at the same point you can see where life goes with many people on the board if you continue. I've noticed it never gets easier, but gets harder to get sober the longer you go at it.
I would also agree with Least in working on a gratitude list and am again suggesting that you work on your thinking. I had to address that since my thinking just fed my AV.
i know you can do it!
It isn't easy, but at the same point you can see where life goes with many people on the board if you continue. I've noticed it never gets easier, but gets harder to get sober the longer you go at it.
I would also agree with Least in working on a gratitude list and am again suggesting that you work on your thinking. I had to address that since my thinking just fed my AV.
i know you can do it!
Member
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: northern michigan. not the U.P.
Posts: 15,281
Originally Posted by sleepie 
I've been avoiding posting due to embarrassment. My drinking is out of control this month. If I stop now at least I can say I drank half the month and not for more than half. I cannot believe this.
Sleepie, does this sound like rationalization? Seems it would be like saying," I drove drunk and hit someone. They're injured
Pretty bad but at least they aren't dead."
Sleepie, you've been given suggestions for 5 years now.
I hope and pray you make the decision to get out of the insanity- to stop using the same excuses over and over. To get into action. To make a decision to do whatever it takes to get and stay clean and sober. You are definitely worth it.
PLEASE!!!! stop doing what you are doing and start doing what soooooo many poeple on here have taken their time to suggest to you for years.
Member
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Mgm, AL
Posts: 1,000
Hope
I don't know why/how other people get sober, I really don't. Especially on a free-for-all-forum where everything seems contradictory. Seems very transitory, save for a very few that found a method that works for them. There are many many ways to get sober.
There's only one way to stay drunk/addicted.
Contempt Prior to Investigation nearly killed me, and I would find it takes a Gift Of Desperation, in my experience, to be willing to try something so unimaginable only months earlier, but if a person runs out of options and there's only sober-up. locked-up, or covered-up, left, some things are worth trying.
HOPE. Manufacturing possibilities when all else was hopeless. It means taking suggestions that only the dying would consider. If you want to drink that's your business. If you want to get (and live) sober, AA can help.
I kept doing what I was doing expecting some new miracle of POWER to arrive. That's called insanity, apparently.
There's only one way to stay drunk/addicted.
Contempt Prior to Investigation nearly killed me, and I would find it takes a Gift Of Desperation, in my experience, to be willing to try something so unimaginable only months earlier, but if a person runs out of options and there's only sober-up. locked-up, or covered-up, left, some things are worth trying.
HOPE. Manufacturing possibilities when all else was hopeless. It means taking suggestions that only the dying would consider. If you want to drink that's your business. If you want to get (and live) sober, AA can help.
I kept doing what I was doing expecting some new miracle of POWER to arrive. That's called insanity, apparently.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2015
Posts: 2
Originally Posted by sleepie
I've been avoiding posting due to embarrassment. My drinking is out of control this month. If I stop now at least I can say I drank half the month and not for more than half. I cannot believe this.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2015
Posts: 17
If you have the willpower to walk away for days at a time them now is the time to make a final stand and never drink again. No matter what it takes.
I was you many years ago. It eventually wore me down and beat my ass. Hospitalized me several times and almost killed me.
Trust us it gets worse, I hate to put it so bluntly but it wants to put you through hell, take everything from you, embarass you, then kill you.
It has done this exact thing to many people. Intelligent people, politicians, lawyers, doctors, heads of states, people of all walks of life. It can and will do b it to you.
So give it everything you got and fight this thing hard. Good luck.
I was you many years ago. It eventually wore me down and beat my ass. Hospitalized me several times and almost killed me.
Trust us it gets worse, I hate to put it so bluntly but it wants to put you through hell, take everything from you, embarass you, then kill you.
It has done this exact thing to many people. Intelligent people, politicians, lawyers, doctors, heads of states, people of all walks of life. It can and will do b it to you.
So give it everything you got and fight this thing hard. Good luck.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 8,614
That is so true. Addiction does not discriminate.
I was at a hospital to visit someone awhile back and thought "Look at me, tattooed, grey haired, wearing thrift store clothes, low wage gigs all the time, defunct grey matter- and all these nice nurses and doctors, leading the right life, smart, educated, doing good work."
I was so ashamed.
And then I thought of the person I knew years ago that worked at a facility strictly for professionals who were addicted. Almost all lawyers and doctors.
We're all equal at the end of the day no matter what. There are certain equalizers that no one is above.
None of them are too pleasant.
I just have to somehow convince myself I matter, I count as a fellow human being.
No matter how hard life and some people (nobody here on SR) try to convince me otherwise.
I was at a hospital to visit someone awhile back and thought "Look at me, tattooed, grey haired, wearing thrift store clothes, low wage gigs all the time, defunct grey matter- and all these nice nurses and doctors, leading the right life, smart, educated, doing good work."
I was so ashamed.
And then I thought of the person I knew years ago that worked at a facility strictly for professionals who were addicted. Almost all lawyers and doctors.
We're all equal at the end of the day no matter what. There are certain equalizers that no one is above.
None of them are too pleasant.
I just have to somehow convince myself I matter, I count as a fellow human being.
No matter how hard life and some people (nobody here on SR) try to convince me otherwise.
12-Step Recovered Alkie
Join Date: May 2010
Location: West Bloomfield, MI
Posts: 5,797
Originally Posted by sleepie
I cannot believe this.
Originally Posted by sleepie
I have been doing this for years. Well over a decade.
At first it hurt my feelings that ppl would point out my bs (the lies I'd tell myself). Then, when the ppl I really cared about and trusted in recovery started doing it as well, they added "I point this out to help you see that you don't know what you're talking about...you don't even really know what you're thinking about....and you probably don't even know what you really feel." (I was having some serious issues believing I was really an alkie and I sure didn't think I needed to be "restored to sanity" since I was convinced I was A-OK).
In your first post you said....you can't believe this. Shortly thereafter, you said you've been doing the same thing for a decade or more. So I ask you to consider, do you REALLY not believe it? Or is it possible that you (just like me when I was struggling with sobriety) want to believe sooooo badly that you're NOT an alcoholic that you just won't accept it - in lieu of the facts of the last 10 years laid out in front of you?
Ya see, for me......I'd just ignore my past. Pretend it wasn't really my past. Totally discount it to the point that it didn't exist. And why wouldn't I? Hell, if I did accept it, that would mean I am an alcoholic - and I wanted so desperately to not be one that I just wouldn't really allow anything in that trumped my "wants" ......even though there were mountains of evidence to the contrary. I was being victimized by my wants - a pretty common theme in my past and, to a lessor degree, still true today.
It wasn't until I actually accepted it......not just in my mind.....not just with words......but reeeeeally accepted it down to the marrow of my bones that things started to change and I quit repeating my past. Once I truly believed I was an alcoholic, I got a whole lot more willing to do things that prior to that day, I wasn't eeevvvver willing to do. Low and behold, it was precisely those "new" actions that made sobriety stick.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 8,614
No, I know I have addiction and anxiety issues and there is no doubt in my mind alcoholism runs strong in my family. It wasn't until recently that I considered the fact that before I really started drinking, back when I could count on one hand how many times a year I drank- it was always to the point of getting wasted. Like a dumb dumb, I did not realize this is a huge red flag.
What I mean by "I can't believe this" is that it has gone on for so long. That I let it go for so long and that it became my new normal.
What I mean by "I can't believe this" is that it has gone on for so long. That I let it go for so long and that it became my new normal.
12-Step Recovered Alkie
Join Date: May 2010
Location: West Bloomfield, MI
Posts: 5,797
Originally Posted by sleepie
What I mean by "I can't believe this" is that it has gone on for so long. That I let it go for so long and that it became my new normal.
I'm also saying, don't allow your false ego to beat yourself up over it. And not just because it's counter-productive or because it's not "cool to do" ......but also because it's contradictory to most lifestyles in recovery where we accept out past, recognize it AS the past, and then take new actions to avoid repeating it. Without our past mistakes, growth would be a helluva lot more difficult to manifest.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 5,229
Originally Posted by sleepie
That is so true. Addiction does not discriminate.
I was at a hospital to visit someone awhile back and thought "Look at me, tattooed, grey haired, wearing thrift store clothes, low wage gigs all the time, defunct grey matter- and all these nice nurses and doctors, leading the right life, smart, educated, doing good work."
I was so ashamed.
And then I thought of the person I knew years ago that worked at a facility strictly for professionals who were addicted. Almost all lawyers and doctors.
We're all equal at the end of the day no matter what. There are certain equalizers that no one is above.
None of them are too pleasant.
I just have to somehow convince myself I matter, I count as a fellow human being.
No matter how hard life and some people (nobody here on SR) try to convince me otherwise.
I was at a hospital to visit someone awhile back and thought "Look at me, tattooed, grey haired, wearing thrift store clothes, low wage gigs all the time, defunct grey matter- and all these nice nurses and doctors, leading the right life, smart, educated, doing good work."
I was so ashamed.
And then I thought of the person I knew years ago that worked at a facility strictly for professionals who were addicted. Almost all lawyers and doctors.
We're all equal at the end of the day no matter what. There are certain equalizers that no one is above.
None of them are too pleasant.
I just have to somehow convince myself I matter, I count as a fellow human being.
No matter how hard life and some people (nobody here on SR) try to convince me otherwise.
One thing that i needed desperatly in early sobriety was to have some kind of meaning and purpose. And I recently heard someone speak of purpose watch if you like it might be helpful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJZOyGOmuwE
I felt that each day i needed some reason for being. each day I had to have something. I'd find something i was good at and i'd keep doing it. polishing things or cleaning things or working with my garden etc.. I did it over and over again becuase it made me feel good and like i was worth something even if not much i was worth something. This gave me a sense of purpose each day. Made me start to feel better about myself.
I think exercise and daily meditation are awesome starts for you. Make a routine of doing something for you each day like that.
your purpose could be different every single day. Maybe your passing smile to someone else was the only purpose you had one day and you didnt even realize it but that smile helped someone so much so.
For example the other day I took my car tot he car dealership run by mennonites they where so kind and so nice and pleasant to deal with. THen I stopped at this farm the lady was mennonite as well... she was so nice and talked about how it was such a nice day out etc... it was simple and nice... then i stopped at another farm run by mennonites they thanked me and where so nice and had nice smiles. I dunno why the mennonite pattern here but kinda odd how this played out. I left those 3 places thinking wow what a nice day what a nice time i've had. and i was so worried about dropping that car off so stressed out about it that i took a day off of work to deal with the whole thing in the end i felt very good.
Point is those people might not know what there purpose was either I dunno but to me that day there purpose made me feel very good i was very happy and content after interacting with them.
You have some self worth and reason for being just find it and hold on to it.
Sober Alcoholic
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: northern AZ
Posts: 796
I know, that's hard for all of us.... so... Go and read some of your posts and ask yourself what you would say to this person if you were sponsoring them... what you believe, honestly, would help them.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 3,293
Sleepie, you have given great advice to people on other threads. It tells me your a thoughtful, caring person and willing to help others. So, if a friend came to you with the same problems your dealing with, what would you say? John
Member
Join Date: Jun 2015
Posts: 17
Originally Posted by MemphisBlues
Sleepie, I can only share my struggles with getting sober, and as I've posted here before, I had to Embrace the Suck to be able to chalk up some early sober time.
It. Ain't. Easy.
It was the hardest thing I have ever done. And the rewards others get during those first weeks and months of sobriety -- that ubiquitous pink cloud many or even most experience -- never appeared.
I was going through post benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome, and for the first six months my legs were like jelly, I had muscle spasms that I could watch originate in my calf muscles, like a small alien attempting to burst through my skin, then shoot up my leg, through my back, and end in shoulder spasms. I couldn't read a sentence and understand it. Anderson Cooper on CNN was indecipherable noise coming from a moving mouth.
Add to that extreme agoraphobia, a constant near-panic state of mind, roaring tinnitus, and a maddening OCD state where the last snippet of music or a commercial jingle kept rolling in my mind driving me mad, and all I wanted to do was revert to my second drug of choice -- any form of alcohol.
But I didn't. As each month passed with no progress, I clung to a notion that time would heal me and that only total abstinence would offer my brain a slim chance to heal.
That state lasted for a year. At two months, I kept telling myself things would have to be better at six months. At six months, I pleaded with the universe to at least show some let up of this hell emerge at 10 months. But at six months I was able to sit down and really think of the past weeks and realize I could measure improvement in small increments.
I was better than when I was reeled out of a hospital. I was better than the first month I sat on my couch in a fog where it was near impossible to digest that the television was indeed on and that the swirl of colors and noise was actually a picture and words were being spoken.
At three months my the shaking of my fingers tempered a tad to allow me to turn on my laptop, thought hitting the keys to form words was still a challenge.
And at six months I could emerge from my condo, enter the elevator and score cigarettes on my own and not have to have someone deliver them to me. I could also make tuna salad.
My point is that I had to embrace that hell, to accept that while this was going to be my reality for a long time, it couldn't get worse and I could only pray that it might get better. Total abstinence was the only thing I could do to possibly make things better.
These were just my cognitive and physical symptoms and I won't go into the psychological pain of accepting that I had destroyed countless precious relationships and lost every material thing in the world one can lose short of being in prison.
I've had major depression and panic disorder since adolescence and the first year of my sobriety was the deepest, darkest, soul-crushing low I have ever experienced.
Each day would wake up and realize there was only one thing I could strive for that might make me better and that was not to drink and not to run to a doctor to get a benzo script.
I'm now approaching my fifth sober anniversary, and life has improved beyond my wildest imagination.
From my dark perspective, I can only offer you this advice: Embrace the discomfort. Grab onto the pain. Accept that things are bad in this not drinking and benzo taper business and know it's going to get harder, much harder, and the discomfort you feel in the first few weeks to going to get worse.
Go to the crappy job, let the frustration of a learning disorder roll off your shoulders, mope about, scream at the walls, embrace the suck and get pissed off knowing that the second months is probably going to be harder than the first month.
Do that every day. Have no expectations of rainbows, ice cream and orgasms raining down from heaven just because you managed not go pour beer down your throat that day.
Wake up and do it again.
Stick to the benzo taper and know that each incremental dosage decrease is going to be worse than the first. Love that thought and hate that thought but accept that thought.
There is only one thing that is going to ease the pain and that is more pain spread out over time. And the real kicker here is that you aren't really going to notice when things get better until you have six months sober and can look back and realize that the suck today is a little better than the suck of the first month. Rinse and repeat.
It. Ain't. Easy.
It was the hardest thing I have ever done. And the rewards others get during those first weeks and months of sobriety -- that ubiquitous pink cloud many or even most experience -- never appeared.
I was going through post benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome, and for the first six months my legs were like jelly, I had muscle spasms that I could watch originate in my calf muscles, like a small alien attempting to burst through my skin, then shoot up my leg, through my back, and end in shoulder spasms. I couldn't read a sentence and understand it. Anderson Cooper on CNN was indecipherable noise coming from a moving mouth.
Add to that extreme agoraphobia, a constant near-panic state of mind, roaring tinnitus, and a maddening OCD state where the last snippet of music or a commercial jingle kept rolling in my mind driving me mad, and all I wanted to do was revert to my second drug of choice -- any form of alcohol.
But I didn't. As each month passed with no progress, I clung to a notion that time would heal me and that only total abstinence would offer my brain a slim chance to heal.
That state lasted for a year. At two months, I kept telling myself things would have to be better at six months. At six months, I pleaded with the universe to at least show some let up of this hell emerge at 10 months. But at six months I was able to sit down and really think of the past weeks and realize I could measure improvement in small increments.
I was better than when I was reeled out of a hospital. I was better than the first month I sat on my couch in a fog where it was near impossible to digest that the television was indeed on and that the swirl of colors and noise was actually a picture and words were being spoken.
At three months my the shaking of my fingers tempered a tad to allow me to turn on my laptop, thought hitting the keys to form words was still a challenge.
And at six months I could emerge from my condo, enter the elevator and score cigarettes on my own and not have to have someone deliver them to me. I could also make tuna salad.
My point is that I had to embrace that hell, to accept that while this was going to be my reality for a long time, it couldn't get worse and I could only pray that it might get better. Total abstinence was the only thing I could do to possibly make things better.
These were just my cognitive and physical symptoms and I won't go into the psychological pain of accepting that I had destroyed countless precious relationships and lost every material thing in the world one can lose short of being in prison.
I've had major depression and panic disorder since adolescence and the first year of my sobriety was the deepest, darkest, soul-crushing low I have ever experienced.
Each day would wake up and realize there was only one thing I could strive for that might make me better and that was not to drink and not to run to a doctor to get a benzo script.
I'm now approaching my fifth sober anniversary, and life has improved beyond my wildest imagination.
From my dark perspective, I can only offer you this advice: Embrace the discomfort. Grab onto the pain. Accept that things are bad in this not drinking and benzo taper business and know it's going to get harder, much harder, and the discomfort you feel in the first few weeks to going to get worse.
Go to the crappy job, let the frustration of a learning disorder roll off your shoulders, mope about, scream at the walls, embrace the suck and get pissed off knowing that the second months is probably going to be harder than the first month.
Do that every day. Have no expectations of rainbows, ice cream and orgasms raining down from heaven just because you managed not go pour beer down your throat that day.
Wake up and do it again.
Stick to the benzo taper and know that each incremental dosage decrease is going to be worse than the first. Love that thought and hate that thought but accept that thought.
There is only one thing that is going to ease the pain and that is more pain spread out over time. And the real kicker here is that you aren't really going to notice when things get better until you have six months sober and can look back and realize that the suck today is a little better than the suck of the first month. Rinse and repeat.
I thought my biggest one was the worst I've ever heard of.
I won't post every detail but when I decided to quit that time I was jaundiced, my eyes were orange. The first month and a half I got only 1 and a half hours of sleep a night and nightmares at that. I didn't know what was reality. The depression was horrible and I never cracked a smile until 6 months in and I remember it. I couldn't stand anything. Silenc3, noise, light, dark, I hated being alive. Like you I clung on to the belief it would eventually get better. It took about 9 months to begin to enjoy anything such as a tv program. But at 6 months life was still miserable, but doable.
I remember the hell and fog of evert minute of existence.
That's why my recent relapse scared the living **** out of me even though I was nowhere near that kind of shape. I believed that's where I was heading.
Congratulations, hang on for dear life.
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