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Afraid to hope

Old 06-24-2015, 01:45 PM
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Afraid to hope

I know I am supposed to have a positive attitude and trying to quit drinking I am supposed to have that.
I was thinking I used to be on automatic when I was younger- never, ever being down, not allowing myself the luxury.
I always smiled, I always found a way to get through.
But after a certain point, I was done. A person can only take so much and I am not going to outline my history or failures here again.
But every time I thought I had a handle on things life slapped me in the face again. Over and over til I gave up.
Now I feel I will be punished if I think anything good can happen to me.
I don't believe in god but I do believe something that will punish me for feeling good. It has always happened before.
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Old 06-24-2015, 01:50 PM
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Please stop basing your expectations for tomorrow on what happened yesterday. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow isn't here yet. Live for today. Today is all we have. Live for it.
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Old 06-24-2015, 01:57 PM
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I agree with least!! 100%! Keep your head up! xxx
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Old 06-24-2015, 02:34 PM
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ok
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Old 06-24-2015, 02:35 PM
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is it a perpetual fear of the rug being pulled out from underneath you? I constantly deal with that myself where life starts rolling along ok and I'm terrified about whats going to go wrong cause something can and will always go wrong.

Heck just today i was having a good day anxiety was low calm and collected etc.. My wife started fighting with me now the days about over and i am too!

But I'll just get up and do it all over again. drinking wont solve anything for me. I dunno I guess I've started to learn how to just kinda roll along if that makes any sense.

I know at times it can feel as if we go from one horrific problem to the next barely being able to come up for air in between.

But it doesnt mean we can just give up throw in the towel and pick up the bottle. thats not gonna fix anything either.

hang in there. I hope it eases up.
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Old 06-24-2015, 03:00 PM
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When I look backward at my life I have realized that drugs and alcohol played a significant role in my problems. Once a removed alcohol the problems I have were not of my own making.

When I am sober things get better when I drink things get worse. Pretty simple equation. If there is any hope for a great life it will not include drinking
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Old 06-24-2015, 03:16 PM
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I have no desire to drink today.
A lot of people here say that there problems were all due to alcohol.
Mine are not.
And some cannot be fixed.
I SO wish that alcohol was the main problem.
My troubles began long before I drank.
it's hard not to dwell on the past when it made you who you are today.
You can't just erase chunks of your life.
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Old 06-24-2015, 03:22 PM
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Sleepie, you can't change the past but you don't have to stay stuck in it either. You are in complete control of your life. You can choose to be a victim or a survivor.
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Old 06-24-2015, 03:27 PM
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You know that saying, 'if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail ...'

That was me. The only tool I had was a bottle...so...

I've found other tools to deal with my problems. That took a little time and a lot of patience.

Some of my problems I can't fix either - they have no solution - but I've learned to live with them best I can.

I could only do that sober, sleepie.

D
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Old 06-24-2015, 03:53 PM
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I don't know if any of this will help, but several things came to mind.
I try to use what happened to me in the past for finding strength for today. For example, I use the abuse I went through as a child to be more understanding and helpful to people today. Now, some of those issues as a child still affects me today. The insecurities, low self-esteem, difficulty trusting others still get in my way a lot. All I can do is accept the fact that they are there and do whatever I can to not let them get in my way today. Even without drinking, these problems are still there. Drinking didn't cause those problems, and quitting drinking didn't end them. Last thing. My past does contribute to I am today, but it does not make me who I am today. I define who I am today. John
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Old 06-24-2015, 04:12 PM
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I'm not asking you to do the impossible: erase your past. Just don't hold on to it so tightly. Allow the past to remain in the past. Be who you are today, however you got there. But don't let it define who you are today. Does that make any sense?
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Old 06-24-2015, 05:57 PM
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Originally Posted by sleepie View Post
I have no desire to drink today.
A lot of people here say that there problems were all due to alcohol.
Mine are not.
And some cannot be fixed.
I SO wish that alcohol was the main problem.
My troubles began long before I drank.
it's hard not to dwell on the past when it made you who you are today.
You can't just erase chunks of your life.

A lot of my problems where not due to alcohol. A lot of issues where there prior tot he alcohol I was just using the alcohol as a way to cope rather then dealing with my issues.

Alcohol being a depressent made my outlook look very bleek.

now with no alcohol my perspective is differnt I've learned some coping mechanisms and such as well.

I dont know how it is for you. But when i drank even in my non drinking hours I was a wreck mentally. My point is if you do not want booze now thats fine thats great. But till the fog lifts or so sometimes our perspectives and views are not as great as they could be. The longer your sober however the better it gets.

Its like our minds are not fireing on all 4 cylinders when we consume alcohol on a regular basis. but once we starve ourselves of alcohol we hit a point where the fog lifts our outlook starts to shift. Problems are still there but our view of them changes.

I'll go so far as to say I felt i was loosing my sanity in my final drinking days.
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Old 06-24-2015, 06:01 PM
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What if what you're saying is true? What if there really are cycles? What if things move from good to bad and back again on and on? If its inevitable that its going to happen that way and you can't do anything to stop it then what ARE you going to do about it.. about how you live through it? The ONLY thing you CAN do is focus on whatever makes you happiest. Is that the bad that's coming while the good is there? I don't think so. Focus on the good right in front of you. What you're saying is your focus is always on the bad that's happening or on its way missing the good you admit happens as part of the cycle. He77, you could even choose to focus on the good that's coming while the bad is there. Makes sense to me.

And, btw, Sleepie... you're doing some pretty classic alcoholic thinking there. I ran into it in my first year of sobriety and thought.. man some people are superstitious.. sorry, that's what I thought.
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Old 06-24-2015, 06:01 PM
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Hi, Sleepie,

I'm sorry you're hurting.

Sometimes, it's hard to know what to say when a fellow journeyer is struggling so much. Many here have given you wise counsel, both in this thread and many that preceded it. I've tended to stay quiet as there wasn't much I could add to their insights. You said something in this post, though, that made me reflect on my early days of sobriety.

You mention "hope" and a "positive attitude." I'll go to the latter first. No one expects you to be Mary Sunshine at the moment. I cannot imagine any of us felt like that in the early days.

Hope is a different matter. Sometimes, it confers a sense of hedging, a desire that comes tinged with doubts and "buts."

What if you substituted the concept of hope with trust?

Trust that things not only can get better, but will get better. But you need to rack up some sober time before the light shines more brightly. MIR summed it up well: "When I am sober, things get better; when I drink, things get worse. Pretty simple equation."

Simple and very, very true. But you have let sobriety take hold. You have to give it a chance to deepen inside you.

I can only offer my own experience. Life didn't not miraculously improve when I put down the drink. In fact, it was one huge trade-off for two months. Yes, the hangovers were gone, but in their place came fatigue. I either wanted to eat everything in sight or nothing at all. My intestines pretty much went on strike. I couldn't think. I felt like no one on Earth was as alone as me. The only thing that kept me going was a sense that it couldn't last forever and -- somehow, and at some point -- I wouldn't feel so cruddy. That at some point, the depressants I'd been pouring down my throat would leave my system. I had to trust.

Two months after I stopped drinking, I came limping onto SR. And that's when others verified this simple but very true thing: It gets better. I trusted them and they were right. In fact, things started to improve soon thereafter -- physically, mentally and spiritually. You have to give it time but trust that it gets better.

Your way isn't working, Sleepie. Allowing yourself to succumb to alcohol has put you in a constant cycle of one step forward, two steps back. No wonder you're exhausted. And sad.

You're surrounded by support on SR. And wisdom. We were all in terrible shape at one point. Our names weren't on some secret registry written invisibly in the cosmos, listing who gets to be sober and who doesn't. The reason we're sober is that -- despite how we felt, perhaps even despite what felt like all available evidence at the moment -- is that we trusted it would get better.

You can, too, Sleepie. Trust in sobriety. It does get better.
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Old 06-24-2015, 06:27 PM
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My issues didn't start with alcohol....but they most certainly didn't get better with the addition of it. At least being sober I am not compounding those preexisting problems and I can make progress on revolving them. I can't make any of the things that happened to me in the past disappear but I can take action to peacefully exist with them. I think you need counselling Sleepie. I am not singling you out because I think 99.9% of the population needs it but I think you need to find a way out of this holding pattern you are in.
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Old 06-24-2015, 07:54 PM
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Thanks guys some of you made me smile.

I think I am really extra disappointed because even though I was doing better, I really blew it this month. And then I took a look at what better is for me and it is still pretty awful for the average person.
After 5 or six weeks again, I hope to feel better but I am also doing a benzo taper, which I think comes into play. I plan to stick to meditation even in small amounts daily and exercise even if it's 5 minutes a day. I just have to fight through even if it's a minor daily victory. Like today, I was exhausted and had errands to run- my exercise was one song on X Box "Just Dance" with a very favorite little person of mine. I absolutely stink at it and even though it was only 3 minutes it was still something and got my heart rate up more than laying in bed. And I still did the ten minute meditation.

Thank you for all your support.

I know some of you have been putting up with me for years.
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Old 06-24-2015, 10:22 PM
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Hey Sleepie - I know that feelings, when you feel like 'just what's the point - every time things just turn to sh*t anyway?!' On those days I find that meditating on 'Anyway' can really help ground me...I have shared it before on here, so you may have already seen it, but just in case.

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.
(It's apparently found written on the wall in Mother Teresa's home for children in Calcutta)


Good and bad things always happen. To all people. It'd be a weird old charmed life you were living if it was always easy! It's easy, when things are going badly, to look around and think everyone else is okay and compare your insides with their outsides. If we were to speak to most people we meet who look happy, polished and untainted by lifes' disappointments, we would hear all kinds of sad stuff that we could never guess was happening to them. Not taking the sh*t personally was key for me. It isn't a punishment, it's life. And no, some things are not 'fair', but whenever I think of some of the bleaker stuff that's happened to me in my past, I only have to switch on a news program to be reminded that actually, I escape more of the sh*t that's flying around than I do get hit by it.

Good move with the XBox dance by the way - I miss my XBox (no room in my pretty little dolls-house flat for those kind of moves). Music and dancing is powerful stuff! x
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Old 06-25-2015, 06:01 AM
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Nothing will eclipse the Sunlight of the Spirit like self-centered fear and self-pity. It's telling everyone that I can't possibly be of any help to you because I'm too busy with my SELF. Ask me how I know THAT little ditty...

Indulge yourself for 20 minutes, then get off the cross--we need the wood:

Sobriety takes action. One minute at a time, one hour at a time, one day at a time. And it takes getting to the end of your 'good ideas.' There is a well worn path to sober living for those who want it. That only leaves one question: Do YOU want it?
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Old 06-25-2015, 06:47 AM
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SKG you had me laughing on that one i needed it haha.

I tend to love to wallow in my own poo
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Old 06-25-2015, 09:13 AM
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How are you Sleepie
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