Soberpotamus

I'm really glad you didn't attempt to go there drunk yesterday, considering where you live and how easy it is to be mugged and all.

So, what's the plan today?

Aellyce

Yes that would be good if I were not this sick. I feel like even moving a bit will make me throw up. I'm still in bed in yesterday's clothes and even going to the bathroom felt like a big effort. How glamorous, right?

Aellyce

I think I just want to survive today. I certainly feel like I drank poison! I will find a meeting for tomorrow morning, first thing before work.

dwtbd

Hope you feel better sooner than later(but the piper gets his due ,eh?), and I also hope you augment , tweak the plan to include not drinking , like proactively

KAD

I remember feeling the way you feel, Aellyce. It's horrible. There's no other way to describe it. It will be a year ago this weekend I was so sick, I called paramedics three times to my house. I couldn't eat or drink anything. All I wanted was some IV fluids but they wouldn't do that unless they admitted me to the hospital. I don't know if you think you're at this point yet, but when I was there, you suggested to me that I should go to rehab. Do you consider that an option? If not, I do hope you go to that AA meeting as soon as you feel well enough. You don't want to get caught up in this pattern again. You have to break the cycle, sooner rather than later.

Aellyce

Thanks, GMO. I'm feeling a bit better but still pretty awful. I must have had some level of alcohol poisoning given the amount I finished within a few hours yesterday, don't even want to say how much I drank.

Yes I do consider rehab, I did even earlier but was talked out of it. I'll now see how it goes with intensive meetings but if this happens again only once, I'll go inpatient no matter what everyone else says. I am scared enough now but as we know that alone doesn't tend to hold us back when we are in this cycle.

Hawkeye13

I know that horrible sick that you're going through too well.

Please take care of you, and don't hesitate to step back and get treatment
in an in patient setting if needed.

Is your husband back soon?
It sounds like you need a bit more support right now.

Cow

I miss Robot, too. Very much.

Total empathize with all you say, Ael, especial the existential "to be or not to be" angst part. Oh, how I has ruminated. (But, you know, I a ruminant.) No amount of therapies have ever resolve this. But then, the facts is, I still here, against all odds, as are you, so I guess something in us is choosing "to be." Gods know, at least for me, horrific madness and brutal suffering of relapses is really fate worse than death, yes? I know what it take to survive those. Is no small feat.

Carlotta

Just wanted to give you a
I also remember that horrible feeling of having sugary poison cursing through my veins. Sometimes I almost felt like it was bubbles (I drank beer).
I hope you are still with us and are finishing day one and onward to day two.

Ps: I miss Robby too.

bemyself

Blast! I just wrote out a reply Aellyce....and lost it all with one wrong keystroke.

Not to worry: I mainly wanted to urge you to get into inpatient rehab ASAP. Really. Don't go through what I just have, my dear. We are extremely similar. It's time for full bore residential refuge / retreat into the care of professionals, medical and psych both, for a period of time. Cut to the chase!

Lots of love
Vic

Aellyce

Thanks again, everyone! I'm feeling much better today, still in a low mood and anxious, but physically ~okay. Now I am just mad at myself that I broke my sober week, it was going so well until I gave in to an impulse again. Which was quite predictable actually, I totally saw it coming from the time when I got up that morning, I was in "relapse mode" big time. Then acted it out: went to the liquor store straight from my therapy session, then home to drink. When originally I was supposed to go to work. Now I don't only messed up my sobriety again, but accumulated more stress not working for two days during a time pressed by deadlines.

I know I am looking for/making excuses, but if we believe in triggers... I think that therapy session was a potent one for me. I am starting to be inclined to agree what some of you suggested earlier on this thread, that my therapist has become biased and is sort of manipulating what we do together to get gratification for himself a bit beyond a level that is acceptable. This is actually not a brand new realization, it has been going on for a while and I also talked with him about it a few times. He always seems open and honest in these discussions, admitting his own challenges, but I think still acts them out in subtle ways. But when the subtle ways become a trigger for me to drink alcohol, it's no longer a minor issue. So this will be the topic of discussion for sure in my next session. I think he should do what they are supposed to do when they have difficulties with a patient: seek to resolve it with a supervisor or in his own therapy, not with me. I mean I've tried but can't help him with this since it's about me. He already knows that what he is experiencing with me is something that many people who get into a relationship with me that involves similar elements (older man developing attraction in a power differential situation) go through. I know the pattern inside out from my life and I experienced it in all sorts of ways enough times before, it's no longer interesting for me to get involved. Part of the pattern is also that these tend to be highly intelligent people with a considerable level of self awareness, and yet when entranced in this situation, they tend to believe that they are different, they will be "the one" who will solve the enigma finally and definitively, for me and for themselves. But in reality it's nothing that complicated, simply looking for gratification, stimulation and escape (from their everyday reality). Really same story no matter the actual situation it seems. I understand, but I think trying to figure it out for him (the way I did with others before) is dangerous in the current vulnerable state I am in because it's triggering me. So that will have to be discussed in a very serious way.

And yes I am inclined to try the inpatient. I told my husband about this latest drinking episode yesterday on the phone and also that I think I need more aggressive treatment. I think I'll look into possibilities, start today, because it may take some time to get into a good facility anyway. I am still scared and don't trust myself at all now. But will head to that meeting now...

See you later

Dee74

If your therapist is not there to help you, cut him loose Aellyce.

D

Aellyce

Yeah... it's just so hard that I would have to cut the whole thing because of this particular situation. It's one of the most ordinary challenges therapists often face in their work, I can't believe that him, with the level of his experience, would get stuck in it. He published papers about this phenomenon, for god's sake, including case report where he experienced something similar and they resolved it. I think we should use the experience to figure out what is it in me/my behavior that induces his reaction, there are certainly things there given what a repetitive pattern it has been throughout my life. Use it that way to learn from it, both of us. I'm reluctant to let go of him without seriously attempting to work through it -- then the same might just happen again and again... As for why he is reacting this way just recently and not so much last year? I think because I've become quite fragile and vulnerable and that turns on a certain instinct/reaction in him. That's okay, but not acting out in ways that interferes with my recovery. It is definitely true though that now my focus has to be on staying sober no matter what, and if any sort of deep psychological work interferes with that, it has no place in my treatment right now. It's not even effective with someone who drinks actively or keeps relapsing, I think. Anyway, I'll talk to him about it again.

The meeting this morning was quite nice, a smaller group and I met someone very sympathetic, she gave me her number and I'll definitely call. Might go to another meeting in the evening. My husband is only back from his trip later at the weekend and being alone too much in the apartment may not be a good idea.

ScottFromWI

I'd suggest printing out your last post and showing it to your therapist. You admittedly have a penchant for over-analyzation, and it sounds to me like this is perhaps yet another case of that. If what you say is actually true, it would literally be a violation of ethics for him as a therapist and his supervisor or clinic should know about it. It's also possible that you are simply over-analyzing what he is saying and making something out of nothing. Let him know how you feel, or if you simply don't like him get a different therapist.

I think the real crux of the issue here though is that you are diverting your attention away from the real issue - your drinking. Why not simply go to that meeting you keep talking about and start working on your sobriety? No therapy will help if you can't stop drinking first, right?

Aellyce

I did go to a meeting this morning, Scott. What I said in my posts above. And will try again this evening.

Also, I cannot and won't deny that I have a strong tendency for overanalyzing, but this particular thing about the therapist is not my imagination. I wish it were. I discussed it with him a couple times before and he admitted to it because I did not let him avoid or sneak out. I actually like him a lot and the work we have been doing, but not this particular phase now.

It is true though that I find all kinds of things to invest with my attention and they divert my focus from the most pressing issue. It's not easy to stop all the thinking for me, but guess it's my best interest.

courage2

Aellyce, I've found there's a big difference between "thinking" and chewing up every situation mentally, swallowing, regurgitating, chewing again, and refusing, above all else, ever to excrete.

Occasionally I wonder if I've gotten stupid since I got sober, since I don't constantly feel my thoughts pressing and repressing me.

According to the rest of the world, that hasn't happened.

It isn't easy to "stop the thinking"-- far from it. I was invested in my own brain, big time, as much as I was in alcohol. But now I'm grateful for peace of mind, which allows me to think in new and fruitful ways.

Best wishes to you!

PS Fwiw, I think you should cut that therapist loose with only the briefest of explanations.

ScottFromWI

I must have posted exactly when you did, glad you got to a meeting!

Regarding your therapist, if he's admitted to being manipulative of your time together for his own benefit ( I quoted you there ) then please find a new one immediately - that's unprofessional and unacceptable whether you like him at other times or not. Quite frankly i'd probably report his behavior to the clinic he works at as that's crossing a line a therapist should never cross.

Aellyce

OK I think you all are right. I will stop thinking about these useless things and try to keep my mind directed towards staying sober. I think it's also better if I stop writing a lot about my thoughts because the writing just keeps it going for me. I definitely experienced periods of mental peace and stability during my two-year sobriety and I believe I can get there again, but it will take effort and focus.

fini

this just totally from outside, Aellyce, reading about what sounds like a much too personally enmeshed relationship with your therapist.
when the relationship gets to a point of I think we should use the experience to figure out what is it in me/my behavior that induces his reaction and I mean I've tried but can't help him with this since it's about me. it all sounds like something outside of helpful in a professional way.
the client trying to help the therapist trying to figure himself out? nah! would be gratifying for me if it were me (the client), but that would be encouraging an "unwell" part of me.

i hope you'll get to refocus on the more immediate sobriety-stuff and put that mind-energy to use in a more maybe-simplistic-sounding way.

fini

oops; writing my post while you were posting, Aellyce.
good to read yours.