I almost wish I hadn't gotten sober..
 

I almost feel like I had more of a life before.. When I got sober I cut myself off from relationships that while imperfect did alleviate my loneliness.. Now I have virtually no acquaintances in real life.. I have fear of connecting because the relationships won't be fulfilling.. I can't stop thinking about L and it's been a month since I've seen him.. I regret my decision to leave my old job because I miss him and can't stop thinking about him.. If I could go back in time, I would have played everything different, I would have treated him better, respected his terms, and he would still care for me, and I'd still be able to look forward to seeing him.. For all the work I put in to quitting drinking and getting better, I feel like utter garbage and the only thing I want is him..

I'll shut up now.. I honestly, don't even know why I'm posting this..

I think it's good that you are posting it, this is what the forum is for. It reminds of what is said so often about recovery, that we should put romance on hold for a good while. Would focusing on making new, sober friendships help?

My recovery journey involved separating myself from an alcoholic ex. It was quite a few years ago but still consider it just as big a challenge as getting sober from alcohol. And I did not beat both at the same time, you are doing much better than I did :)

Brenda, I'll say nothing you don't already know. I think it's good to acknowledge the honest feelings that quitting brings. Loneliness is real, being not part of the party anymore, however great it can feel can also feel alienating. The parts about missing the guy that may be allieved by rereading old posts and remembering details of loss and why you needed distance. Your liver and brain also thank you.

Having gotten sober.. it is not something I feel like I can undo.. I COULD drink, I have the physical ability to do that but that's not what I mean.. I have changed everything about myself, done all this work and still feel empty.. Except for feelings of longing for him.. why does my stupid brain insist on running straight to him as the only thing that could fill all this empty..

Brenda, I don't remember if you discussed this in any of your posts but have you tried some sort of therapy since you got sober? Or if not, would you consider it? I don't particularly relate to the emptiness feeling and intense longing for someone unavailable but saw similar things discussed here on SR many times since I've been here. I hope someone who relates to this will chime in and share the experience. One thing that comes across to me from your posts in general is a tremendous amount of emotional intensity and maybe not knowing what to do with it... maybe I'm wrong.

I hate to even go in to the subject of therapy because I inevitably get in to an argument with someone when I say it's not worth the money I would have to spend (being very low income) and another person says it is worth the money.. We won't go there.

Funny you should say that others will relate and have something to say because this has over 50 views but two people have replied. So I mean apparently people are looking at my crazy thoughts and having absolutely zero thoughts about it that they feel are worth sharing.. which makes me feel all the more isolated.

The stuff I find hard to do is making my hart catch up with my brain. I am the king of mind re-runs. My healing requires me to accept the feelings I have and work through them- very hard and painful as it is. I wish 'this' never happened. If only I had done that. Well Cinderella, I remind myself- get in line...
You know the feeling of loneliness and I believe you are grieving- alcohol, career, friends... Despite the negative aspects of booze- it was a major part of my life- secrecy, the ritual of buying the stuff- the perfect drinking scene.
Have you a support network- a counsellor to talk his stuff over with? Loneliness is a biggie. Keep trying. Look outside of what you know and take a positive, safe risk and do something new- no matter how hard or pointless you may think it to be.
I tried painting- but thought it was b/s- therapy- basket weaving- putting crappy pictures from waiting room magazines on cardboard to make crappy cards. But I love it. Same with gym. Same with study.
Try and make an effort to make new connections. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Okay, then let me ask what I was trying to remember...is this guy you're missing the married alcoholic son of your former client whose wife thought you two were having an affair and supposedly that was why she tried to commit suicide?

I question my account of the situation, because it was so one sided and incomplete and subjective.

Yeah, BC - people don't comment because it's been rehashed eleventy times already. I don't think it's that people don't care.

You're only as isolated and as lonely as you choose to believe you are.

Therapy is a really good idea; there are parts of your family of origin story that create this abandonment feeling/emotion that you cling to.

Why pay for therapy when you have us? WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER!!! Talking with our fellowship is what gets us through this, one day at a time. Therapists will just throw prescriptions at you to dull the pain and collect your money. We will listen free of charge and care about your well-being.

Sober life is so much more fulfilling than an alcoholic life. I lost my way, but I found my new beginning. I want to be the best me I can be.

We are here to help

About a month ago, I was having lunch with one of L's cousins. She ended up saying another caregiver had left partly due to being the subject of rumors of an affair. When I heard that, it didn't make sense to me, because I was the one who had feelings for him, I was the one who the wife always seemed to avoid.. In my mind, I decided that the cousin I was talking to had an inaccurate account of events, that I was the real subject of the rumor.. No one ever told me that I was the subject of the rumor.

I am afraid that I really did have it all wrong and left for no reason.

As far as rehashing things, we're alcoholics, we have issues with putting things down.. and we all seem to get that..

Brenda
It's the holidays and your feeling a little vaklempt..... go out shopping....go visit a relative....eat some chocolate......give your dog a walk and a warm bath ........watch HG TV...... read Under the influence.......this to shall pass.

I'll just never be able to know if I did the right thing because my actions were based on conclusions I'd jumped to prematurely and I can't take back my decisions.. And I know that I wouldn't have made them when I was drinking..

The roads are sheets of ice and I have to go to work in two hours.

Ok, I'm scared to post because I don't want you to be angry or hurt by what I say. And I definitely don't want to argue :)

For me recovery, abstinence, living a full life without alcohol, whatever ya want to call it takes time. I have only 4 months, which is nothing. I do try to live in the moment cause its all that matters. Of course, an eye on the future, as I think you may have worded it, but I don't live there. For me, the steps are a program for me to deal with my past. I have done a ton of therapy....empty the messy sock drawer, talk about all the socks, wash them, organize them, put them away. And Pow! The socks are still there, when I least want to see them. I'm not saying therapy doesn't help, and EMDR has helped with my PTSD. But the past? How do I process that stuff? Let it go? The steps. And I have faith, because I see it working everyday in the fellowships, that it will work for me too, if I do what is suggested. Ok my point? I need a 'way' of letting the past go. You have mentioned your faith in God. As AA says 'may you find him/her now' :)

You may not see this but you so deserve a smart, compassionate, intelligent, single/available, healthy person. You have talked about doing healthy things, not poisoning your body etc. I would ask you to consider (and you probably already have) that this man is another poison. I would suggest that he was/is an addiction. You looked forward to seeing him, you obsess/obsessed about him, he probably made you 'high' to a degree. But the high stopped working. It got ugly. You felt ashamed, guilty. You even thought you may have contributed to a suicide attempt. Now? You're missing him. You're obsessing. You're detoxing. What is life without him?

That may seem melodramatic but that's kind of what I see. So its back to the recovery vs abstinence drawing board. That's just what I would do. It's a process....it takes time. I know you're not an AAer so I guess that's not an option. But I know I have a void in my soul and I can find all number of things to try to fill it. But anything external to me is impermanent...then I'm left with that hole. I don't have to drink because of the hole, but I have to fill it with something.

You're not alone.

I was one of those "no way!" people on the subject of therapy. Until this last relapse.

i don't know if i just got really good therapists this go around or what, but everyone i had EVER tried, paled in comparison compared to these. They actually struck a nerve and things made sense.

honestly, what i hear is a lot of self doubt and pity. OK so you F 'd up a job and a boyfriend...who HASN'T?!

I agree with what was said "you're only as alone as you chose to be" .

There are plenty of self help groups, AA and such where you could literally almost always be in a meeting. At least where i live.

What I DO want to caution you on is the pity and self doubt that has you questioning why you're choosing to stay alive when drinking is almost a foregone conclusion for death.

THAT, my friend is what ought to have you up in arms.

Relapse is planned. it's premeditated whether we see it outwardly or not. You sound scary right now. If it were me, I'd get to a meeting, a self help group, ANYTHING that can impede this line of thinking.

I mean in no way to sound harsh. it's quite the opposite. i hear a tremendous amount of pain and diseased thinking and am imploring you to seek some sort help to get yourself out of this funk.

About 1 in 13 people who get sober stay that way. Our stats SUCK hard enough where we have to look out for each other whenever possible.

i hope you feel better soon. i hate these kinds of funks.

Frickaflip.. You were scared to say that because you thought I would for some reason get angry or hurt by it? Nothing you said was hurtful or inflammatory.

I guess the real question I have... is how do you get closure over a situation where you don't have all the details and your actions were motivated by.. what seem now to be largely made up details? It was all speculation, I decided to believe what I wanted to believe at the time and acted impulsively and I can't take back what I did, and I can't even find out if my actions were appropriate to the situation... Was I possibly acting more appropriate before I got sober?

There's a lot of good advice here already Brenda. If you aren't able to let go of the past you need to find someone who can help you do so. You've been fighting this for months and it's tearing you apart. We can only do so much...therapy really sounds like something you could benefit from greatly.

What is a professional going to tell me? It's over and done with, I know. I need to stop thinking about it, I know. I can't change it, I know. There is nothing new to be said.

You let it go. You accept that it happened and that there is nothing you or anyone can do to change it. You will never find the answers to why it happened, and even if you did it wouldn't matter. Then you focus on now and how you can live a better life.

personally im VERY glad you started this thread. i have been able to look back and remember......i can remember stuff from years ago!!!:lmao

i had some pretty crappy,rotten emotional days early one- as i was in the midst of stepwork -learning,seeing,understanding, and FEELING. i would get emotionally messed up lookin at my past, missing some of the good stuff and playin i shoulda coulda woulda.
i talked to a man who hadda lot of good stuff to say at meetings that i relates to. he sat and litened,then pointed out a few things to me:
yup, had some good times, but for every good time there were 1000 bad times.

he brought up the 9th step promises, which start,"if we are painstaking about this phase of our development...."
painstaking....pains.......taking.
sometimes what i was gonna go through was gonna hurt, but it would help me heal.

then he brought up page 164:
"... as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny."

trudging sucks, but it happens and we have to trudge because it WILL be worth going THROUGH it.

then he brought up something from "how it works:"
We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.

spiritual progress happens in many different ways and sometimes that spiritual progress requires some mental and emotional turmoil. but the results of going THROUGH it is worth it.

Brenda,,imo, you've been doin pretty dam good- been seeing a lot, asking a lot, and learning a lot!


ya know what my sponsor tells me when i talk to him about something similar?
"ok, lets start at step 1 on it."
works EVERY time.

Speaking of spiritual progress, I think my religious studies may be what's triggered this... I've been reading the part of the catechism that discusses the commandments... At first I was pleasantly surprised to find how much detail it goes in to on each one, because this should be a very helpful tool in my spiritual journey, learning how to better myself... But then as I read through what each commandment expects and what counts as violating them, I found myself reflecting upon all the things I did over the past year in my relationship with L... My actions were far more morally reprehensible than I had ever imagined, now that I'm looking at them through the lens of the religion I have chosen... It doesn't make me doubt whether this is the path to follow... But it has left me feeling pretty hollowed out...


Edit.. I am sure my newfound interest in Catholicism has something to do with his being Catholic...

I mentioned this to you before on another thread,

being drawn to an emotionally unavailable man (married, or alcoholic, or workaholic, or gambler etc) is a red flag for something in your childhood.
I think you said your dad was that way. you are trying to fix that part of you. there is a hole in you that you think this man fills.

Instant chemistry is not always a good thing in my experience, that obsessive longing, it is fantasy based and it is the missing pieces of you.

you need to heal your inner child just as I had to do. Therapy is good. Reading is good.

you must work to heal the parts of you that you think he will fill? do you think he will hold you and you will be safe? do you want to be taken care of? what does he represent? it is more than sex. if you are still obsessively longing for an emotionally unavailable man, you must decide what you want him to fix. what need. then work to fill that need by yourself.

This... is so stupid...

It's definitely something about my childhood.. and something about exposure of all my sins.. Did you know that if you decide to get baptized in the Catholic church as an adult, you have to confess and atone for every sin you've ever committed? So that is what I have been reflecting on lately.. My soul is just very exposed and I guess part of me wants to grab on to anything it can use to hide under.. I used L to alleviate my unresolved feelings, I transfered all of my feelings on to him.. and that ended so recently that I guess it is the closest thing to grab on to.. since I won't drink now.

I don't know why I have this need to talk to a bunch of strangers about this! That almost frustrates me more than anything else!

if I have asked God to forgive me for my sins, He forgives.
then its up to me to forgive myself.

It's not as simple as "I'm a sinner, forgive me".. Not in my chosen religion..

You have no idea what others think. I often read posts on my phone app while I'm out and about, but reply later because I hate typing on my phone.

I certainly get choosing people who are emotionally unavailable for whatever reason. I get missing them too. But missing them can be endured, and over time it lessens. With distance often I'm able to look at a situation more pragmatically and less emotionally which helps me move forward. What cannot be endured, or sustained in any real kind of way, is continuing relationships with emotionally unavailable people. You can be sad about something for a while and still know that it's the best choice for you to move on.