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Facing bankruptcy without booze

Old 08-29-2017, 03:44 PM
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Facing bankruptcy without booze

I have my bankruptcy hearing on Friday and I'm having a hard time facing the reality while sober. Normally I would just get wasted whenever I have a moment to worry about it.

I can't blame my financial woes completely on alcohol, but it sure didn't help.

I just met with my attorney. She was giving me a hard time about my entertainment expenses, so I told her I quit drinking and that should help cut down on my expenses. Then she recommended a $5 happy hour to me. People really don't get it.
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Old 08-29-2017, 03:47 PM
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...or she is like my dentist who hands out lollipops.

Job security?
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Old 08-29-2017, 03:57 PM
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Great theory! Maybe she thought my main motivation for quitting was to save money. That's just one of many aspects of my life that have suffered because of booze.

The various reactions to telling people I quit have been fascinating. My friend told me she was in a moderation group and said "maybe you can transition to that someday". If I could moderate, I wouldn't have to join a group.
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Old 08-29-2017, 04:06 PM
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Your friend may end up asking your help to quit completely. Sounds like you have a good handle on this.

Good luck at your hearing. Then you can start your life again without that burden. The hearing will be much easier without a hangover, so there's that.

You don't drink any more, don't need it.
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Old 08-29-2017, 04:08 PM
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welcome leanabeana
There's nothing so bad a drink can;t make worse - you will get through this and you will rebuild

Lean on us for support

D
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Old 08-29-2017, 04:24 PM
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Hard to say where life will lead my friend. She's been in heavy denial since we were teenagers and we are 40 now. I love her but I can't make that decision for her. If she can moderate successfully and be happy, I will support her.

As for the hearing, my old self would have gone to a liquor store before and downed 10-15 oz of vodka before appearing. Vodka of course so my attorney would not smell it on me and I could go back to work after without smelling like booze. I will not miss that behavior.
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Old 08-29-2017, 07:00 PM
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Good luck leanabeana. I agree with you when you say normal drinkers don't get it. Many alcoholics to get it either. Us lucky ones are the few that do get it and we had to surrender, ask for help and work at it.

I have tried to explain to normies about craving with no success. But then I will think about understanding something you haven't experienced. This makes me remember an AA speaker that said (paraphrasing), try to imagine what you thought about having an orgasm the day before your first one and what you knew it felt like after actually having one.
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Old 08-29-2017, 07:17 PM
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I went through a bankruptcy at about the same time as I quit drinking. I am still sober almost five years later, and doing well financially. I hope you too are able to take advantage of this relief from debt and alcohol to turn your life around.
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Old 08-29-2017, 08:02 PM
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Thanks Coldfusion. I hope so too! Stress about money led me to drink and drinking led me to more financial woes. So now I have to figure out a new way to face my deep seated issues around money stemming from childhood ********.
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Old 08-29-2017, 10:42 PM
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Leanabeana,

You are is smart to realise that for many of us money is a real psychological issue around selfworth.

With that understanding, and the lack of the booze chain around your neck, accept that you are worthy of wealth -- or at least not having to worry about lack all the time.

Very hard to do for me, but I am trying.

XXX for Friday. I am also a lawyer and sometimes we just put our foot in it like the next gal. Sorry for her.
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Old 08-30-2017, 01:02 AM
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Originally Posted by leanabeana View Post
Thanks Coldfusion. I hope so too! Stress about money led me to drink and drinking led me to more financial woes. So now I have to figure out a new way to face my deep seated issues around money stemming from childhood ********.
I think what you mean is that your alcoholism led you to use financial woes to justify your drinking.

Have you read the promises of AA LB?
There's one in there you might particularly like...

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through.
We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
We will comprehend the word serenity, and we will know peace.
No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Self-seeking will slip away.
Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.


ALL those promises have now come true for me. Something I never really believed would / could happen. I can now check my bank balance when I need to without having a nervous breakdown / crying / getting in a state.
I am not rich by any means but I seem to be able to last my money out til the end of the month. Simple things, but things that I never managed to do for the 20 years before I got sober, when my finances were frankly a complete mess. The debt I got into led us to losing our home. I try not to dwell on that too much now as I can't change the past. I can just do the best I can in this moment, and this day.

I 100% believe that those promises can come true for anyone who works for them. But the first step is in recognising that alcoholic drinking is not the RESULT of our lives being unmanageable. It is generally the CAUSE of it. It is the problem. NOT the solution. Drinking never solved your financial problems before, and it never would. All it'd do is make them worse. Our addictive voices are constantly there in our heads rationalising (making excuses for) the next drink. Don't fall for it's lies. This whole 'drink to make the financial problems go away' is typical AV lies and bull-poop. We all have that lying, decietful, cruel AV in there trying to jostle our reason and sense into the background. And we can't shut the little effers up. All we can do is make the decison to not listen to them.

I found it hard to distinguish between the true and the false (my AV and my rational sense). That's where the good folk on here and in meetings are invaluable. Have you got numbers from people at meetings so you can call them? Usually as we talk these things through, or even type them out, we kinda know. It's like in the dark quiet of our mind that AV is 20 times more powerful than once it's brought out into the light. I've heard people say 'we're only as sick as our secrets' and I've found that to be true on so many levels. Fear is often very secret. Esp financial fear. I hid mine, along with any evidence on it. I did not even want to tell my closest freinds what was happening. Nowadays I DO talk about those things, because I know that I am a very fertile ground for fears to grow. Some tiny little worry, left inside of me, cosy in the secretive darkness, WILL grow into something debilitating - EVERYtime. I cannot afford secrets. They cost me too much peace. I am not willing to be in that place of disturbance any more.

We are human. That means we are not perfect and we have made mistakes. It also means we will continue to not be perfect We will, in all likelihood, continue to make mistakes. That does not make us not-enough. It does not make us bad people. It does not make us any less likeable or lovable. We do not need to be secretive or fearful about those mistakes. We just need to be willing to look at them honestly so we can learn from them. Don't give yourself too much of a hard time about the bankrupt proceedings. I say this because that tends to lead to self-pity and anger - and neither of those are good for sobriety.

This will pass. Drinking would not make anything any better - it'd just stop you learning from the situation.

It is easy to find ourselves focussing on 'The End', but you know, nestling right next to every ending is a new beginning. And our shiny sober new beginning can be that start of something altogether amazing and special. I hope you will look beyond this particular 'The End' and embrace the new start

Take care. BB
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Old 08-30-2017, 08:59 AM
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Thanks Dropsie and BB. Yes, finances are a usually connected to our deepest wounds. For me, my mother kept her spending a secret from my dad until the cc bill came and then there were blowouts. So I associate money with secrets and chaos. I did use stress over finances as an excuse to drink but it sure seemed to make it all better at the time. I know I will never get a handle on things if I keep drinking.

I have not delved into the 12 steps yet and I'm not sure if I will. I've been to two meetings and I enjoyed them but I'm not sure it's for me. I don't like being told my thoughts or emotions are wrong (diseased thinking). I just want to be able to share and get some understanding and perspective. I've been going to LifeRing and I feel very comfortable there.
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Old 08-30-2017, 12:46 PM
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Originally Posted by leanabeana View Post
Normally I would just get wasted whenever I have a moment to worry about it.
The bad thing about drinking to forget your problem is that when you sober up you have 2 problems - the original problem and a hangover.
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Old 08-30-2017, 05:00 PM
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I filed for bankruptcy in my 30th year sober. It was the end of the financial crisis, my business which I wasn't great at running anyway tanked and I got in a hole I couldn't get out of. I also owed the IRS more than I had billed in the previous two years.

I have a client who is also a friend who also happens to be a bankruptcy attorney.I was in his office working on a project and he asked me how my life was going so I told him. Long story short, I filed and worked out a settlement with the IRS and had a ton of weight off my back. I also learned a valuable lesson in how to manage my finances and plan as best I can for down times.

Throughout the entire process the thought of drinking or getting high never came up. My hearing took all of 10 minutes and I answered every question truthfully. It really wasn't that bad.

Post bankruptcy I've rebuilt my business and credit and have a mortgage. There is life on the other side of drinking and bankruptcy.

-allan
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Old 08-30-2017, 05:25 PM
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Originally Posted by leanabeana View Post

I have not delved into the 12 steps yet and I'm not sure if I will. I've been to two meetings and I enjoyed them but I'm not sure it's for me. I don't like being told my thoughts or emotions are wrong (diseased thinking). I just want to be able to share and get some understanding and perspective. I've been going to LifeRing and I feel very comfortable there.
In your shoes, I might well stick with Life Ring. I read those promises that BB posted way back and at the time they didn't mean anything to me. They were just words describing things I had never experienced. In the early days of recovery, AA is not about comfort so much as it is about hope that a much better future lays ahead.

If I had found something that made me comfortable now, and it wasn't a p.ill or a drink or a smoke, I think I would only consider AA again if I somehow became uncomfortable and felt here was more to it.

As alcoholism is a brain disease, visible on an MRI scan, it is a bit hard to have alcoholism and not have a diseased mind.
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Old 08-31-2017, 12:10 AM
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If Lifering is where you feel comfortable, then stick with that. But whichever route you choose please go for it and actually DO it. Whatever the plan is. Dabbling is rarely enough.

Just to explain my take on the notion of 'Insanity', as I understand that it can seem a harsh word to use. Nowadays someone might choose a different word or phrase, but Bill W wrote the Big Book a while back now, so some of the word choices can seem odd: I don't think anyone comes along and actually likes the idea that their thinking - their way of dealing with situations - was actually what got them into trouble. I for one had a BIG old list of other people and events and circumstances and situations that MADE me drink. Nowadays I can see those things didn't 'make' me drink. I used all of them as an excuse to drink. And rationalising drinking, and even believing my own rationalisations, that was not sound thinking. And if none of them had happened or been there, I'd probably still have chosen to drink. Rationalised it in other ways - made different excuses that I quite possibly was the only person to believe. And the drinking made all those things worse, because it let to further irrational behaviour and poor choices and irresponsibility. For someone with a BA and an MA after their name from a top university, that's pretty sick thinking in my mind! It wasn't stupidity that led me there - as I learned, in my case intelligence was no match for insanity. I can only speak for myself, but I maintain that my way of dealing with and reacting to life was insane when alcohol was involved. For a couple of decades. So I needed to relearn ways to deal with life on life's terms. To halt my learned reactions and do the right thing. And that's not so uncommon amongst alcoholics.

Anyway - good luck with the lifering, and I hope all goes well tomorrow.

BB
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Old 08-31-2017, 07:08 AM
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Great post BB.

Agree with it all.

Stick with Life ring, but don't close the door on anything that might help down the road.

All the best,

Drops
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Old 08-31-2017, 07:44 AM
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Originally Posted by leanabeana View Post

Then she recommended a $5 happy hour to me.
There will be much advice given to us that at times seems to almost be straight from the liquid devil.

We say no, turn and get away fast.

Fast might be the key word.

M-Bob
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Old 08-31-2017, 08:07 AM
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when i've had to face some really tough stuff sober some of which i was able to just put the blinders on and push forward. Some stuff i paniced and freaked out maybe even posted here about it but I still had ot move forward and get to the other side of it.

In the end life went on things worked out etc.. But yeah theres that period of time where it can be extremely uncomfortable. In my case if i drank tho i'd get to the other side and be full blown into my addiction again and have that battle all over again no thanks.
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Old 09-01-2017, 12:09 PM
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My hearing lasted about five minutes. I forgot my SS card so I was stressing out waiting for my turn and then I had to take a Lyft home and go to trustees office. A lot of hassles that I would have soothed with a drink in the past.
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