Sohard

I was doing great. Better and better each day. I'm at 55 days, now. For some reason, however, I got sad last night, and my AV hasn't shut up since. People talk about how cravings come and go...but it just hasn't gone away, for like 24 hours. I just feel like it's wearing me down. I have a tendency towards anxiety/drepression, and I take prozac (the highest dose) as a result and see a therapist. So, that's not the problem. The world/life just seems so fleeting and pointless right now, people you love eventually dying and memories becoming farther and father away, that I just KNOW a bottle of wine (in the short term) would be so soothing. It's like I could get a freaking break from reality. Sorry, I know I'm a downer today. I know I would feel like HELL afterwards, hung over and cravings starting on day #1 and having to start the whole quitting process again (if I even could), but it's so hard not to just say screw it. I feel like I deserve it. I won't. But it is so, so hard. I know people do understand how hard this is, but at the same time it's hard to believe anyone really does. Sorry. Just venting.

doggonecarl

It is okay to be sad. And early recovery is certainly a ride of ups and down. Okay to feel down. Not okay to drink over it.

You say the AV is relentless. I've found if there was the slightest chance of giving in, of letting myself fail, then the AV would become relentless. Reaffirm your commitment to sobriety and let your AV know that sadness isn't going to make you relapse.

Stayingsassy

Oh my goodness!! 55 days! I hadn't seen you here for awhile and feared you went back to drinking.

I know you feel sad but I'm just so thrilled for your sober time.

Treat yourself today, in any way you can that doesn't involve alcohol.

Sohard

Thanks, Sassy. I appreciate your positivity and support. This is hard stuff!

BullDog777

you're still doing GREAT! If you haven't had a drink, you're still in it. Try to do something to snap out of the funk. Keep posting, go to the movies, get out for a walk maybe. Workout. Anything to divert attention.
Scientifically, they say cravings can last about 14 minutes long. If you're craving all the time you gotta break the cycle and get your mind on something else. Maybe a trip to the bookstore for a new book? Something. Hang in there!

tomsteve

no matter how **** poor the day may be,
if you lay your head down on your pillow at the end of the day and ya havent drank, it was a good day.

Sohard

I just tried to "break the cycle" with an hour treadmill run, like I was running for my life. This is such a freaking solitary, lonely brutal battle, though. I don't know why I'm so heartbreakingly sad (I never remember feeling this sad when I was drinking) that it makes me want to screw it and drink after all my hard work. But, how I'd feel after would be so awful it would be terrifying. So, it's like I'm TRAPPED. No way out.

I didn't bring my wallet to the gym bc I walk by the liquor store on the way home. So, I'm not drinking. I'm just miserable. And I really hope this get easier.

Sohard

I think I'm also just feeling this CRUSHING guilt for drinking so long. From like 20-40. Just crushing guilt. I know I worried my Dad, such a GREAT man, so much and he didn't understand. I myself didn't understand. I didn't realize I was so, so depressed (clinically). It is amazing how the second I took a prozac, and now I have been gradually upped to the highest dose, I realized I should have been on this stabilizing medication all along. I want to go back and explain to my dad why I behaved the way I did - I needed help - but I CAN'T because he passed away. So I'm stuck with this guilt and this pain that I literally can do nothing about. I just so wish this hadn't happened to me. That I'd never been depressed. That I hadn't self-medicated. That I hadn't confused him by my actions, which really didn't seem like me. I was so confused MYSELF. I didn't know what was wrong. And now, now that I'm the best me I've been in decades (medicated and sober) I'm realizing the HELL I was in and the hell I put others through. And just realizing that makes me desperate to numb myself for a bit. Because it feels like I deserve it after the hell I'e endured. Sorry. Thinking aloud I guess.

Dave42001

Great job on 55 days!! Stay busy, this too shall pass!! Running is great, I read a lot of books, went to the movies to escape for 1.5 hours, anything to get my mind off drinking.. posting and sharing is huge, normal and positive.. you’re growing! Wishing you the best!!

VikingGF

Hey, Sohard-

Good for you working so diligently on your sobriety.

How about write a letter to your dad? Say everything you want to say, get it out and you might feel better. While you cannot apologize to him in person, doing it in some concrete way may help you feel better. Take the letter and maybe symbolically send it to him, burn it and scatter the ashes, put it in a box and bury it, or maybe take to to a special place where you both spent time and read it out loud?

This sadness WILL pass. The emotions in early sobriety are all over the place, and as people who drank, at first we don't know how to process emotions, we were used to drinking through them. This is all part of the journey, and I promise, it gets easier.

Lean on us, you can do this. Congrats on your well-earned sober time.

tomsteve

I want to go back and explain to my dad why I behaved the way I did
extremely understandable. my dad died in 1995. thats when i crossed the line into full blown alcoholism. i felt horrible. and heres why:
my dad was an amazing man. he worked his arse off to support the family plus helped so many people out with his skills and talents. he helped me out tremendously over the years. however, i was already on the path of alcoholism- making bad choices, screwing up chances....i think you can relate to it all.
one sunday, my sons mom called me. we had a very civil conversation. for some reason she brough up how much my parents had done for her and my son even after we had broke up- quite a bit i knew nothing about. we both agreed they were remarkable people. then she said,"have you ever told your dad thank you and that you love him?"
"ya know, i dont think i ever have."
"maybe you should do that."
i thoroughly agreed and that night i decided i was heading up north the following weekend to spend it with my dad and tell him those things. i wanted to thank him and try and talk about what was going on IN ME. i called dad to tell him id see him that weekend. he was happy to hear i would be there.
friday comes around. im at work and quite excited to go see my dad. about an hour before the end of my shift i got a call- from my neice( i had never gotten a call at work before let alone from my neice). she called to tell me my dad died that day.
i no longer needed excuses to get drunk. i just wanted to drink. i wanted to tell him sooooo much. there was one thing stopping me though. something you mentioned, Sohard
I was so confused MYSELF. I didn't know what was wrong.
i couldnt talk about why i was how i was because i didnt even have the answer for that.

when i got sober in 2005, that was one of the major things i wanted to clear away- to become ok with. i was seriously beating myself up about it(amongst other things.
one day at a friends house, i brought it up. he could see i was seriously kicking myself HARD about my relationship with my dad.
something he told me, and this isnt word for word:
tom, to start ya have to stop kicking yourself in the ass. youve been doing it for many years and it aint helping. you werent a bad man back then,just a sick man. a bad man wouldnt feel remorse and guilt for past actions. sick men do. youre feeling remorse and guilt so youre just a sick man and there IS a solution. it starts with believing you should love yourself. learning why you were who you were will be an act of self love. learning that then changing you for the better will be one way you can honor your father and make amends with him.

the words didnt completely make sense,yet they did.
if that makes sense.
so i started working on me- learning what makes me tick.

something ive heard:
the longest distance known to man is the distance fromt he head to the heart.
the word" you should love yourself" were in my head for quite some time while i was working on myself. one day it finally made it to my heart- the lightbulb lit up:
why shouldnt i live myself? my dad loved me through all that? God loved me through all that?? yet i wasnt loving myself!

something i did through that time of learning, and this was extremely hard for some time:
every time i was near a mirror, i looked at myself. right into my own eyes and said,"i love myself today."
it was NOT easy looking into my own eyes and many times i broke down balling. but i kept doing it- there was discomfort stepping out of my comfort zone.
but it was ALL worth it.

and ya know, Sohard, something else that helped was my past. my past showed me a drink was NOT a viable solution- this was NOT a drink worthy event.

trudging can straight up suck. no lie there.
but its dam well worth it.

dont drink even if your arse falls off.

SoberDirk

Vent on, and on...and on!
That's all good stuff, and it sure beats the drink/self pity part. That's a dark place to go, and I don't think anyone wants that for you.
I dont(!).
55, 56 days... You know what's even better than that?
57 days!
Keep your 'Eye on the Prize'... You.
This site is an awesome tool. It's sure helping me stay sober. It's not always going to be easy. I think us 'Drunks' tend to be emotionally overcharged people and we immediately go back to our mental comfort zone.
Get drunk.
But, the farther away we get, that's when (I) need these reminders. That place has no happy ending.
So vent on! I think it's safe to say everyone's here for you.
Thanks,
Dirk

Dee74

Hey so hard

try and not be so hard on yourself. I have done more in the l;ast ten years than I did in the 20 before that.

It doesn't wipe out the wasted years exactly but it puts in it in the right perspective...it's in the past.

Today's the day we need to focus on

I still get sad over various things,. I know I won't be sad for long tho - thats one of the benefits of being sober.

I hope you feel less sad tomorrow

D

Grungehead

I just wanted to point out this thinking that a lot of us (me for sure) have had that shows how illogical alcoholism (and the AV) can make us. In the first sentence you say you are now realizing the HELL you were in and put others through while drinking. In the very next sentence you feel like you deserve a drink to numb yourself for a bit for enduring that hell (which was caused by drinking).

How f'n sneaky is the AV that wants you to reward yourself with a drink for the hell you endured while drinking?

Ken0331

Not it's not. Doesn't have to be unless you want it to be, unless you do that to yourself.

One of the many things I've learned in AA is I don't have to do this alone, that I don't have to ever go thru this alone ever again.

I really think you ought to get a connection with people in sobriety IRL. Get some perspective, some help, and learn ways to let go of the guilt of the past.

Grungehead

Just to followup Sohard you are doing great. I can relate to struggling with what I did in the past. I found that to get permanent sobriety I had to sort my past out somehow or I would never be able to move forward in sobriety, or in life for that matter. I found that the 12 steps were designed for this very purpose. One of the 9th step promises in the Big Book is "We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it", and I can honestly say that this promise has come true for me. Sorting out your past with a therapist or other trusted person might be another alternative.

But for now go easy on yourself. Like you said yourself, if you would have known then what you know now you would have done things differently, so that tells me your intentions were not bad and you were just trying to cope the best you could at the time.

Stayingsassy

So hard, if you are feeling alone, I think that's one of the great benefits of AA. Sure people will want you to be in the program, but it's not required in order to go to a meeting and just be with other people who understand.

I haven't used AA in a long time but I've held it out there as an option if I were feeling especially sad or lonely in sobriety and felt I could use all the warmth and kindness there, it's there in spades.

I use my gym and work on my strength training and being with people who make fitness a priority...cross fit is intense and the people there are into fitness....and I use SR. You could be using SR more, I think. I come here every day,I know I annoy people sometimes but I come here for ME and figure if people don't want to read my posts they don't have to! I post anyway! Lol.

Point is: its hard, yes. But the lonely and brutal part? It doesn't have to be that way.

Be kind to you....be selfish for you, too. Take good care of yourself. Self flagellation hurts, and it's not good for you. Your brain and body need rest, love and care.

Dropsie

Sohard,

You have some wonderful feedback here, especially from TomSteve.

One thing I have tried to learn is the difference between shame and guilt. Like you, I feel guilty about things, but that should not turn into shame about me.

Simple but not easy.

I would write the letter.

XX

waynetheking

How ya doing today so hard?
And yes it does get easier. Hang in there buddy. Your healing. This crap your going through is part of it. It's takes a little time. You can do this. Just give it time. Freedom awaits!!