Dropsie

Peoples' experiences and "nuggets" really helped me. Here. Hip Sobriety. How we Suffer. Dee.

Some things really did just click for me, which is what we all want to be able to do for others. NQTD. I dont drink. That decision is already made. Why start if you only have to stop again. etc etc

But it is hard. Sometimes it feels like watching the same car wreck over and over again in slow motion with people you care about in the vehicles but you cannot stop it.

I know my style is too soft for some, and for the first time ever, I upset someone who I like by being too blunt (didn't mean it as she took it BTW, which goes back to Scott's point ). I need to think on this addict voice versus sober voice, which is interesting (another nugget). I also have a bit of rebel in me like Vinc - always going to bars and hanging with drinkers -- if you dont drink who cares where you sit is my op for myself (not nec for others).

But the truth is, we all could fill our days without posting here, so we are here to try to help. My view is that if our heart is in the right place, all we can do is our best and over the panoply of posters hopefully everyone gets what they need and leaves the rest.

XX

courage2

This has been very much my experience.

I've been close to some people when I was straight off drugs and they were heavy users. I felt useless to stop them when they were crashing, and it made me sad and upset me. But I know they found it comforting in some way that I cared enough about them to stick around. Although I also know they viewed me through very distorted eyes. So did I help them -- what was the point of it all? That confusion about purpose, and the queasy mix of attraction and sadness, are reasons why I got out of the business of direct service to substance abusers.

I guess we're kind of like lightning bugs who are turned on, sending signals to other little bugs in the grass that they can turn themselves on, too.

biminiblue

C2, are you saying it's like going to a rodeo? We like the danger and secretly hope someone gets trampled? Because all I feel is super sad and triggered most of the time reading on this site. Not triggered to drink, but triggered to remember the bad stuff in my past. I have zero attraction to it (active drinkers) and I feel like it isn't that difficult to quit once the decision is made.

Getting to the actual decision is the sticky wicket.

I think a lot of people on this site really don't want to quit drinking right away even though they know it's a good idea. It's a place for them to come and obsess about the obsession safe from their couch/bed with a 32 ounce glass of poison right at the ready.

I was nothing if not an obsessive analyzer when I was drinking. I could bore down into any topic ad infinitum. I notice that the monthly threads tend to go that direction at first but as people get more sober time they have less introspection on display as things start to settle and make more sense in the real sober world. Just an observation.

I get pretty bored of my own story these days and have no desire to share very often if it has to do with my drinking. Life has moved on for me and it seems like that attraction is way in my past.

courage2

Not at all. What makes you think that? Lightning bugs? I was thinking we have these little sobriety lights like epiphany candles flickering or something, and we send 'em out hoping for a connection to the sober self in someone who's still drinking.

No, definitely no rodeo or train wreck attraction -- active alcoholics & users make me sad for their sakes, and like you said, they remind me of sickening things about my past that I shouldn't attend to that much.

But there is an attraction. Nostalgie de la boue. Certain kinds of people who feel themselves to be without hope -- it's like they are darkling bugs, signaling to my darkness.

Does that make any sense at all?

fini

when there are signals to your darkness......i wonder if that is like the "addict self" engaging with another's "addict self".
i can feel it sometimes, the pull to that AS, mostly when reading a description about someone drinking , not in real life.
there are other darknesses, of course. though they do seem glommed together.

Gilmer

I feel it sometimes—the lonely sympathy of a dark bar stranger type of fellowship—but increasingly rarely.

Definitely “addict self” to “addict self” kind of pull.

It’s nice to find a rare friend who can encompass those one-off moods without being overcome by them. Who “knows when to say when,” as the beer commercial goes.

Gilmer

It’s an extremely fine line between letting your hair down (being a simple, fallible human being) and wallowing in bad and dangerous places.

It’s a matter of standing outside yourself (or getting outside, trusted counsel) and determining what’s best, not necessarily what’s most natural.

Gilmer

Note: the little eruptions of my addict self have almost nothing to do with alcohol these days. They’re a general pull toward darkness.

Rarer and rarer the more I work my recovery.

NYCDoglvr

Instead of offering advice - unsolicited or not -- I tell my story of getting sober. They either relate or not.