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Old 04-09-2020, 03:12 AM
  # 401 (permalink)  
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Do you think eldest would agree to rehab? I know you've said she tries to quit but if she's anything like I was her "quit attempts" might actually be part of an ongoing drinking cycle that includes some days off. And it's not that I was being dishonest... I actually thought I could and would make the necessary changes each time I tried to stop. But (as I think it does for most of us) it took some pretty significant warning signs and disasters to wake me up from that delusion.

I would say try to avoid making it into a situation where she feels you're the one forcing her into it.. as that only gives her AV more ammunition. But it certainly can't hurt to offer. I can't imagine what it would be like as a parent, knowing you're that last remaining safety net. But if the safety net is preventing her from having to figure out another way.. she's only getting herself further and further into danger.

I also think it's a great idea to stay in sober living til you have 6 months if possible. As long as you keep protecting your non-drinker status as the first priority, the rest will continue falling into place.
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Old 04-09-2020, 04:17 AM
  # 402 (permalink)  
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I agree that staying is a good idea. Ultimately it's about changing bad habits or tendencies to good ones. The longer good habits are practiced and bad ones not practiced the more solid the sobriety becomes.

What about daughters going to al anon.
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Old 04-10-2020, 02:43 AM
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Also, if only for my own self reflection as I don't want to project myself into eldest's place just because we're close in age.. Usually the delusion was "I'm going to moderate now" based on various imaginary rules and conditions I'd set for myself. It wasn't until the end, maybe the last 9 months that I was making real attempts to stop completely.

If she's really in that stage of awareness you have a real chance of getting through to her. It's just a delicate act to maneuver when setting boundaries.. I was talking to my sister about her bf who died of a heroin overdose.. and how his mom was a chemical dependency counselor (I'm not sure if she herself was ever an addict but to me sounds like there were major co-dependency issues). She said his mom was really good about not enabling him.. but from what I could gather, what that usually meant to her was giving him things and then taking them away if he didn't do what she thought was best for his sobriety.

If you've fulfilled your end of the bargain on everything you've promised her (support to help financially if she's in school, giving her a car so she can get around, etc.) I'm not saying you should rescind any of that.. but you can control the conditions in which you give her anything else from this point on, only giving them if she fulfills her end. That doesn't mean it has to be manipulation, it can simply be self-respect and/or self-protection. It also teaches her how she should be treating herself. In the vast majority of cases chronic addiction is not self-sustainable. I don't think rehab is always or even usually necessary, but in her case it might be if for no other reason than she's going to need somewhere to live. Chances aren't great that early sobriety will make it easier for her to support herself initially.

Anyway, I'm not doing super well with this quarantine. I'm pretty on edge and slept through my window of opportunity for my daily walk today. These are highly unusual circumstances and I agree she has plenty of reason to be anxious, so now might not be the best time to make or discuss major changes. Sorry for the long post but I literally have nothing better to do at this point.
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Old 04-10-2020, 10:20 AM
  # 404 (permalink)  
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Cos, so sorry the quarantine is getting you down so hard. Anxiety and upset about all this has my spouse drinking way too much again, and I'm kinda upset about that as much as the rest right now.

O, I think Cos has a great point about not taking anything away, but not doing additional bailouts if eldest won't help herself with recovery a little more.

This would be an excellent time to go in-patient if she would do it. Other than that, your assessment that you have to front what's needed for your own sobriety first is a very wise decision and should stand in the face of all else right now.

Mama keeps the world going round, after all. . .

I'm doing pretty well except for the above-mentioned spouse slippage back into drink. I find myself very upset and impatient that I can't even leave him at the lake for 24 hours before he's off the wagon and drinking himself into a toxic teary depression about the sad news.

It is terrible, but I really need some backup here on my front line too. Not tempted to drink in the least, but would like to break every bottle of vodka in every booze store within 100 miles of my lake house right about now. . .is that healthy anger, or toxic?
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Old 04-10-2020, 06:28 PM
  # 405 (permalink)  
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Thanks Hawkeye, it sucks to admit 3 weeks of this is all it took for me to start regressing.. I haven’t thought of drinking but my sleep schedule is getting worse and worse now and I feel there's nothing I can do about it. This person I've been talking to wanted to go look at houses (he wants to buy a place and move before putting his on the market) but canceled yesterday. I'm waiting til the end of the weekend but will call him on Monday and if he wants to wait I'm probably gonna go stay with friends for at least a week or longer.

And yeah the boyfriend's mom would also advise my sister to only buy him basic necessities such as food or gas. That's understandable but at the same time, if he didn't have those basic necessities.. finding them would've had to become his sole focus and he might not have even had the means to use.

Probably the saddest part of the story is he had been clean for some time and then relapsed and got fired from a job. He was in the process of being evicted and asked his parents if he could live there again. They didn't know he had relapsed but still said no, and that's when the OD happened.

So there really are no easy answers but I think establishing trust so she feels she can always be honest with you, and consistency in what you will or won't do from now on are the most important things..
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Old 04-12-2020, 02:50 PM
  # 406 (permalink)  
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Do you think eldest would agree to rehab? I know you've said she tries to quit but if she's anything like I was her "quit attempts" might actually be part of an ongoing drinking cycle that includes some days off. And it's not that I was being dishonest... I actually thought I could and would make the necessary changes each time I tried to stop. But (as I think it does for most of us) it took some pretty significant warning signs and disasters to wake me up from that delusion.
She will not agree to rehab and is noncommittal about sober living, thinking she should and will be able to do this on her own. She knows all The Things, has a sober network, etc... Sound familiar? I know she means it 100%, as I did. I just don't know what's going to wake her up to make this stick. She sounded SO much better yesterday that I asked directly if she'd been drinking and she denied that but confessed that she had purchased a beer and a shot for later. She poured it out while we were on the phone, but that's shocking given how very frightening this last detox was for her. Not surprising, and I'm not disappointed in her you understand. I just don't know what I can do aside from insisting that she does, indeed, do this on her own. Not remove anything, as you said, but not give any more. I told her yesterday that I was not comfortable with her in my home and that she needs to go back to her apartment and she's agreed to do that tomorrow.

Hawk, I'm really sorry your spouse is back in his sad rut. This is so sad for you and for him too. I honestly don't know how you do it. I'd say your frustration and anger is appropriate and focusing the latter on the vodka itself makes sense to me.
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Old 04-12-2020, 03:12 PM
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I remember writing quite some time ago about my life becoming very small while I was drinking. Well now it's all a matter of perspective, isn't it?

I've got a list of things to do every day on my whiteboard. Nothing crazy, but I'm finding it hard to do and harder still not to be disappointed in myself when I don't hit everything every day. Things like eat three healthy meals, meditate, go for a walk, write down 5 things I'm grateful for. I was thinking to add things to the list and realized that it might make more sense to just keep trying until I can do what's on there. I find I have this familiar whiny feeling of I don't wanna that reminds me of how it felt when I wanted to drink. Not so much I don't wanna do the Things, but I just have a general sense sometimes of not wanting to, I dunno, be conscious/present?

But on my good days, I think, "Well, isn't it good that my life is so small right now? It's about all I can handle anyhow. I've been given the gift of excused, sanctioned solitude. I can work from home, I can focus on my little list, and I get to live in a place where the whole purpose is to Not Drink. This is good."

My potential target for a new sponsor said on a Zoom meeting yesterday that she was looking for ways to be of use in her own isolation. I believe that may have been a message from the cosmos to hit her up. I'll text her tomorrow. I sent a text to two women I jived with from Rehab #2 to see if they'd like to meet up on Zoom. One responded that she's definitely up for it, but not being released until 4/27. I'm very happy that she decided to stay that long because her first plan was to leave the week after I did. The other woman is very slow on text and doesn't like to talk on the phone, but I'll keep after her.

Been too active on facebook recently. There are so many interesting and infuriating things happening in our world today. I guess it's so enticing because we're all facing the same challenges and people's responses are pretty much idiotic or wonderful. Both draw me in - the former for the gall and ignorance, the latter for the hope in humankind.

Just some random thoughts from O's Little World.



p.s. Working on day 74. Just in case anyone was wondering.
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Old 04-13-2020, 07:07 AM
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I was thinking about you yesterday O! Glad to hear you are doing well.

Happy Day 75!!!
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Old 04-13-2020, 05:22 PM
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congrats from me too Obladi

D
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Old 04-14-2020, 06:16 PM
  # 410 (permalink)  
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Thanks, dudes!

Had a bit of kerfluffle with the house manager last night, just in time to fret over it, wake up unsettled and have a chat about it with Daniel.

The whole thing was dumb - she announced just moments after I'd used the toilet that we were doing urine and breath tests right then. When I told her I'd just pee'd, she said, "That's ok - you have an hour." So off I went to chug down 20oz of water and wait until the mood hit. 34 minutes later, she asked me if I was drinking water and I replied that yes, I'd consumed quite a lot of water. To which she responded, "You have an hour." To which I replied, "Yep! I've got 26 minutes!" See, I thought we were just having a bit of a light-hearted interchange. But she thought I was giving her attitude. At first she wouldn't let me even respond to her correction of my words, but she did then hear what I was saying, "I thought we were having a conversation, not an argument!"

So you know part of my nightly ritual now is to do an inventory. I thought about what my part may have been in this misunderstanding and I came up with... nothing. Unless of course I'm to always keep my mouth shut unless asked a question. No, that won't do - it would just fill me with discomfort. I'm not much of one for walking gracefully on eggshells.

Unsettling dreams of drinking and of murdering my uncaring ex ensued. The ex was alive after I killed him, because this was a dream, after all. And also I'm a pacifist during waking hours. I woke up thinking the dream had to do with the thing with house manager...

Daniel suggested that being disciplined unfairly is a running theme with me - true. And that drinking in my dream is probably a good thing to look at as a relapse sequence. What is it about this unfairness that rubs me so wrong that I'd want to drink over it? And was my ex somehow the stand-in for the house manager in this dream?

Just to be clear, my conscious self didn't even consider drinking. This time. So... I'm not sure what I think of all that aside from there's probably something to examine there. That plus I sure do have a lot of time to think about my thinking. Oy vey.

I sent a text to my target-for-a-new-sponsor and she responded she's not up to talking as she's been in pain for a week. Which is very similar to her response when I texted her several months ago. So I guess I'll need to set my sights on a new target. Alas.
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Old 04-14-2020, 06:31 PM
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I think youre doing well. Keep going and you'll naturally figure it out. What's underneath will come to the surface in time. No need to fret.
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Old 04-14-2020, 07:22 PM
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hi O,
i have a lot of experience of the “i thought we were having a conversation, not an argument” variety. circumstances differ, but the run-ins are the same.
you took her literally, with humour. she couldn’t see it.
i might ask a genuine question, and be understood to be criticizing . we might go by what the other says and take them at their word, and be accused of something.
a lot, i have learned, just comes down to different communication styles.
how to “fix” that, i’m not sure.
being aware of it helps.
in your present situation, it is tougher as this person has some authority, which is something you have mentioned having “issues” with before, throughout the years.
something entirely foreign to me! not!!
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Old 04-14-2020, 11:24 PM
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I could go on for days about dream analysis and unnecessary psychotherapy.. But I'd say yes, it's very possible your ex was a "stand in" for the house manager in your dream, or more likely that your house manager was a stand in for your ex in your subconscious. And that even beneath that.. the dynamics with your ex were most likely a replication of a role you were forced to unfairly play by an authority figure in your childhood.

I don't think it's always necessary to dig into the details, but just being aware of the underlying pattern is often enough to be able to more easily avoid it in the future.
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Old 04-15-2020, 04:26 AM
  # 414 (permalink)  
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Good morning, my friends who "get" me.

You've all done a brilliant job of supporting, not coddling me. Collectively, you've delivered an empathetic hug to my psyche. Thank you.

Cos, I think you nailed it. I was frustrated because having come to a rational understanding of what the dynamics likely were in this situation, I wanted to tie it up with a bow and be done with it. I thought if I were a better, more advanced person, I'd be able to do that. I'm not sure it's ever occurred to me that simply understanding what's happening might actually prevent it from happening again. I think I've always believed that insight will bring me to a place where I can then take some active step to fix myself.

fini, yes! While I've learned that most people are not literal in their words, it continues to flummox me. So many misunderstandings could be avoided if people just said what they meant. Based on what she's shared with me before and after this incident, my house manager has a significant amount of anxiety about how people might react to her directions. She often says, "I'm not trying to be a (witch)..." I get that, can completely empathize with that defensive stance. Wouldn't it be nice if she had some sort of reliable people radar that just knows she can speak plainly with me? Then I could respond in kind and we'd subsequently link hands and sing kumbaya.

Grymt, (((thank you))). I think I'm doing well too. It's nice that you see it and tell me so. Are you doing online meetings now that they're all the rage? Wouldn't it be something if we all got on one together? Hmmmmm

So now Cos, I'm interested in your thoughts on dream analysis and unnecessary psychotherapy. Intrigued to know if that's one subject or two. I don't dream (or at least remember that I dream) very often, so I do pay attention when I do. Before zoloft and trazodone, it seems like I didn't actually get any real sleep for all of the dreaming I was doing. When my subconscious breaks through to communicate with my conscious self, I think there's something to examine.

I want to talk with you guys about this man who drove me to rehab and my sqeamishness about his communications with me. Ironic, given what I just wrote to fini, perhaps. Or maybe completely in alignment. But for now I need to do my house chore then get to work. I just wanted to write that down because I keep forgetting.
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Old 04-16-2020, 08:31 AM
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Apropos of nothing (or something?). After much reflection and research following my relapse last year, after two and a half years of content sobriety.

Once I stopped again and entered contented sobriety, I was aided by my adoption of a Tao attitude, to enormous effect.

My mantra is now: I am completely independent of the good or bad opinions of others. This shift in attitude, is very freeing.
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Old 04-17-2020, 10:55 AM
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O I am very impressed that you are staying in sober living. I'm envious because I could never do it, I don't think.

So no advice from me. I would be telling myself, I'll do me, you do you. I say that a lot with respect to,.....everything.
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Old 04-17-2020, 11:07 AM
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O, just a shout out that like entropy, I recognize and respect that you are truly walking the walk of sobriety and your stay in sober living really is 100% and then some.

I hope things are going well at work, and with the progeny. Did eldest go back to her place as requested?
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Old 04-17-2020, 11:57 AM
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Shucks, you guys. Thank you very much for the positive affirmation.
It means an awful lot to me.

I'm still feeling the sting a little bit from when my sponsor told me that she wasn't going to blow smoke up my nether regions for doing something I ought to be doing. In retrospect, I see that her strident stance with me was likely coming from her own place of frustration with how I "am" and that I had ideas about how to coach people I might need to call on in the future. Of course, it's her prerogative to feel however she feels. But at the time, and still even now, I thought it was really unfair (there's that word again) for her to be dismissive of the enormity of this decision and that it signals a major commitment to getting this thing right. Oh well, it doesn't matter in the long run. It's up to me to keep myself sober, not dependent on anyone else's opinion of how I choose to work a program.

Of course you could have done this too, Flipsie.
You just didn't have to. Thank God or whoever your Higher Power might be.

Eldest has returned to her apartment.

More later...
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Old 04-17-2020, 07:12 PM
  # 419 (permalink)  
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Ok, so this guy.

This man has been in the vast majority of meetings I used to go to (for years, on & off) when I was home. We never spoke more than a few words until New Years Eve when I ran into him in between meetings at the "alcathon." We chatted for maybe half an hour or so, and this confirmed my sense that he's a non-complicated straight-shooter. Almost an exact quote would be, "They told me to go to meetings, so that's what I do. Every day, sometimes several times a day."

After "The Best Relapse Ever" in December, this guy I'll call Nice Guy sort of took me under his wing in a fairly unobtrusive way. Texted me on a daily basis just to check in, made sure to greet me when I saw him in meetings. That was pretty much it. So that last time I drank, he figured out within just a couple of days that I'd gone off the beam. He came by one day just to sit with me, and he was the person I asked to take me to rehab. Because I knew he wouldn't need to talk. And I sure didn't want to talk.

So obviously since I got released during this lockdown, I haven't been to a meeting at home. In fact, I hit the world just when in-person meetings went away. He started up the daily texting again, but it's kind of "more" now. Like, a couple of weeks ago, Nice Guy texted, "Good morning, sunshine." That night he texted, "Have a good day tomorrow. I go to West Virgina, don't know if I will have service or not." Ok, I thought. That's kind of more... familiar, or something? But maybe I'm being overly skittish because I'm so frightened of getting close to anyone, platonic or not. You know.

Then for a few days, Nice Guy was either sending me Zoom meeting information or asking for it from me. Which was fine.. I figured maybe he hadn't found the website listings, so... ok. Two weeks ago, he asked if a meeting link was good, then texted "Be well, be safe, love to you." Ruhroh. And the next day his text ended in "love to you." Yikes. By this point, I'm getting a text every morning and every evening without fail. Just basically "good morning have a good day" and "good night I hope you had a good day." Ok, Nice Guy isn't complicated - he's just being really nice. Has some sort of special connection because he was involved in saving my life, sort of like that.

Monday evening Nice Guy told me there was a chip waiting for me at my home group and texted, "Thanks for sharing one day at a time." I responded, "It's always now and I never drink now. " And his response was, " Love you."

Ok so. His texting has dropped down to one exchange daily since then. There've been no phone calls.
He's not asking if he can see me and there's no way of telling what it would be like if we were running into each other in meetings all the time.
But my spidey sense is up, and I feel kind of uneasy about Nice Guy.

Do I need to "do" anything to address this and make sure he understands I am in no way shape or form prepared to form for any kind of relationship? I guess this is an AA sort of question because he knows the drill, that I'd be advised to stay away from any kind of romance for at least a year. I dunno. I just want to do the right thing here and if the right thing is "nothing," I would really love that answer.

Any thoughts?
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Old 04-17-2020, 07:22 PM
  # 420 (permalink)  
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Don't be a game player. Tell him. He can cope.
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