100

It feels so hopeless the pandemic will never end. I can't take any more of the this crap. Constantly being afraid,co-workers who don't wear masks. Constant fear of catching covid coupled with a diser to punch the offending individual who is a supvisior. Anger is big trigger I get angry then want to drink the rage away. I have visions of rage dancing in my head. People at my work won't take this fn seriously. Despite that I am determined to get and stay sober day one again for me. I also have a hard time being assertive is ether say nothing or blowing up. I almost got fired once for raging out at work.
No more drink though its hard my dad always drinking in front of me. No one knows I trying to stay sober. I haven't told anyone in my life I'm an alcoholic. I'm still haven't gone to an online aa meeting can't make up my mind which one to attend. I hate talking on the phone. I have to motivation. The bi polar meds I'm on take away my motivation. Anyway I so confused so up and down but I won't drink tonight. I'm done drinking no matter what.
David

Zebra1275

I'm not sure where you are located, but in my area of the United States the vaccination progress has really picked up. I got my first shot a couple of weeks ago, and they are really starting to schedule a lot of appointments. Basically, everyone who wants to get vaccinated, will be able to start the process within a couple of weeks. Hopefully the pace is picking up in your area too.

There are a lot of people who just will not wear masks, and you can't change their behavior. It's kind of like trying to get another alcoholic to stop drinking, you just can't do it. You can only control your own behavior, and you can decide to mask up. The current recommendation is to double up on masks. I've worn two masks for a few weeks now, and that gives me some extra peace of mind. You could try that.

It's been a long year, but the pandemic will end. Don't let your guard down now. We have someone in our extended family who got their first vaccine shot a couple of weeks ago, and apparently let their guard down. We found out yesterday that he now has covid and is quite sick. And today we learned that his wife and two kids have also been diagnosed with it also. Unfortunately for him, he also was diagnosed with last summer, so that's probably making things worse. So protect yourself, as best you can.

Dee74

It been hard on everyone Dave.
I really hope the end is in sight now tho.

I have hope and I hope you'll find yours again too

Congratulations on not drinking again tho

100

Thanks for the encouragement. Just venting made feel better. I just need to focus on not taking a drink and try to be as positive as possible. I'm not going to believe that lie that drinking will make everything better. It isn't even fun anymore. It just relives the obsession the sickness in my head that tells me just one and all will be well. Well I'm sorry no more! It just makes feel terrible the next day. I need to believe the facts not the fantasy. Every time I drink the obsession just gets bigger and more insidious.
I can recover and I will! I just need focus on first things first. If I stay sober it's a good day. I am powerless over alcohol myself but with help I can stay sober and have meaningful life.
David

ScottFromWI

I deal with health anxiety and I've had a pretty rough time of it over the past year too David. I'm glad to hear that you know drinking won't make anything better, I can't imagine what wreck I would have been over the past 12 months if I was still drinking.

Some of the things that have helped me have been to get information from local sources that I trust regarding what's actually happening with COVID. Some of our regional hospital networks have had some very good public videos/info about how the vaccines work, how the virus itself behaves, things like that. I try to stay away from news and social media as much as possible as it relates to the whole situation too as there's not much good to be found there.

EndGameNYC

There are a lot of things that motivate people to get sober. None of them are good. I don't know of anyone who got sober because they were having such a great time blacking out most nights.

Maybe feeling hopeless is your ticket.

Grymt

Quite right. Venting, recognising what happened stops the bottling up.

Hi 100. I'd like to try to help with the anger.
Like you, I used to be very angry. One time the cloud didn't lift for about 30 days. Then I learnt how to change my relationship to the anger.

Today, if I get angry it rises and passes in a moment with little residue.
What I learnt to do was to look at the anger rather than just be consumed.
Instead of self-talking 'I am angry' I started, when the worst of the storm was over, to say 'this phenomenon or thing called anger has arisen within this thing called me'.

What then are the qualities of this thing called anger?
I started to notice things like heat, tension in the face, hard breathing and so on.


Next time you catch your self having anger, study it, see what its qualities are.


It's a simple retraining that instead of throwing handfuls of fuel on a hot fire, throw handfuls of water.
It takes time but slowly, with patience, the fire dies down and eventually goes out. The habit of reacting with anger is gradually changed. The events that may have caused anger in the past still happen but the anger is less and less.


Also cool water on a hot feeling is kindness. Work the habit into life to do some unexpected act of kindness as often as possible and so be happy.

Gottalife

I find a sense of perspective often helps me. For example, out of my group of 10 who were scooped up for treatment for alcoholism, I am one of three who got sober as a result and have remained sober for more than 40 years. The other seven all died within a year. That gives the institution a 30% success rate. That's quite good compared to research published in the New York Times last year gave non-12 step methods a success rate between 15 and 22%. As a rate of survival from a serious illness though, it is still pretty dismal.

Last year I was diagnosed with high risk prostate cancer. We got it early and I have just finished treatment. I am pretty optimistic about the future and have a likelihood of getting through the next five years cancer free of about 85%. The recovery rate for this cancer is quite high these days.

The covid seems to have an even better recovery rate, something over 99.5% especially if you are under 70 and have no co-morbidities, or if you are younger, vitamin D deficiency seems to be quite a factor. So I take a little vitamin D and don't worry about it. For me alcoholism and cancer are much greater threats to my life, and I follow directions exactly with both to avoid/minimize the risk of relapse, which, especially with the alcoholism, going by what I have seen, would very likely be fatal.

tursiops999

hi 100, I'm glad you're done drinking no matter what, that is a cause for hope. I can understand feeling rage at others endangering your health -- that is a real thing and I would be very angry too. Drinking won't help with that, which you know already. It's been a long slog, this past year, and I definitely relate to feeling discouraged. But there is hope, I think ... vaccines are steadily getting out there and things should be looking better soon. In the early days of my sobriety I found aa meetings to be a source of hope too ... could you pick one and just listen in? You don't have to talk. There is hope, even though sometimes it seems far away.