origami

I don't know where to start. I just moved to Boulder from Ohio. After being sober for quite a while, I decided to try drinking in moderation. I tried several times to return to the program later, but I couldn't seem to stay. This summer was a long drinking and using binge that still hasn't really stopped. Although, I suffered much from my drinking and using this summer, I don't feel like I belong in AA. I am really depressed and lonely. I don't see how my life will ever get any better. I can't picture my life without drugs and alcohol or with it. (I think that's a line from something) I don't really see a point of living anymore. I don't want to kill myself though. I can think of many reasons that that's a bad idea. I don't know what solution I'm looking for. I just want to make a small attempt to escape from the isolation of my head. I don't have anyone in my life that I can talk to and I feel like my life has become completely self-centered, isolated, and pointless. I am just moving forward wrecklessly towards my death hoping that I don't hurt my ego too much along the way. I hate to be that pessimistic guy that complains about everything, but I need to let some stuff escape. Thanks for listening. I really appreciate it.

-anonymous

Phinneas

Welcome to SR, origami. When I finally got to that darkest of places, where I couldn't live with drugs and alcohol and I couldn't live without drugs and alcohol, well, that was when I surrendered. I gave up. And once I gave up fighting, I found peace.

I wish you did feel like you belong in AA. That's where I go to be around people who understand me. And I am never depressed and lonely in a meeting.

Hang around and keep posting. There's lots of support here from kind, caring and wise people.

--phinny

origami

Thanks Phinneas. I also wished that I felt like I belonged in AA. I don't really feel like I"m an alcoholic though. I sometimes don't continue drinking once I start. I have really preferred drugs over alcohol for the past several weeks. I don't really do the harder drugs though. I still feel like I have problems, I just don't feel like they're legitimately explained by alcoholism or addiction. I don't know where to go.

CarolD

Your post reminded me of the last few years I drank.
I was in such depressive pain.
Outside I appeared to be fine
Inside I was cold dark empty.

That is why I began AA recovery.
At 2/3 months sober the depresssion fled.
It has never returned.

I am living with pirpose and joy!
This can be true for you too.

Please read our post...share again...you are not alone.

tyler

If drugs are more the issue for you, you might try NA instead of AA. You can find a meeting locater at www.na.org If it is the whole 12-step philosophy that you have issues with check out some of these sites.
Lifering www.unhooked.com

SMART Recovery www.smartrecovery.org

Rational Recovery www.rational.org

SOS Secular Organization for Sobriety www.cfiwest.org/sos/find.htm

Women for Sobriety www.womenforsobriety.org

And we can’t forget http://www.soberrecovery.com/links/a...sto12step.html

Some have face to face meetings, though none have as many to offer as AA/NA. Most offer online support and a variety of "tools" to help you get and stay clean and sober. Best of luck to you. Take care.

Millwallj

RIGHT MATE

there are ways to get out of this. Many have been in your place, and many have overcome it.

Your not as bad a person as you think you are.

What ever works for you: work it!

I really wish I could help you, I really do.

Try AA? Doctor? Hospital? Shrink? Alcahol and Drug units? SoS.

I feel for you - but I cant do anything for you.

you dont have to live like this ever again.

take this morning mate: I had a dry drunk that nearly made my face explode. But compared with my drinking and drugging it was FUN! Sobriety is an amazing adventure - ask anyone on this forum. Say: is recovery amazing? and I bet my bottom pound note they say: yes.

origami

Thank you all for your support. I wish I could believe what you're telling me, and on some level I do. I just can't put the bottle down. I may go to CU's psych services this week. I do want to feel better. I'm just not entirely sure what's wrong with me. I think this is a typical selfish alcoholic fantasy, but I still feel different and hopeless. Thanks again. It feels good to talk about the way I feel. I haven't been open with anyone for a long time.

sharkey

I really related to your post. I really don't give a %$#@ anymore either. I have begun to hate AA because i can't seem to stay sober. I hate my life even more than that. People tell me that it''ll get better, however, at this point i don't see it. A part of me doesn't even want it to get better. I feel that i deserve this alcoholic/drug misery. I couldn't even commit suicide right. I ended up in a state mental hospital. I wish i could go to treatment but i have no resources.
I wish i could get better, I wish i could die at the same time. I guess I'm "constitutionally incapable of being honest."

wozzek

Neurotransmitters are chemicals that are used to relay, amplify and modulate electrical signals between a neuron and another cell. GABA, serotonin, dopamine are all among so-called "feeling good" neurotransmitters. Alcohol induces good, warm feeling (I wish...) but in the long run changes neurotransmitter systems and pathways and wreaks havoc in our brain.

We need a drink to feel better, to cope etc., but given the poisonous nature of the drug alcohol, the normal level of serotonin is altered and we feel bad, sucidal and in need for a drink to get that necessary shot of a good feeling. Of course, "good feeling" is long time gone.

What I am trying to say. No matter how complicated we are, our situations, backgrounds, problems etc., in the background our chemical dependancy works against us. Our body, particulary our brain, is extremely fine machine tuned to perfection at birth. Then we mess with it and the machine doesn't work anymore.

If you deprive yourself of food your body is hungry and, ultimately, would die if you do not feed it. By extensive use of alcohol one destroys brain's fine tuning and a balance, deprive it of a feel good neurotransmitters, and starves to death - only this time you are dying because of lack of the happiness, sleep, love, joy ... ... not even realizing that you took all this away from yourself by killing those neurotransmitters, one by one, with every drink you take.

FORTUNATELY, our disease is a rare animal (and that's why is so complicated and difficult to cope with it) and we can put it into the quarantine by not drinking. And then, sooner or later, our wonderous body, mind, spirit and soul would recover, altoghether with neurotransmitters that need to work properly in order to provide us with the happiness.

The only issue is - it takes some time but the path to the wholesome recovery is crystal clear and clean. Having another drink is normal if you feel like you do, but does it make any sense?? To live in this perpetual vicious cycle of pain, self-loathing and sorrow when a smile is just around the corner?

Try and if you fail, know that's normal and try again.

wozzek

Obviously, you live in a hell. However, this is a self-inducted hell that would require serious work from your side if you wish to get better. "I" is very often our greatest problem - we are obsessed with ourselves, we loath ourselves, we want to commit a suicide, we think about a drink / drug, to take it or not to take it and then we loath ourselves even more if we took it like in, we are weak, "incapable" etc., etc.!

Sometimes a good approach is to stop for a moment (stop thinking) and look around. I mean, Abell 1835 IR1916 is the furthest galaxy in a Space, some 13.2 billion light years away; so how important may be our few years of being? BUT, what should be important is the choice - are we going to spend those few years in a pain, suffer 24 / 7 or not?

It cannot be said that our life has no meaning. But it surely has no importance. One should not confuse meaning and importance. To be able to say "Gone with the wind", without bitterness and, even with a dose of cosmic optimism and oceanic feeling, is a decisive step towards wisdom.
(Raymond Ruyer)

Why I am telling you all this? Alcohol requires 100% of us and takes away everything else, EVERYTHING. Why should we allow it to rule our world, our thought, every minute of our lives and decisive hour of our deaths? F* that stupid, simple chemical formula of alcohol and its depressing effects that it has upon us!! Besides it there is a wonderful complexity of life - just behind that door you are closing for yourself by that drink.

Btw, it is four in the morning, I am totally f* u* also for various reasons, I cannot sleep but am listening to Chopin and am not even thinking to join a party in another room that does not let me sleep. I'll wake up with a smile. They'll be vomiting. Hmm, really which one should I chose