Lautca

I have a question about having an intense fear of people. I'm not referring to agoraphobia, just a fear of people, including a fear of being attacked and physically harmed or molested. If you surmounted that fear, who helped you and how did they get through your protective barrier to make contact with you? Or if you did it yourself, how did you get around your fear of others long enough to ask for help from someone?

I ask because I began adolescence that way and it persisted through early adulthood. But first, finish reading below.

How many of you, before you became an alcoholic/substance user, were unable to reach out to another person to make contact because of a feeling of unexplainable fear that they may hit or yell at you? Things like on some days not being able to go out in public because there were people there, or only going out at night because of the fear of having to deal with strangers. Or already being out in public and having a panic attack, being unable to get directions to some place important, asking for assistance to buy something at a store, requesting somebody to move out of your way so you could punch an elevator button, or worse yet having someone punch an elevator button for you because you couldn't reach it, or anything where you had to connect with a stranger? Even for a split second, ask for personal assistance for something that no one else would even have to think twice about, all because of being afraid of being yelled at? Even extending to calling a stranger on the phone, or using a fast food drive-through intercom? For you, the drive-through might as well be on the moon as far as you being able to use it! The only people you could readily make contact with were the clerks and cashiers where you bought your alcohol.

There are a lot of ways people end up with such a profound fear of connecting with others, but for now, how people get that way is not the issue, but it is often the result of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Syndrome or PTSDS.

But what is the issue is that recovery from alcoholism and other substance use is not possible without some kind of fellowship and continued meaningful contact with others who believe in you and are willing to support you unconditionally. Humans are by nature social creatures, and included in that is an instinctive willingness to help others heal. If people weren't that way, as a species we would have perished long ago. AA founders Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith discovered this willingness and tapped into it with huge success, as have SoberRecovery and all the other legitimate recovery groups.

For those who still have an impenetrable wall surrounding them, it has to come down for recovery from alcoholism. If your wall stays up, the instinctive desire to both give and receive love and companionship we all have that is required for maintaining recovery won't happen, and sobriety will be short-lived and fail over and over again. I know that those of us with long-time sobriety understand the importance of dealing with the feelings that intoxication buries. One thing to remember about burying your feelings using alcohol is that they are buried alive and will always dig their way back out to come and haunt you again, forcing you to take your next drink to escape what I regard as being legitimate emotional pain, which has to be effectively dealt with before recovery happens.

So, again, for those of you who at one time had such a profound fear of approaching or interacting with strangers to the point where you dealt with what it was doing to your life by using alcohol, how did you overcome your fear? Your answers will help those, who by the very nature of their fear, lack the ability to initiate seeking help on their own.